Defensive blunders sink the Canadiens against the Flyers

For the Flyers, Christian Dvorak was the center of the first line.

Here’s the visitors’ line-up:

It was a very quiet first period… until the last minute of it.

That’s when Alexandre Texier opened the scoring. He’s really on fire, this one.

But the Habs’ lead didn’t last long: 39 seconds later, the Flyers tied the game.

Carl Grundstrom was the one who completed the beautiful sequence… which won’t go down in history for the Habs defense.

After 20 minutes, the score was 1-1.

In the second period, Ivan Demidov was a little too bold in the opponent’s zone… and that allowed the Flyers to take advantage of a great scoring chance.

Trevor Zegras took advantage to give the Flyers the lead.

Then, at the very end of the period, the Habs were very soft in their zone, and Jacob Fowler was caught off guard.

A beautiful play by Matvei Michkov, who took advantage of the fact that everyone was asleep in the habs, set the table for Bobby Brink.

After 40 minutes, the score was 3-1 in favor of the Flyers.

In the third period, the Habs tried to get back into the game… but a rather bizarre penalty to Brendan Gallagher didn’t help.

Gally was penalized… because Nick Seeler hit himself in the head with #11’s stick.

Jacob Fowler returned to the bench late in the game to allow the Habs to bank on a sixth skater… but it didn’t amount to much.

Travis Konecny completed the scoring in an empty net.

Final score: 4-1 Philadelphia

The Canadiens return to action on Thursday, when the Blackhawks come to town. Connor Bedard, injured, will not be there.

Overtime

Tonight’s game wasn’t one to go down in history. The Canadiens (really) didn’t have a great night’s work… and once again, they didn’t get many shots on goal. And when the Habs finally managed to get pucks on net, Dan Vladar was solid enough to keep them out. The Flyers, for their part, were opportunistic, capitalizing on the Canadiens’ mistakes.

– Early in the game, Juraj Slafkovský was hit hard by Rasmus Ristolainen… and Ivan Demidov made sure to defend his teammate. I like that… although, in an ideal world, he wouldn’t have to do that too often.

– Jacob Fowler wasn’t terrible tonight, but he didn’t exactly have a performance that will force the Habs to send him back into the fray on Thursday night. I’d be very surprised not to see Jakub Dobes in front of the net on Thursday.

– Alexandre Texier was (by far) the Habs’ best forward tonight. In a game where the club struggled to generate offense, Texier was the source of the majority of the Habs’ quality chances. I’ll say it again: he can’t leave the lineup when the injured players return.