Discipline a key for Canadiens to tie series

The Montreal Canadiens failed to steal home ice advantage on Wednesday night with a 4-2 loss at the hands of the Buffalo Sabres in Game 1 of their second-round series.

The Habs will have another chance to do just that on Friday night in Game 2, but to get it done, they will have to stay out of the box and tighten things up on the penalty kill when that special teams unit is called upon.

Montreal surrendered three power play opportunities while getting just two of its own, and the Canadiens surrendered two goals on those three chances to a Sabres team that had been floundering on the power play for much of the regular season and in their first-round matchup with the Boston Bruins.

On Friday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL video coach Steve Peters discussed why Montreal will need to stay out of the penalty box to even the series in Western New York tonight.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Game 2 tonight in the KeyBank Center in upstate New York, the Sabres taking Game 1, so I want to focus on what maybe the Montreal Canadiens need to do differently to even up this series and grab back home-ice advantage before they head to the Bell Centre over the weekend. Petey, give me a key to victory for the Habs tonight.

Steve Peters: It’s funny because it’s a lot like Philadelphia in the first game against Carolina. They were on their heels the entire game, and that’s what I felt with Montreal. We didn’t see the Montreal Canadiens team that we saw in the first round. They played on their heels, not their toes, but most importantly, they have to stay out of the penalty box. They absolutely have to. Buffalo went 2-for-3 on the power play. Stay out of the box for Montreal and be ready to play in Game 2.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Yeah, and the penalty part is interesting because Buffalo’s power play late in the regular season, early on against the Boston Bruins, was absolutely putrid. They were on like an 0-for-20-something run there for a month, and now they seem to have woken up a little bit, and it’s Montreal’s power play, 1-for-2 in Game 1. It was a strength against the Tampa Bay Lightning, but those special teams bounces are really gonna be what define these games, because I think at 5-on-5, Petey, these two sides… I think if both these teams are at their best, the margins are razor thin at 5-on-5, and that makes special teams all the more important.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode below…