Frustrating Night For Habs In Final Preseason Game

The Habs started the game very slowly, being outshot 14-4 in the first period. They also went down 1-0 after Senators star defenseman set up Shane Pinto to open the scoring. The Sens would have scored another goal, but Joe Veleno stopped a sure goal when Samuel Montembeault was out of position following stopping a shot. 

Early in the game, even Montembeault was a little shaky as it happened a few times where the defense had to cover for him when he slid out of position on a few occasions in the first period and early 2nd period. Nonetheless, in the 2nd half of the game, Montembeault was much better and finished with 25 saves on 27 shots. He was beaten one more time during the 2nd period on a perfectly tipped shot by veteran forward David Perron. 

Overall, the 2nd period was evenly matched with both teams trading chances, but the Habs were unable to solve Sens netminder Linus Ullmark after 40 minutes.

It wasn’t until late in the 3rd period that the Canadiens got one past Ullmark, when Cole Caufield finished a 5-man passing play that went from Lane Hutson to Caufield, to Noah Dobson, to Nick Suzuki, to Juraj Slafkovsky before it went back to Caufield, who scored the goal. While it was only one goal scored involving the Habs’ top players, it was a nice sign of what the 5 players can do together late in a game with the Canadiens needing a goal. The 3rd period as a whole was played well, led by those players, and Caufield ended up with a well-deserved goal.

With less than a minute left in the game, former Hab and now Ottawa Senator veteran Lars Eller scored an empty net goal to ice the game for the Sens. 

Compared to Tuesday’s game, Saturday night was much more civilized in terms of penalties as both teams combined for just 14 total penalty minutes. It was a game that actually allowed players to show what they can do, rather than Tuesday’s game.

The one player on the Canadiens who truly showed off what he was able to do on Saturday was Joe Veleno, who proved just how good he can be when it comes to playing in his own end. It’s clear Veleno took advantage of Saturday’s game to prove that he can be in the lineup for the Canadiens. However, it may not matter, as due to the lineup decisions for last night, it sounds like Oliver Kapanen has a spot in the opening night lineup alongside Alex Newhook and Ivan Demidov. 

With that being said, there is no other spot in the lineup for Veleno to fill, unless Zachary Bolduc is unable to play next Wednesday. The good news is Veleno showed that he can play well alongside both Kirby Dach and Brendan Gallagher, so he will be able to fill into that role very well on the team’s expected 3rd line.

On the flip side, the pairing of Kaiden Guhle and Lane Hutson had a rough night as they were on the ice for both goals against. Given their history of strong play together, they will likely still start the season together. 

One of the biggest issues on Saturday was the way the Habs set up the power-play. With Bolduc being out of the lineup, they chose to put Adam Engstrom on the top unit as a fill-in. Unfortunately, he took over the role of power-play quarterback, and Hutson went to the bumper and it didn’t work out as well as a whole. Although Engstrom did get the best power-play chance of the game, where he managed to break through the Sens’ defense and almost scored a power-play breakaway goal, Ullmark stopped him. The biggest issue with the way the man advantage was set up was that it took the Habs’ top PP QB out of the equation, which essentially wasted the power-play practice for the regular season.

Engstrom has the potential to be a good offensive defenseman someday, but as of now, there is no room on the blueline, so continuing to play in Laval for a little while will be good for his game.

We will see what happens over the next few days what the team’s final roster will look like. 

Do you think the final 23-man roster will leave us with any surprises in the next few days?