Habs Comeback Falls Short In The Shootout

Martin St. Louis decided to split up the top line by putting Juraj Slafkovsky with Ivan Demidov and Oliver Kapanen. Meanwhile, Zack Bolduc was put with Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield on the Habs’ top line. The difference between the top line with Slafkovsky and with Bolduc is night and day. Tonight proved just how important Slafkovsky is to the line’s success. 

Sure, the top line had a few flashes where they looked good, such as a pass Bolduc made to Suzuki, where he couldn’t capitalize on a prime chance, but there were also a lot of things that went very poorly. Like, for example, on the first Blue Jackets goal that opened the scoring, Bolduc clearly can’t win board battles the way Slafkovsky does, but that wasn’t even the biggest issue, as his effort following losing a battle to Charlie Coyle just looked so nonchalant as Zach Werenski wired a wrister past Jakub Dobes, who had another challenging. Yes, Bolduc is in a scoring slump, but it also seems he doesn’t put enough effort into plays in his own end a lot of the time, which really doesn’t help him, as the team is often stuck in the defensive zone as a result. It’s a problem I’ve noticed for a while with him, but it seems to get enhanced while playing with Suzuki and Caufield.

The Canadiens definitely had a slow start to the gam, but they eventually found their way into the game late in the 1st period with a few scoring chances.

It was early in the second period that the newly formed 2nd line of Demidov-Kapanen-Slafkovsky struck and tied the game off a beautiful cycling play. The play started with Slafkovsky skating around the offensive zone before he passed it to Demidov, who cycled it to a pinching Mike Matheson that passed it to Oliver Kapanen in the slot, who scored his rookie-leading 7th goal of the season to tie the game. This line was the most dangerous of all their lines on Monday night and created numerous high-danger scoring chances. As hard as it is for the top line with Bolduc, it will be hard to take Slafkovsky off the line with Kapanen and Demidov after Monday’s game.

Unfortunately, it would only take the Blue Jackets 5 minutes to regain the lead when Adam Fantilli left in front of the net, and Joshua Roy was easily able to get a shot through to beat Dobes to put his team back up 2-1. Roy failed to cover Fantilli properly by tying up his stick, which allowed the Blue Jackets forward to have an easy shooting lane.

Then, while the Canadiens ran into penalty trouble a few minutes later, it was Dmitri Voronkov who cashed in by tipping the puck into a wide-open net on the power play to give the Blue Jackets a 3-1 lead. This lead would hold after two periods of play.

In the 3rd period, the Canadiens got to work and pushed to tie the game. They were finally able to do so at 8:28 when former Blue Jacket forward Josh Anderson put the puck past Jet Greaves. He scored off a rebound from Lane Hutson’s shot to cut the lead to 3-2. 

The Habs cashed in again with just 1:19 remaining in regulation when Hutson shot a wrister that appeared to be redirected on its way to the net to tie the game and send it to overtime. Hutson was easily the best player on the ice tonight as he played a key role in tying the game by putting the team on his back late in the game simply by getting his shots on goal through traffic. His impact card on the game was reportedly the highest of any Habs player in any game this season so far. It was a great night for Hutson which should only bring the Habs and the defenseman more confidence going forward.

In overtime, neither team was able to end it, and the game required a shootout. Unfortunately, a shootout never goes the Habs’ way, and this one against the Blue Jackets was no different.

Kent Johnson was the first guy to go in the shootout, and he beat Dobes to give Columbus the lead. Captain Suzuki went for the Habs, and he missed yet again; he has now missed in 13 straight attempts. With that being said, it may be time to give a chance to someone else to shoot in the future.

Next up, Fantili was stopped by Dobes, and Caufield was able to beat Greaves to tie things up and give the Habs a chance.

Unfortunately, Kirill Marchenko would score the game-winning goal in the shootout, which was followed by Demidov, who was unable to respond, giving the Blue Jackets the win.

It was far from a perfect game for the Habs, but they were able to do enough to steal a point in Columbus. It’s not a win, but things could be much worse given the hole the Habs were in after the 2nd period. Hopefully, the Canadiens can use some of the momentum they got from coming back against the Blue Jackets when they return to play the Washington Capitals at the Bell Centre on Thursday.