Challenge for offside wipes out Boston goal that would have given Bruins third-period lead and jugglng defence pairings pays off.
On a night when Carey Price did not look like a $10.5-million-a-year goalie, coach Claude Julien made the biggest save in the Canadiens’ 5-4 win over the Boston Bruins Tuesday at the Bell Centre.
With the scored tied 4-4 just over five minutes into the third period, the Bruins scored what appeared to be their fifth goal on only their 20th shot to take the lead. But Julien called for a video review, challenging the Bruins were offside when they entered the offensive zone before scoring.
After the game, Julien said normally the video coach, Mario Leblanc, will call down to the bench for a video review but when it’s as close as this play was it’s a “coach’s decision” whether to make the challenge. The video review ruled that the Bruins’ Charlie Coyle was indeed offside, but it was very, very close.
If Julien was wrong, not only would the goal have counted, but the Bruins also would have gone on a power play.
However, Julien was right and Ben Chiarot scored what proved to be the winning goal for the Canadiens at the 9:06 mark. Victor Mete scored twice for the Canadiens, while Tomas Tatar and Paul Byron added singles. Price stopped 21 of 25 shots, while the Canadiens fired 31 shots at Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask, who also had a tough night.
What did Julien say to his players on the bench while the offside play was being reviewed?
“I didn’t have to say much because I didn’t know which way it was going to go after five minutes, right?” the coach said about the long video review. “So if it doesn’t go our way, I got a different speech. But, nonetheless, when they said it was offside and it was still a tied game, just the players themselves on the bench: ‘Come on guys, we got a tie game. We got a break here. Let’s take advantage of it.’ They’re maturing in that area.”
The Canadiens led 3-1 after the first period and were up 4-3 after two periods.
“I’m standing here tonight telling you that there’s still a lot of work that we need to do with our team,” Julien said. “You see those things when you play a good team like Boston. It’s not so much about our skating, it’s not so much about our offensive game. It’s really about killing plays, minimizing. We gave them some momentum at times that if you want to become a really good hockey club you got to get better in those areas. And we will. That’s what a young team does. We have a lot of young players on this team, not just rookies. We have a lot of young players that have an opportunity to grow and get better in those areas.”
The Canadiens improved their record to 8-5-2, while the Bruins fell to 11-2-2 and saw their streak of 10 consecutive games earning at least one point (8-0-2) come to an end.
Julien the first star
Mete was named the first star of the game, but that honour could have gone to Julien.
Not only did the coach get the offside challenge correct, he also juggled his defence pairings, putting Chiarot with Shea Weber and Mete with Jeff Petry.
Julien wanted Chiarot and Weber to help shut down the Bruins’ No. 1 line of Patrice Bergeron between Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak and it worked. Pastrnak did score a goal on the power play, but his line finished the night minus-2 as Julien also matched up his No. 1 line of Phillip Danault between Tomas Tatar and Brendan Gallagher against them.
“When we met this morning, we kind of figured that we could put some size, put some grit,” Julien said about the matchup. “That line up front (the Danault line) has faced them before last year and we wanted to make it hard on them. Give those two guys (Chiarot and Weber) a lot of credit. Ben, who has had an adaptation period, I guess, if you want. He’s had some tough games at the beginning. He’s really turning the corner right now and starting to feel more comfortable in our team game and then is definitely playing a lot better. Tonight was one of those solid games that he played and helped Weby and the line that they were with to really hold back probably one of the best lines in the NHL.”
Pastrnak leads the NHL in scoring with 15-15-30 totals, followed by Marchand with 10-18-28.
First goal for Byron
Byron finally scored his first goal of the season and finished the game plus-3 while playing on a line with Ryan Poehling and Artturi Lehkonen.
“Honestly, the win feels better,” Byron said when asked about his goal. “I don’t care about scoring, I care about helping this team win hockey games. That’s doing whatever I can to win: blocking shots, playing here, playing there, whatever it takes to win. That’s the most important thing and I couldn’t be happier for the win tonight. That was huge for us.
“It wasn’t our best effort in Dallas,” Byron added about Saturday night’s 4-1 loss to the Stars. “We all knew that and we knew tonight was a good opportunity for our group to regroup tonight and show that we’re a good hockey team. We’re playing the best team in the league right now tonight and it was an enormous test for us. I think we played really well, every line worked hard, everyone was ready to play. The focus was there. I’m really proud of this team. Now we got to get back to work tomorrow and keep building on this win.”
Chiarot named second star
Chiarot got his first taste of the Canadiens-Bruins rivalry after signing with Montreal this summer as a free agent following five seasons with the Winnipeg Jets — and he really liked it.
Chiarot scored his second goal of the season, added an assist and was plus-1 while logging 23:13 of ice time.
“It was fun,” he said. “Probably what I expected for my first Montreal-Boston matchup. It didn’t disappoint. It was a fun game. Two teams that like to play on offence and I think you guys saw that.
“It’s something as soon as I signed here I thought about scoring my first goal in the Bell Centre — the reaction the crowd gets,” he added. “I’ve been on the other end of getting scored on a couple of times in this building and it’s loud. It’s nice to be on the scoring side.”
Tatar was named the third star.
Mete the scoring machine
It took Mete 127 games to get his first NHL goal and now he has three goals in his last nine games.
Mete said the last time he had scored two goals in a game was his first year of junior hockey with the London Knights in 2014-15.
When asked if finally getting his first NHL goal took some of the pressure off, Mete said: “I felt definitely more were going to come. I wasn’t really feeling any pressure. Just a lot of the chances I’m getting are starting to go in.”
Mete worked a lot on his shot this summer and said it’s nice to start seeing results. He led the Canadiens with five shots against the Bruins.
Mete also enjoyed playing with Petry after being paired with Weber for most of this season.
“It was good,” Mete said. “I thought we were able to kind of read off each other really well and made strong plays. I thought it was maybe a little bit faster moving the puck up. We both like to be in the play, so when I would see him go I’d stay back a little bit and when he would see me he’d stay back, too. I think we read off each other pretty well.”
Dodging bullets
Poehling, Petry and Gallagher had to go to the locker room at different points in the game after appearing to be injured.
Poehling took a shot off the side of his helmet, Petry appeared to twist a knee and Gallagher took a shot off his left hand — the one he has already broken twice after getting hit by shots.
Luckily for the Canadiens, all three didn’t stay in the locker room long before returning to action.
A couple of milestones
Julien coached in his 1,200th NHL regular-season game Tuesday night, while Bruins captain Zdeno Chara played in his 1,500th game.
“The biggest thing for me in coaching 1,200 games is I still have that same passion, I still have that same fire of coming into the rink every day to do the job,” Julien said after the game. “It hasn’t even dwindled at all. It’s not like I’ve gotten a little more comfortable … not at all. That’s the part I think that when I say surprises me and keeps me going is the fact that I look forward to working with players every day and getting behind the bench and coaching.”
Julien received a nice ovation from the Bell Centre fans when he was honoured on the giant screen and so did Chara, although there were a few boos mixed in.
“Where I think I got to give most of the credit to is our fans,” Julien said about the reaction for Chara. “There’s a guy that I remember when I was on the other side (coaching the Bruins), that incident with (Max) Pacioretty. I know and I can stand here today on the Montreal side saying there was never any intent to injure that player. That’s not his style. It was an unfortunate accident. But he was not a very well-liked player here in Montreal. But the class of our fans to do what they did tonight, giving not necessarily a standing ovation but clapping and looking at what he’s accomplished in his career, it just says a lot about our real fans and I was really impressed and I’m glad that they did that. I know him personally and I think what he got tonight from our fans was well deserved.”
Julien became the 19th NHL coach to reach the 1,200-game milestone and the sixth Canadiens coach, joining Dick Irvin, Scotty Bowman, Jacques Lemaire, Alain Vigneault and Jacques Martin.
Chara became the third active player to reach the 1,500-game mark, joining the San Jose Sharks’ Patrick Marleau and Joe Thornton. Chara also became only the 21st player and the sixth defenceman in NHL history to play in 1,500 career games.
Some stats
Petry led the Canadiens in ice time with 24:41, followed by Weber (23:57) and Chiarot (23:13). Petry had two assists and was plus-2.
Poehling, playing in his first game after getting called up from the AHL’s Laval Rocket on Sunday, had a team-low 9:20 of ice time and went 1-for-6 in the faceoff circle (17 per cent). The Canadiens won only 40 per cent of the faceoffs in the game and once again Nate Thompson was their best faceoff man, going 8-for-14 (57 per cent).
Jonathan Drouin led the Canadiens with four hits.
Kotkaniemi takes part in morning skate
Jesperi Kotkaniemi, who has missed the last three games and was placed on the injured-reserve list on Sunday with a groin injury, took part in Tuesday’s optional morning skate in Brossard and looked good while doing all the drills.
Kotkaniemi also stuck around after the morning skate finished to do more drills with Jordan Weal, Christian Folin and Brett Kulak, who were healthy scratches against the Bruins.
What’s next?
The Canadiens will practise at 11 a.m. Wednesday in Brossard before flying to Philadelphia, where they will face the Flyers Thursday night (7 p.m., TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio). The Canadiens will have the day off Friday before wrapping up the week Saturday night at the Bell Centre against the Los Angeles Kings (7 p.m., CITY, SNE, TVA Sports, TSN 690 Radio).
Next week, the Canadiens will play the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday at the Bell Centre (7 p.m., TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio) then travel to Washington to play the Capitals on Friday (7 p.m., TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio) before wrapping up the week Saturday at the Bell Centre against the New Jersey Devils (7 p.m., CITY, SNE, TVA Sports, TSN 690 Radio).
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November 06, 2019 at 12:48PM
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