Cole Caufield scored his fifth and sixth goals of the season, but it wasn’t enough as the Canadiens extended their losing streak to three with a 4-3 shootout loss to the New York Islanders on Saturday at UBS Arena.
Caufield is the first Hab since, you guessed it, Brian “Mr. October” Savage, to score six goals in the first six games of the season. Juraj Slafkovsky assisted on both.
With Kaiden Guhle out, Logan Mailloux was recalled from the Laval Rocket, and he scored his first career goal.
After a rough debut, Cayden Primeau bounced back in his second start, stopping 33 of 36 shots, including seven on the penalty kill.
It was a lopsided game in terms of penalties, although both teams walked away with a single power play marker. Caufield scored five seconds into his team’s lone man-advantage, while the Isles capitalized only once on five chances.
But the Habs conceded the first two goals of the night, and for a while, it looked like Primeau was in for another rough outing.
Bo Horvat opened scoring in the first, followed by Kyle Palmieri less than three minutes later.
The Habs got a jolt of energy before the first intermission. With Maxim Tsyplakov in the box, Caufield hit top shelf from a sharp angle to cut New York’s lead in half only four seconds before hitting the dressing rooms.
In the second, Mailloux scored his first as a Hab with a hard shot that went post and in.
Not long after, Mailloux and Lane Hutson, along with Christian Dvorak, Josh Anderson and Oliver Kapanen, had the shift from hell. Mailloux was caught in his zone for 3:58, while the rest were all out there over three minutes. Somehow, they kept the Isles off the scoresheet.
With less than five minutes to play in the third period, Primeau gave up a rebound to Anders Lee in front. The Isles captain bulldozed his way into the net with the puck to give New York a 3-2 lead.
With 2:10 on the clock, Caufield snuck a shot past Semyon Varlamov short side to once again tie up the contest.
The goal sent Montreal to overtime for the first time this season. The Habs couldn’t stay out of the box all night, so of course, Kirby Dach took a high-sticking penalty in the extra frame. The Isles couldn’t bury one, so off to the shootout we went.
After nine rounds, which included first career shootout goals for Oliver Kapanen and Emil Heineman, Noah Dobson secured the 4-3 win for the home team.
How did the Liveblog commenters feel about last night’s game? After a couple of duds against the Penguins and Kings earlier in the week, it was reassuring to see the Habs battle back after going down two, but they still got outshot and took too many penalties.
3. “The effort was definitely there tonight. Something to build on but the d-zone coverage is still bad. Happy to get a point regardless.” — KeithH MacCausland
2. “Spent way too much time in our own end, content to let New York control the play, while we just backed into our net and tried to block shots. The times we did go to the offence, used our speed’ and it looked really good. Need to use our speed in our own end and start going after them. Mailloux looked good in his first game. First goal, top shelf beauty.” — Doug Kirkby
1. “I’ve never felt so comfortable with the other team on the PP.” — Arthur Chilli {“_id”:””,”type”:”raw_html”,”shortcode_tag”:”related_links”,”shortcode”:”[related_links /]”,”content”:”
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- The Canadiens have a faceoff problem | HI/O Bonusnttttt”,”channels”:[“desktop”,”tablet”,”phone”]} https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/14767170/
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