Sam Montembeault made 34 saves, but it wasn’t enough in a hard-fought 2-1 shootout loss for the Canadiens against the Dallas Stars on Saturday night at the Bell Centre.
Montreal had their winning streak snapped at three games, while the Stars extended their winning streak to seven.
In his first game back after being out with the flu, December’s Molson Cup winner Patrik Laine scored the lone goal for the Habs. It was his ninth power play goal in only 14 games.
David Savard also returned to the lineup after missing time with an upper-body injury.
At the other end, Jake Oettinger was equally strong in goal. The netminder made 30 saves.
The Habs were outshot 16-7 in the first period, but by the end of 3-on-3 overtime, Dallas was only up 35-31. Montreal was physically dominant, outhitting the Stars 30-8.
In the first period, Mavrik Bourque tried to beat Montembeault on the wraparound, but the goalie dashed his plans with the highlight reel save. Bourque was playing in front of friends and family in his Montreal debut.
In his first game back, Laine made his presence felt not only on the scoresheet, but with a big body check on Oskar Back.
At 15:14 of the second period, Laine opened scoring with a 5-on-3 power play goal — 1-0 Habs. The last Hab to score nine PP goals in their first 14 games of the season was Yvan Cournoyer in 1970-71.
But just over two minutes later, Jamie Benn tied it up 1-1 with an elite snipe of his own.
After scoreless third, off to a fourth consecutive overtime the Habs went. Montembeault was sharp all night, but saved one of his best stops for last: he robbed Jason Robertson in the extra frame with his glove.
In the end, the Stars sealed the win in the shootout. Oettinger stopped all three shots he faced.
Escaping a back-to-back against two of the best teams in the NHL with three points was by all accounts a positive for the Habs. They entered the night having won nine of their last 11, and although Saturday night will go down as a loss, pushing the Stars to a shootout stands as one of the more impressive moments during this hot streak.
Having Laine and Savard back also paid immediate dividends, especially after their replacements Michael Pezzetta and Jayden Struble spent the back nine of the Capitals game glued to the bench. If the Canadiens want to keep their playoff push alive, they’ll need a little bit of luck on the health front.
According to Natural Stat Trick, the Habs went toe to toe with the deadly Stars. They only trailed in scoring chances 26-23 and in high-danger chances 16-9.
As for Montembeault, he followed up Jakub Dobes’ third win since his recall with a performance befitting his No. 1 and 4 Nations Face Off status. He kept the Habs in it when their legs started to get heavy from the back-to-back.
Here’s what the Liveblog commenters had to say.
3. “Let’s take a well earned point and regroup. Some will call it a loss. I’ll take it as 3 of 4 points in 24 hours against two really good teams. That’s 7 out of 10 points this month. 18 of 28 points in December. That’s 108 pts over 82 game schedule. I call that in the mix. Rest of January very tough. Who would have thought NYR would be the weakest team we play in January?” — HabsSki Fan
2. “That was the first game in quite awhile. we needed some great goaltending to get the point. Give the Habs credit, back to back with a couple of tough teams and there was no quit at all. This team is maturing in front of our eyes.” — Doug Kirkby
1. “You know, it is not just that we are facing so many good teams. It is that we are facing them when they are all on a roll. Dallas is on a 6 game win streak. Vegas was on a 6 game win streak (and their only loss in the last 10 was to Montreal). TB has lost only 2 out of their last 10.” — Michael Way