Post Game 16: No luck

The Montreal Canadiens drastically outplayed the Calgary Flames but weren’t rewarded for their efforts and lost 2-1 Tuesday night at the Bell Centre.

Jacob Markstrom made several critical saves for the Flames, including one with about a minute to go, robbing Josh Anderson of what looked like a sure goal. Anderson is still searching for his first goal 16-games into the season.

“I’m going to have to change something; maybe a new stick? I don’t know… We’ll see tomorrow,” said Anderson following the game.

Montreal won just about every metric with the exception of the most important one, the scoreboard. While encouraging that overall the team played a good game, it also showcased the Canadiens’ greatest deficiency which is offensive depth.

Anderson isn’t the only player shooting blanks right now…

Pluses:

• Sam Montembeault turned in another solid performance. Jake Allen won the Molson Cup as top player for the month of October and it looks like Montembeault will do the same thing for November. He was fortunate to have an Andrew Mangiapane goal taken off the board because of offside.
• Juraj Slafkovsky looks confident. And he picked up an assist. The hesitancy in his game is gone.
• Some line juggling in the third period as Martin St Louis looked for a spark had Slafkovsky with Sean Monahan as his centre… That could be a good idea longterm…
• Kaiden Guhle… Should just write his name in the plus column every game at this point.
• A lot of talk about Cole Caufield at 5-on-5 recently… He was Montreal’s most threatening forward with 8 shots on goal and 10 shot attempts.
• First goal as a Montreal Canadien for Gustav Lindstrom.

Minuses:

• The officiating is a story just about every game. Brendan Gallagher was called on a tripping penalty that never happened. I understand missing a call, I’ll never understand calling something that didn’t occur. The referees are making it up most nights, or reacting to fans or the players on the benches. It’s brutal. Oh, and when they make a mistake, they fix it by making a second mistake… “Can’t happen, he’s in the neutral zone. It’s a terrible call,” said Gallagher. “You can’t make that mistake, it’s as simple as that.” He’s not wrong…
• Another goal taken off the board (this time an opposition goal) because of the stupid ability to challenge offside plays.
• Guhle got hit in the face with Elias Lindholm’s skate. Always terrifying to see, luckily he was fine and didn’t miss a shift. It could have been much worse.
• Josh Anderson is never going to score again. Not only was he robbed in the final moments of the game, but also ripped a shot past Markstrom in the second period that rang off the cross bar. At that point, all he could do was look to the rafters and laugh it off.
• Alex Newhook, Tanner Pearson, Jake Evans and Raphael Harvey Pinard are all doing little to chip in offensively.

Montreal’s next matchup will be on Thursday night when they welcome the Vegas Golden Knights to the Bell Centre.