Post Game 26: Dominated again

The Montreal Canadiens were suffocated by the Los Angeles Kings losing by a score of 4-0 Thursday night at the Bell Centre.

The game was similar to the one in California where the Kings played their defensive system to perfection and Montreal couldn’t get anything going offensively. Although Montreal did play better than the earlier meeting between the two teams, the final score was identical.

It’s not like the Canadiens are the first team to be blanketed by the Kings, they’ve set the NHL record for road wins to start a season with 11.

Pluses:

• Montreal got out to a terrific start. In the first period they were the better team, had energy and created chances. Unfortunately, they didn’t convert on those chances and were trailing 2-0. “I felt like they were winning after the first, I didn’t feel they were beating us,” said head coach Martin St Louis. “But against L.A, when you’re down 2-0, you got to score the next one and we didn’t do that.”
• Safe to say Juraj Slafkovsky looks like he fits perfectly on the top line with Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki.
• We don’t have to see the LA Kings play against the Canadiens again this season.
• The Canadiens can look to the Kings as a team that went through a rebuild and experienced some similar hardships that Montreal is currently experiencing, but came out of it as a well oiled machine that works in perfect unison.

Minuses:

• The Kaiden Guhle/Justin Baron defensive pairing struggled mightily. They were on the ice for two of the goals against and didn’t look good defending on either of them. The Kings made them look like kids.
• On the fourth Kings’ goal, some bad luck for Baron as he collided with the linesmen leading to the Trevor Moore breakaway.
• Sam Montembeault was average and could have done better on the first goal. Yes, he goes into the minuses when he’s average because they need him to be great to win.
• The goal posts were not kind to the Habs… Sean Monahan and Nick Suzuki were inches away from scoring against the Kings.
• This was another low event hockey game that makes you want to pull out your eyes.

The Montreal Canadiens next match up will be on the road in Buffalo against the Sabres on Saturday night.