The Montreal Canadiens were coming into Edmonton on Tuesday night in an all-Canadian match up between two popular franchises. The Habs were fresh off a 5–2 loss in Calgary, while the Oilers fell to the Colorado Avalanche in the final second of overtime 3–2 on Saturday night. Head Coach Martin St. Louis is currently on a leave of absence, so interim Head Coach Trevor Letowski was going with Samuel Montembault while Kris Knoblauch opted for a night off for Stuart Skinner by starting Calvin Pickard.
McDavid opens the scoring
Mattias Ekholm does a great job stepping up to keep the blue line, resulting in the puck popping loose for McDavid. McDavid is able to turn the corner on Kaiden Guhle, who was caught flat footed, before catching Montembault sliding early which allows him to cut back and tuck the puck into the yawning cage.
Henrique gets his first as an Oiler
The play really starts when Evan Bouchard makes a perfect seam pass to Ekholm, which opens up the Habs’ defence. Ekholm then has the puck in a good shooting position, getting Monteambault and the shortside defender to commit to the shot. This allows Ekholm to find Adam Henrique’s stick back door after he boxed out on David Savard. Not much of a chance for Montembault.
Montreal scores in the third
Derek Ryan forces Juraj Slafkovsky wide into a seemingly non-dangerous area. As the pass is released, Pickard is entering into reverse VH on his post, which doesn’t allow him to rotate or push across initially. The puck goes off Nick Suzuki’s leg in a non-kicking motion so it’s tough to blame Pickard, but that reaction into the post leaves him a half second behind the play.
Guhle ties it up for the Canadiens
Guhle gets the puck with some pace and releases a shot from just inside the faceoff dot. Pickard reads the shot and is well above the crease to cut down the angle. The problem starts with his set up, with Pickard noticeably still sinking into his stance as the shot is released. He doesn’t get a good read on the release, continuing to drop down with his glove hinging into his hip. Not a good goal.
The Oilers score in OT
McDavid gets the puck from Darnell Nurse down broadway, with all three Canadien defenders and Montembault locking in on him. This leaves Draisaitl wide open in his office for the one timer from the bottom of the circle. Montembault tracks the puck, but doesn’t get his body rotated on angle so he’s reaching, which leaves far too much room for Draisaitl to hit.
Overall an average game for both teams
Montreal generated a lot of volume but few quality chances until the third. It was a decent start for Pickard to get the overtime win, but the Guhle goal was not great. Montembault faced some higher quality chances, but Edmonton’s attack was lacking compared to most of their games.
Photo by Curtis Comeau/Icon Sportswire
