Emelin’s mistakes prove costly in loss to Blackhawks
Claude Julien refused to throw defenceman Alexei Emelin under the bus.
So did captain Max Pacioretty. But when you look at the Canadiens’ 4-2 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks Tuesday at the Bell Centre, you can hang a lot of the blame for the loss on Emelin.
The defenceman was minus-3 on the night and it was a welldeserved minus-3. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time on the first three Chicago goals.
There were other factors in the loss. The Canadiens outshot the Blackhawks 42-24, but there were less than eight minutes remaining when they finally put a shot behind Corey Crawford. The Chicago goaltender deserves credit for staying in the game after taking a Shea Weber slapshot in the mask in the second period and he has always played well against his hometown team, but it was another example of the Canadiens failing to capitalize on their chances.
Julien ducked when he was asked about Emelin being out of position on the Artemi Panarin goal that gave the Blackhawks a 3-0 lead early in the third period. He said he would address the issue in the dressing room, but he provided some indication of how he felt by juggling his defence and moving Brandon Davidson up to the No. 2 pair with Jeff Petry.
“We have to communicate who’s going to the puck and who’s staying where. The communication wasn’t there,” Petry said.
That was most evident on Panarin’s winner. Emelin wandered far from his left defence position, leaving Panarin a clear path to take a pass from Nick Schmaltz and score on Carey Price.
“It would have been nice to come up with a game-changing save but you have to give their guys credit, they buried their chances,” said Price, whose sixgame win streak came to an end. He allowed three goals — the fourth went into an empty net — and that’s the most he has allowed in the past month.
Julien found some positives in the performance and noted that the Blackhawks are a creative team that leads the NHL in scoring chances off the rush. He said the result might have been different without the mistakes.
“The effort was there, the commitment was there,” Julien said. “We didn’t give up.”
That brought up the question why the Canadiens had to wait until the third period to score.
“Some of it is confidence,” Julien said. “We should and can score a little bit more. If you look around the league, the games are tight. Paul Byron is scoring, and has confidence.”
Byron scored Montreal’s first goal Tuesday and has scored four of Montreal’s last seven goals. He has a career-high 19 for the season.
The mistakes aside, Julien was pleased that the Canadiens played well in their first home game after 10 days on the road. The coach said he can’t explain it, but teams traditionally struggle after a long trip.
“We got in 3:30, 4:30 in the morning (Monday) and we were dealing with the time change and I thought we handled it well,” said Julien. “Those are tough circumstances.”
The team has a chance to get some rest before they meet Ottawa in back-to-back games and there’s a good chance Davidson will see more ice time and Emelin may get to watch from the press box. Davidson was solid as he picked up an assist in his second game as a Canadien.
Despite the loss, the Canadiens are clinging to first place in the Atlantic Division, but their lead is down to one point over Ottawa, which lost 2-1 to Tampa Bay in overtime. The Senators continue to have two games in hand.