Price punched in, but his teammates played hooky
It’s tough to win hockey games if you can’t win faceoffs, can’t score and can’t match the other team’s work ethic.
The Canadiens couldn’t do any of those things Saturday night as they dropped a 3-0 decision to the Ottawa Senators in the NHL 100 Classic outdoor game at TD Place.
The numbers told only part of the story.
The Canadiens have struggled most of the season in the faceoff circle, but they found themselves chasing the puck most of the night after winning only 29 per cent of the draws.
The Senators outshot the Canadiens 38-28, but few of those Montreal shots could be categorized as scoring chances.
Despite all that, Montreal was in this game until Jonathan Drouin turned the puck over in his own end and Bobby Ryan scored to give Ottawa a 2-0 lead with 2:58 to play.
“With Carey Price being Carey Price tonight, he gave us a chance after two periods,” said coach Claude Julien. “It’s a matter where you’re chasing the puck all night and losing the draws and you don’t get inside those dots to create more offence. We needed a blue-collar attitude tonight and they had a better blue-collar attitude than we did and because of that, we were down 1-0 after two periods.
“We made a push in the third, but maybe a little too late and not enough,” Julien added.
Drouin, who has been brutal in the faceoff circle this season, was one of Montreal’s better performers, winning three of six draws. But Tomas Plekanec won only five of 19, Byron Froese won two of 12, Phillip Danault won five of 13, and Andrew Shaw won three of nine.
In some cases, aggressive play by wingers can make up for a lost draw, but Julien said the Canadiens didn’t have a chance because Ottawa “was winning the faceoffs clean.”
Froese said he was racking his brain to figure out how to turn things around, but couldn’t come up with an answer.
“We just couldn’t get the puck back to our guys and try and create off that,” Paul Byron said. “Any time you’re forechecking the whole time it’s certainly tough to get the puck back and have the energy to go down and create offence. We’re a better team than what we showed today.”
The game was slower than normal because there was a lot of snow on the rink and the ice crew was kept busy repairing divots.
“It’s both sides so it’s not an excuse,” Danault said. “We still have to find a way to score a goal or make a tape-to-tape pass. I know it was hard … the puck was rolling a lot. But they were better than us tonight.”