This time, fatigue works in Canadiens’ favour
Habs get the jump on an Avalanche team playing the second of back-to-back games
The Canadiens knew the Colorado Avalanche might be a tad tired after playing in Toronto — and they decided to take advantage of it.
“We knew we needed to get all over them like Boston got all over us on a back-to-back (last Saturday),” said defenceman Jeff Petry, who logged 24:33 of ice time to spearhead a strong defensive effort that resulted in a 4-2 win Tuesday night at the Bell Centre.
“We kind of wore down in the second half of the Boston game, and that was our goal going into this game: to work them down low and make sure the fatigue set in for them,” said Petry.
The defence was complemented by an offence led by Jonathan Drouin, who collected a goal and two assists for his most productive night as a Canadien. He said skating was the key to the win.
“We knew we were playing a good skating team on the other side that has a lot of skill, so our skating game had to be a part of that, too,” said Drouin. “That’s when we’re at our best: when we’re skating, forechecking and on them. I think we did that the whole night.”
When Drouin was asked if it was his best game of the season, he replied: “No, not really, to be honest. Sometimes it’s just points going in. Obviously, I liked my game but I’ve had some better games where I had zero points at the end of the night and felt good about my game.” He scored what proved to be the winning goal when he went hard to the net and redirected Petry’s pass from the corner.
“It was awesome, easy,” said Drouin. “Anybody could put that in. Just put your stick down and an empty net. He was skating, too, he was flying and made a great play.”
“They got caught on a line change and everyone went to the middle and that allowed me to go down the wing,” said Petry. “I saw a red jersey flying in there and I threw it in front. I didn’t know it was (Drouin).” One of the subplots in the game was the matchup between Drouin and former junior teammate Nathan MacKinnon. Drouin said he had some bragging rights in this game but noted: “He’s got the bragging rights this year … he’s having a way better year.” MacKinnon scored his 24th goal, and his 60 points leave him one behind Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov in the NHL scoring race.
The Canadiens took advantage of a couple of weaknesses in Colorado’s game.
The Avalanche rank eighth in the NHL on the power play, but they are 30th on the road. Colorado went 0-for-4 with the extra man and managed only two shots on goal.
“That was important because if they went 1-for-4, it’s a different game,” said Petry.
Alex Galchenyuk scored a power-play goal and Nicolas Deslauriers scored his seventh of the season while also contributing seven hits to maintain his position as the NHL leader in hits per game with 4.3. He also produced an over-thetop celebration after his goal.
“I’m an emotional guy and I get excited when I score,” explained Deslauriers, who has worked his way on to the top line with Drouin and Galchenyuk.
“My job is to create some room for the other guys and play a hard game.”
Colorado is also the worst faceoff team in the NHL, and the Canadiens capitalized by winning 62 per cent of the faceoffs, which meant the Avalanche were chasing the puck for much of the night. Tomas Plekanec was the workhorse, winning 15 of 23 faceoffs for a 65 per cent success rate, but the big surprise was Drouin, who won eight of 11, a success rate of 73 per cent.