Habs look to press advantage against Rangers in Game 4

NEW YORK — Claude Julien is not living in the past. He hopes that his team isn’t, either.

Julien’s Montreal Canadiens lead the New York Rangers 2-1 in their best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarter-final after a dominant 3-1 win in Game 3 Sunday. Game 4 is tonight in New York, and Montreal’s head coach wants his team prepared to press their advantage.

“Today is another day,” Julien said to media at Madison Square Garden Monday. “We can’t sit here day after day talking about what happened.

“We have to start thinking about what needs to be done. I think we did a great job [Sunday] night. They’re going to come out next game a lot better and we need to be ready for that.”

To that end, the Canadiens opted to hold a video session on Monday. The Rangers held a full team practice in which rookie right winger Pavel Buchnevich participated in power play drills, although New York coach Alain Vigneault would not reveal if he was contemplating making changes to a stagnant roster.

“I’m looking at all our options,” said Vigneault, who later added: “We have quite a few options upfront and on ‘D.’ ”

Vigneault stressed his team needed to improve its puck management after a Game 3 in which the Rangers had 21 giveaways.

“We had a lot of unforced turnovers [in Game 3] that we need to correct.”

The Canadiens’ defensive structure in the neutral and defensive zones eliminated New York’s greatest asset — its collective team speed. The Canadiens clogged the middle and took away passing lanes, so the Rangers spent much of Game 3 having harmless dump-ins intercepted at the blue line or cleared out by Carey Price and his defencemen.

New York finished the game with 21 shots, the majority of which were from the perimeter. Eighteen of the Rangers’ 21 shots came at even strength and the other three were on the power play. Only Brady Skjei’s first career playoff goal at 17:04 of the third came between Price and his 17th career shutout in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

“It [was] a lot about what we were doing,” Canadiens captain Max Pacioretty said. “It got them frustrated and got them off their game. They’re a fast team and they need to have success by skating through the neutral zone with speed. We’re trying to take that away from them as they’re trying to do with us because we play so similar.”

New York’s giveaways — oddly Montreal was only credited with six takeaways in Game 3 — and inability to sustain offensive pressure allowed the Canadiens to counterattack. The Canadiens finished with 29 shots on goal and 51 attempted shots Sunday night. Over the course of the series, Montreal has significant advantages in shots on goal (118-90) and total attempted shots (222-176).

That the Canadiens have just seven goals is due the play of Henrik Lundqvist. The Rangers goaltender has a .941 save percentage and 2.28 goals-against average while working with a nearly nonexistent margin for error.

“He’s played pretty well,” Julien said. “Give him credit.”