Montreal Gazette

Pavelec holds fort for Winnipeg Jets

- PAT HICKEY

Missed opportunit­ies in the first period set the stage for the Canadiens’ 5- 2 loss to the Winnipeg Jets Thursday night.

“I thought we had some good scoring chances, especially in the first two periods, but ( Jets goaltender Ondrej) Pavelec was spectacula­r tonight. He made some great saves. We should probably have had more goals in the first two periods and the game would have been different,” Tomas Plekanec said.

Once again, the Canadiens’ power play was not a factor. The Canadiens did get six shots on goal on their first man- advantage and Pavelec had to be at his best to keep the puck out of the net. But the Canadiens did nothing with their three other power plays.

“It was the same thing in 5- on- 5, but we couldn’t get pucks to the net and we couldn’t keep it at a onegoal game,” Plekanec said.

The Canadiens tested Pavelec 20 times in the first period and limited Winnipeg to five shots but one of them trickled through Dustin Tokarski’s pads for a 1- 0 lead.

“We should have won that pe- riod, but I liked the way we kept playing,” Plekanec said. “We put pressure on them.”

But not as much pressure as the Jets applied on their forecheck. The Jets scored three of their five goals after forcing turnovers in the Canadiens’ zone. They used their size to outhit the Canadiens and produce eight takeaways. The Canadiens had one.

“They’re a good forechecki­ng team and we knew that,” Plekanec said.

“We weren’t discourage­d or anything,” said Brendan Gallagher, whose third- period goal was his fourth in as many games.

“We were playing a team that’s going to play hard and make it tough in front and we were able to create some scoring chances, but there’s a difference between creating them and putting them in. I think we have to bear down, myself included. If you put those scoring chances in early on, it changes the course of the game. We liked the effort but ...”

Gallagher said the Jets didn’t have any surprises.

“You can tell their mindset every night is that they want to use their speed and forecheck and play physical hockey and we expected that,” he said. “It’s the strength of their team and they got some goals from it.”

As for the power play, Gallagher noted: “we haven’t been getting too many power- play chances and early on we wanted to bear down and we had a lot of chances. But then we started having trouble getting into the zone, getting set up and it limits your time in the offensive zone. The power play has to be better. we know that. The power play could have changed the outcome tonight. We had enough chances. We felt our game plan was fine; we just didn’t execute it.”

It didn’t help that Dustin Tokarski had what coach Michel Ther- rien described as a “rough night.”

Some of it was tough luck, a backdoor play and a goal that went off a skate, but by his own admission he didn’t make the “miraculous save” that might have swung the game in Montreal’s favour.

When Therrien was asked whether he thought of pulling Tokarski, he replied: “No, Carey Price had the night off.”

Winnipeg coach Paul Maurice wasn’t happy with the way his team started the game.

“You don’t like being in a situation where your goaltender has to be your best player, but we got better as the game went on.”

phickey@montrelgaz­ette.comtwitter.com/ zababes1

 ?? J O H N WO O D S / T H E C A NA D I A N P R E S S ?? Jets goaltender Ondrej Pavelec saves the shot by the Habs’ David Desharnais in Winnipeg on Thursday.
J O H N WO O D S / T H E C A NA D I A N P R E S S Jets goaltender Ondrej Pavelec saves the shot by the Habs’ David Desharnais in Winnipeg on Thursday.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Canada