‘Ordinary game’ not good enough as Habs fall to Sabres
Canadiens suffer letdown against Buffalo after locking up first in Atlantic Division
As far as the standings were concerned, Wednesday’s clash between the Canadiens and the Buffalo Sabres was a nothing game and Montreal’s play reflected that reality.
“I’m not going to say I was totally unhappy with it, but it was an ordinary game on our part,” said head coach Claude Julien after his team’s 2-1 defeat.
“We did some good things, we had some great scoring chances, but we didn’t finish.
“At times, we tried to be cute, we would overpass. I think our first passes could have been better.
“That’s not to say we were bad, but we weren’t as good as we can be and as good as we have to be.”
The letdown was to be expected after the Canadiens wrapped up first place in the Atlantic Division with a win on Monday in Florida.
The Canadiens can’t move in the standings one way or another and are all but assured of a firstround matchup against the New York Rangers beginning April 12 at the Bell Centre.
As Julien said, there were some good things in this game.
They start, as they usually do, with goaltender Carey Price.
The stats will tell you he made 28 saves, but what they don’t tell you is four or five of those saves came when players skated in alone.
“There were breakaways, but there were also breakdowns in the neutral zone and times when they had a guy come in off the half-wall,” Julien said.
“We’re usually pretty good winning battles along the boards and that was an area where we could have improved tonight.”
There was at least one occasion when the Sabres ran the goaltender, and he came up shaking his hand after some contact.
But Julien said you can’t hold players out because you’re worried about injuries.
When asked about his strategy for the final two games, Julien was non-committal, repeating an earlier statement to the effect that Price wouldn’t play all the remaining games.
For the record, Price will play Friday’s home game against Tampa Bay. There’s a good chance he’ll stay home Sunday while his teammates travel to Detroit.
The passes were all on the money when the Canadiens scored their only goal.
Paul Byron found Alex Radulov off the rush and Radulov set up Tomas Plekanec as he cut to the net.
Radulov has said this is his favourite time of the year and that’s reflected in his statistics.
He has at least one point in each of the past five games with three goals and three assists.
Brian Flynn returned to the lineup for the first time since March 7 and looked solid in 13:32 of ice time.
Julien addressed the Canadiens’ injury situation after the morning skate and offered fans assurance that Shea Weber and Jordie Benn will be available when the playoffs begin next week.
Weber had been sent home this week, but Julien said the injury is not serious.
Benn is with the team and Julien said he was “inching ” his way back to health.
“We have the luxury of being able to give guys the opportunity to get healthy; we don’t want to send guys out there if they’re only 80 per cent,” said Julien.
Goalie Al Montoya practised Wednesday and he put in extra time on and off the ice.
That’s not to say we were bad, but we weren’t as good as we can be and as good as we have to be.