CANADIENS WILL NEED MAX EFFORT FROM THE CAPTAIN
Pacioretty a non-factor on the scoresheet, unless you count Nash’s game-winning goal
RANGERS 2, CANADIENS 1
The Montreal Canadiens and the New York Rangers are headed back to Quebec with their playoff series tied 2-2.
Game 5 on Thursday would be a good time for Canadiens captain Max Pacioretty to step up. The Rangers evened the bestof-seven Eastern Conference quarter-final with a 2-1 win Tuesday at Madison Square Garden, and for the fourth straight game, Pacioretty didn’t score a goal.
The Canadiens captain had two shots on goal, two hits and was a minus-1. He was on the ice for the winning goal by Rick Nash 4:28 into the second period and didn’t look good on it.
Jeff Petry tried to clear the puck out of the zone high off the glass, but it was gloved down by the Rangers’ Ryan McDonagh at the blue-line. Pacioretty lunged to poke check the puck rather than playing the man and then did a skate-by, going outside the zone while McDonagh fed the puck down low to Nash in the corner. Nash then cut to the net and beat goalie Carey Price through the five-hole.
“I poked it to Petey and he flipped it,” Pacioretty said after the game. “I think when he flipped it, I was not sure where the puck was. I thought it was bouncing out of the zone. I think he gloved it down and Nash got lost behind our D.
“I’m not sure if he meant to pass it or just put it on net. But that’s what they do very often is they anticipate getting behind our D and getting behind even the net a lot of times and anticipate turnovers in their end and try and throw it behind the net, and that was an example of that.”
It was also an example of how important it is for a defender to stop and check his man rather than skate past.
When asked to rate his game, Pacioretty said: “It wasn’t my best. But it’s one game at a time, looking to get better.”
Game 5 would be a very good place to start.
Montreal head coach Claude Julien mixed up his lines in the second period, creating what looked like a new No. 1 line with Alex Galchenyuk at centre between Artturi Lehkonen and Alexander Radulov, while Pacioretty was with Phillip Danault and Andrew Shaw.
Radulov picked up an assist on Torrey Mitchell’s goal Tuesday to give him six points, including two goals, in four games.
“Trying to get sparks going,” Pacioretty said about the shakeup. “I think you’re looking a little bit too much into it.”
Pacioretty silenced his critics with a strong regular season during his second year as captain of the Canadiens. But with only one assist in this post-season, the critics will start getting loud again — and Pacioretty is the only one who can silence them.
If Pacioretty’s not scoring, the six-foot-two, 215-pounder needs to throw his weight around more in what has been a very physical series. Four games in, Pacioretty has only nine hits, while fivefoot-nine, 160-pound Paul Byron has a team-leading 17.
When asked about Pacioretty’s performance in French, Julien said the captain is a good player who is capable of bringing a lot to the team, but other than that the coach would keep it internal.
When asked a followup question in English, Julien said: “It’s not necessarily internally. There’s things we’re going to try to do. We’re going to look at game tape and see what we can do to help the player himself. Is it sometimes not reading off each other well enough … we made changes because of that line and all of a sudden I think that line was better, and so was the other one compared to what it was. So those are things that I’ll deal with.”
Another line Julien might want to look at is the fourth. Mitchell and Steve Ott have some nice chemistry, but they seem to be slowed down by Dwight King while Mike McCarron and Brian Flynn sit in the press box.
“I think what people have to know is he does a lot of little things that probably a lot of people will recognize and I think he’s well appreciated by all of our staff here and also by his teammates,” Julien said about King.
“He may not be the biggest goal scorer, but he still creates some chances.”
Four games into this series, King has zero goals.
So does the captain.