Forget the goalie problem, the Canadiens now have a power-play problem.

The Habs went 0-7 on the man-advantage in a 3-2 regulation loss to the Boston Bruins at the Bell Centre on Saturday night. The club has gone 0-17 on the power play in the last five games. They had two 5-on-3s tonight and couldn’t convert on either.

Cole Caufield scored his team-leading 13th goal of the season to pull Montreal to within one with 1:16 left in the second period, but it wasn’t enough. Jeremy Swayman made 26 saves for the Bruins in the win.

Samuel Montembeault started for the Habs and made 19 saves. He bailed his team out a few times, but also looked shaky on Mason Lohrei’s goal that gave Boston a 2-1 lead.

The game started with two scraps. First, 6-foot-7 behemoth Nikita Zadorov dropped the gloves with Jayden Struble off the opening draw.

Less than four minutes later, it was Arber Xhekaj and Tanner Jeannot’s turn. Xhekaj got dropped with a KO punch.

That was followed by goals for each side. Marat Khusnutdinov opened scoring on a goal where Bruins sniper David Pastrnak had Montembeault guessing.

Jake Evans followed it up less than four minutes later with the equalizer on the penalty kill. 1-1 after 20 minutes.

Lohrei’s goal from far out only two minutes into the second period once again gave Boston a one-goal lead.

 

That was followed by a scary play where Bruins defenceman Charlie McAvoy took a puck to the face. He left the ice in a hurry and did not return.

Unlike Montreal’s pop gun power play, the Bruins did convert once in five tries. Viktor Arvidsson beat Montembeault in the slot after a nifty between the legs pass by Pavel Zacha to make it 3-1 Boston. The Bell Centre was deathly quiet after that goal.

Things perked up just 1:53 later when Cole Caufield broke out of his mini-slump of two games to pull Montreal to within one, down 3-2 after two periods. Nick Suzuki also drew his 17th assist of the season after a quiet week.

Swayman stopped all nine shots he faced in the third period to secure the game for the road team. With the win, the Bruins have taken sole possession of top spot in the Atlantic Division with 24 points. The Habs and Ottawa Senators sit two points back. So as bad as the winless week has been for Montreal, and even though they’ve lost five of their last six, they haven’t ceded too much ground in the packed playoff picture.

But, on Saturday, they were without forward Alex Newhook and will be for the next four months as he recovers from an ankle injury suffered Thursday against Dallas. And the news wasn’t much better for defenceman Kaiden Guhle, who is out 8-10 weeks following a torn adductor muscle after his return appeared imminent.

Guhle has been missed, and Newhook will be missed. Jayden Struble isn’t a long-term top-4 solution for Lane Hutson, who was minus-7 against the Kings and Stars and held pointless on Saturday. Newhook finally gave the second line some pep, and in a tight game where one goal could’ve made the difference, Newhook on the second power-play unit could’ve made the difference.

In his place on the forward lines, Jared Davidson was recalled from the AHL’s Laval Rocket and made his NHL debut. The Liveblog commenters liked what they saw: he parked himself around the net and looked for opportunities in his 7:14 of ice-time. HIs four shots on goal were tied for second among forwards.

Suzuki and Caufield were tops on Hockey Stat Cards’ nightly report card. Liveblog commenters on the Hockey Inside Out livestream did not like what they saw from Noah Dobson, especially on the power play.

Here’s what they had to say:

3. “I wasn’t big on the Dobson trade … and I’m still not. I think Patty Roy knew what his problem was. No next gear.” — Max Gray 2. “Habs 2nd place in the Atlantic, last year way back and people were counting the playoffs out and thinking a bottom 5 spot … lots of season to go.” — Blue Fro 1. “Better game tonight. Yet it was still a loss, regardless of youth, regardless of surgeries, what is hurting is scoring. Three 5 on 3 in last couple games resulted in ZERO goals.” — Rick Woods {“_id”:””,”type”:”raw_html”,”shortcode_tag”:”related_links”,”shortcode”:”[related_links \/]”,”content”:”

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