The Canadiens were able to stop the bleeding and at least pick up a point Monday night with a 4-3 shootout loss to the Blue Jackets in Columbus.
It was a fourth straight loss for the Canadiens (0-3-1), but they should be happy to get a point after losing 3-1 heading into the third period. Oliver Kapanen, Josh Anderson and Lane Hutson scored for the Canadiens. Hutson’s goal came with 1:29 left in the third period and goalie Jakub Dobes on the bench for an extra attacker.
Cole Caufield scored in the shootout, but Nick Suzuki and Ivan Demidov were stopped by Columbus goalie Jet Greaves. Kent Johnson and Kirill Marchenko scored for the Blue Jackets in the shootout.
The Canadiens now have a 10-6-3 record and are in third place in the Atlantic Division behind the Boston Bruins (12-9-0) and Detroit Red Wings (11-7-1). The Canadiens and Red Wings are both one point behind the Bruins and both hold two games in hand on Boston.
This was a bit of a homecoming game for Dobes, who played for two seasons at Ohio State University in Columbus. He stopped 20 of the 23 shots he faced before the shootout as his record dropped to 6-1-2 with a 2.71 goals-against average and a .898 save percentage.
The Blue Jackets, who are celebrating their 25th season in the NHL, are now 10-3-1 in their last 14 games against the Canadiens at Nationwide Arena.
Since taking over as head coach almost four years ago, one of Martin St. Louis’s favourite lines when things are going bad for the Canadiens is “it’s a hard league.” Things have gotten harder with long-term injuries to forwards Alex Newhook (fractured ankle), Kirby Dach (fractured foot) and Patrik Laine (surgery on core muscle injury), along with defenceman Kaiden Guhle (surgery for partially torn adductor muscle).
Heading into Monday’s game the Canadiens’ bottom-six forwards had combined for five goals this season, including Jared Davidson and Joshua Roy, who were just called up from the AHL’s Laval Rocket to replace Newhook and Dach. Roy played on the third line with Jake Evans, who had three goals, and Anderson, who had two and added his third at 8:28 of the third period to cut the Blue Jackets’ lead to 3-2. The fourth line of Joe Veleno between Davidson and Gallagher has no goals this season.
St. Louis juggled his top two lines, putting Zachary Bolduc on the first line with Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield and dropping Juraj Slafkovsky to the second line with rookies Kapanen and Demidov.
After getting outscored 15-3 in their three previous games, the Canadiens came out flat offensively again and had only one shot on goal midway through the first period while falling behind 1-0 on a goal by Zach Werenski at the 6:58 mark. But the Canadiens picked things up after that and the shots were 10-8 for Columbus at the first intermission. The Canadiens ended up outshooting the Blue Jackets 32-23, including 6-0 in overtime. It was the first time in 12 games — and only the fourth time this season — that the Canadiens hit the 30-shot mark. They rank 29th in the NHL with an average of 25.2 shots per game.
“The second half of the game I thought we really controlled it, especially in the third,” Suzuki told reporters in Columbus after the game. “We got two goals and had our chances in overtime. It’s tough to lose that one. I thought we gave ourselves a really good chance to win.”
Bolduc had two shots on goal while logging 15:05 of ice time on the No. 1 line, but has now gone 11 games without a goal and has only one goal in the last 16 games. He scored in each of his first three games with the Canadiens after being acquired from the St. Louis Blues over the summer in exchange for defenceman Logan Mailloux.
“I thought Bolds played a pretty good game,” Suzuki said. “He plays heavy, likes to make plays. I thought he did pretty good for his first game with us.”
The Canadiens didn’t have to worry about their power play — which was 0-for-17 in the previous five games — since they didn’t have any power plays against Columbus. The Blue Jackets went 1-for-2 on the power play.
At practice Sunday in Brossard, Bolduc replaced Demidov on the first power-play unit after the Canadiens went 0-for-7 on the power play in Saturday’s 3-2 loss to the Bruins at the Bell Centre. A reason for the change is that Bolduc has nine shots on goal on the power play this season, while Demidov has only two.
After Saturday’s loss, in which the Canadiens had only six shots on their seven power plays, Hutson was asked if players heard the Bell Centre fans screaming “shoot!”
“Not really,” he said. “But I guess sometimes we should listen a little bit.”
Hutson might have been thinking about that when he decided to shoot from the high slot instead of pass with Dobes on the bench for the extra attacker and his second goal of the season guaranteed at least a point for the Canadiens.
The league is hard. But it’s not that hard to shoot the puck.
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