The Montreal Canadiens closed out their road trip in style with a 4-3 overtime win over the Dallas Stars on Sunday afternoon at American Airlines Center.
Lane Hutson scored the game-winner, sending the Habs home with a 4-1-2 record on their seven-game road trip. Phil Danault assisted on the winner and had another helper earlier in the night, good for his 400th career point.
Sam Montembeault got the nod in goal and made several key saves for his second straight win since returning from a conditioning assignment for the AHL’s Laval Rocket. Here are his three best from a 24-save performance.
After allowing a questionable wraparound goal in the first to Mavrik Bourque, Montembeault denied him on his next opportunity with a goal line pad save.
Then in the third period, Montembeault made an acrobatic stop on Sam Steel off the give-and-go to keep Montreal’s 3-2 lead intact.
Finally, Montembeault saved his best for overtime, robbing Wyatt Johnston’s hat-trick attempt on a breakaway.
Here are the goals from yesterday’s game. The ice breaker for the Habs came off an Alexandre Carrier point shot that changed direction multiple times on the way to the back of the net. Brendan Gallagher was awarded his third goal of the campaign.
Bourque tied it up before the end of the first period on a wraparound that caught Montembeault out of position.
In the second period, Johnston scored his first of the afternoon one second after Montreal had killed off a penalty. Dallas took a 2-1 lead.
The Habs stormed back less than two minutes later. The red-hot second line connected again, with Juraj Slafkovsky and Ivan Demidov eventually feeding Oliver Kapanen for his 13th of the season.
After starting 0-3 on the power play (and an 0-4 performance with the man advantage on Saturday against St. Louis), the Habs finally converted. Slafkovsky scored from the bumper to give Montreal a 3-2 lead heading into the third period. It’s his eighth power play goal of the season.
After getting outshot 14-8 in the second period, the Stars pushed back in the third. Johnston tied up the game with his second of the day after being left alone back door. The Stars lost captain Jamie Benn in the third period after a scary incident where he landed head-first on the ice.
The Habs got beat in the face-dot all afternoon, losing 57.8 per cent of draws to the Stars. The exception was Danault, who won the critical faceoff in the offensive zone in overtime that allowed Hutson to score the game-winner glove-side on Jake Oettinger. Despite playing the second of a back-to-back against the comparatively rested Stars, the Habs emerged victorious.
The Habs entered the supposed holiday road trip from hell with questions in goal, and while netminders are prone to ups and downs, after stopping 52 of 57 shots against two difficult opponents (Panthers and Stars) since returning from his December conditioning stint, Montembeault has likely regained the trust of his coach. Go figure the one regulation loss on the trip came against the Blues, the team with the league’s worst goal differential.
Although Jacob Fowler did nothing to warrant a return to Laval after Saturday’s shutout loss in St. Louis, for seniority reasons he’s likely the odd man out come Monday when the Habs begin preparing for a back-to-back at home later in the week. That includes a potential grudge match against Brad Marchand and the Panthers after he got off scot-free for his elbow on Mike Matheson last Tuesday.
Danault had his biggest game as a Hab since returning in a December trade. He had two points and went 10-for-15 on draws. The Liveblog commenters who joined on the Hockey Inside Out YouTube livestream are pretty torn about Danault 2.0. He’s not the two-way dynamo who left for the Los Angeles Kings as a free agent in the summer of 2021, but if he can win important draws and help get Gallagher on the scoresheet, he’ll earn his keep as a depth piece. But for many commenters, his salary ($5.5-million cap hit this year and next) remains a sticking point.
Here’s what the commenters had to say:
3. “Danault hasn’t been playing great lol, ya sure he wins faceoffs, not good enough.” -Adam Carter
2. “Fowler likely to go down to get #1 playing time for a while longer. My guess anyway.” -T. Moore
1. “It’s still a mystery to me how the team doesn’t play well against bottom feeders but can stand up to the big boys. What a great game.” -Marc Taillefer