Nick Suzuki passed the 90-point plateau for the first time in his career in a 3-1 win for the Montreal Canadiens (42-21-10) over the Carolina Hurricanes at Lenovo Center on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Suzuki\u2019s three points put him at 91 points on the season. He\u2019s the first Hab to reach 90 since both Pierre Turgeon and Vincent Damphousse did it in 1995-96.<\/p>\n
Cole Caufield scored his 46th goal of the season, while Lane Hutson added two assists to his season total.<\/p>\n
Canadiens fans held their collective breath after Jakub Dobes appeared to tweak something in the final minute of the first period, but he came back for the second and had 34 saves in total for the win.<\/p>\n
It was a group effort on defence: the Habs blocked 32 shots, and only three players ended the night without a block.<\/p>\n
Forward Josh Anderson remained out with an illness after exiting Saturday\u2019s game early, so coach Martin St. Louis did something Habs fans have long requested: put Arber Xhekaj at forward. He only played 5:11 over six shifts, but he had five hits.<\/p>\n
The game was a repeat of Tuesday\u2019s battle between the two clubs, right down to the slow start for the victors. Andrei Svechnikov opened scoring on the power play. That\u2019s the only blemish Dobes got on his record.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the moment at the end of the first period that had Canadiens fans sweating through the intermission. Dobes rose slowly after trying to make the save on the wraparound, but he appeared fine the rest of the way. Canes outshot the Habs 13-6 in the first.<\/p>\n
Things looked dire after the first, but the Canadiens responded with three unanswered goals in the second. Suzuki reached the 25-goal plateau on the game-tying goal.<\/p>\n
The Canadiens scored twice in the final three minutes of the middle frame. Caufield continued his torrid scoring pace with his 25th goal in 25 games. With an assist, Suzuki reached the 90-point mark for the first time in his career. Hutson got his second assist, making him the fastest defenceman in league history with 30 multi-assist games.<\/p>\n
Then with seven seconds left in the period, Suzuki notched his second of the night and third point overall.<\/p>\n
In the third, the Canes outshot the Habs 8-4 but couldn\u2019t solve Dobes. The Habs netminder ended the night with 34 saves to snag his third win of the week, and 25th this season, passing Carey Price\u2019s win total in his rookie season. It\u2019s the sixth-most for a Habs rookie all-time.<\/p>\n
Last night\u2019s win capped a breakthrough week for Dobes, who stopped 100 of 104 shots in three consecutive wins.<\/p>\n
The Canadiens have won five straight, tightening their grip on third place in the Atlantic Division with 94 points. The Buffalo Sabres and Tampa Bay Lightning are ahead of them with 98 points apiece, while the Boston Bruins are at 92 points and sit in fourth place.<\/p>\n
The Habs are also 2-0 to start their five-game road trip. They\u2019re in Tampa on Tuesday for a big divisional matchup.<\/p>\n
Will Xhekaj get more reps at forward if Anderson remains out? St. Louis may want the extra muscle. Xhekaj called the position change \u201ca little weird\u201d in his intermission interview.<\/p>\n
One player who has added some grit since re-entering the lineup is Joe Veleno. He was middle of the pack in last night\u2019s Game Score card. He could stick around if the Canadiens are looking for a little more jam in the bottom-six come playoff time.<\/p>\n
The Hockey Inside Out YouTube livestream will return Tuesday for the Tampa Bay game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nick Suzuki passed the 90-point plateau for the first time in his career in a 3-1 win for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5103],"tags":[265,5,264,21,5147,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-530863","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-montreal-canadiens","8":"tag-canadiens","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-montreal","11":"tag-montreal-canadiens","12":"tag-montrealcanadiens","13":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116317789723110515","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}