Canadiens see historic run, winning streak snapped in Las Vegas
The Montreal Canadiens had the second-longest streak in NHL history of not trailing a postseason game snapped in the first period Monday night.
The end of their seven-game winning streak soon followed, as Montreal fell 4-1 to the Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena in the opener of the best-of-seven Stanley Cup semifinals.
Interim coach Dominique Ducharme’s team came out looking confident and dangerous, but the situation quickly changed once Montreal was forced to deal with a deficit for the first time since May 25.
“It was a great start,” goaltender Carey Price said. “I thought we came out firing. Obviously they grabbed the momentum going into the second period.”
The momentum seemed to turn shortly after Shea Theodore’s one-timer from the blue line at 9:15 of the first period put the Canadiens in a deficit for the first time in 447:08 of game time. The streak was second to the 488:38 run by the 1960 Canadiens team that won the Stanley Cup.
The Canadiens had a 1.67-0.33 expected goals advantage after the first period with a 7-1 lead in high-danger chances, according to Natural Stat Trick.
Ducharme said he thought the game changed more on the penalties his team committed leading to hesitancy than any difficulty dealing with trailing.
“We liked our start,” he said. “After the penalties, I thought we were a little less dangerous or not as good with the puck or creating as much. That’s something we can do much better, and we’ll adjust. That impacts a lot on the pace of our game.”
The Canadiens were called for one penalty late in the first period, then three in the first half of the second as the game shifted dramatically in favor of the Knights.
All of the time spent short-handed took a toll, even though the Knights were 0-for-4 on power-play opportunities.
“I thought we had a good first period and then we just took too many penalties and gave them momentum,” defenseman Joel Edmundson said. “Obviously our killers are going to play a lot of hockey, and it’s tiring killing, especially against a power play like that. We have to limit our penalties.”
The Knights led 2-0 in the second period when rookie Cole Caufield recorded his first postseason goal and gave the Canadiens brief hope only to have Mattias Janmark respond 53 seconds later to push the lead to 3-1.
“We had our chances to get back in the game,” Caufield said. “It was tight there for a while, and we got it back to 2-1, just some bad bounces and some things we can get better at and work on. We’ll be ready for Wednesday. We just need to bring more energy and more focus.”
The quick start came despite the Canadiens playing in an arena with more than 2,500 fans for the first time this season.
“Obviously, we were excited to play,” Edmundson said. “I thought we came out firing in the first period and then we kind of just sat back and let them come at us. But we were excited to play in front of a sold-out barn again. We’ll be better next game for sure.”
Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on Twitter.