Gallagher Keeps Rising While Canadiens Keep Losing

After defeating Detroit Red Wings 3-1 last night at Scotiabank Arena, Toronto Maple Leafs welcome Montreal Canadiens tonight for a meeting at Scotiabank Arena. Martin St-Louis and his Montreal Canadiens appeared worn down and disinterested as Craig Berube’s team were barely noticeable on the ice after twenty minutes of action. Coach had requested his players create more chances, yet only managed two shots on goal within twenty minutes – an obvious indication that something went amiss in translation between coach and players. At the end of the game, they barely eclipsed 20 shots. While Montreal were better prepared defensively in this first frame, Toronto still took home one-goal advantage despite only testing Samuel Montembeault seven times in that frame. William Nylander scored quickly on an apparent power play goal for Toronto during period 2. A Swedish star skated coast-to-coast and into Montreal like a hot knife through butter; they could only watch him and admire his moves as they skated backwards in amazement. Just three minutes later on power play for Montreal, Kirby Dach fell hard onto Cole Caufield while taking him out himself giving Toronto an odd-man rush opportunity that they used quickly and successfully to their advantage. Mitch Marner provided Toronto with their third goal and made it 3-0 before Brendan Gallagher scored to reduce Montreal’s advantage back down to three. At his career goal 225th goal scorer Stephane Richer now shares 19th spot among Canadiens goal scorers for all-time goals scored. Within three minutes John Tavares scored on the power play to extend the advantage to 4-1 before it held until game’s conclusion. Montembeault cannot solely be blamed for this loss – rather, the entire team was remiss in performing as promised. Still, giving up four goals on 12 shots does not give your team a fair shot at victory. Following the game, captain Nick Suzuki noted to media members how his team played well during both periods – particularly the third period. Though they limited Toronto Maple Leafs shots to just seven, it would be hard to consider their first period a success when only managing to put two pucks to net. As for their third period effort, though the Canadiens showed some life, by then Maple Leafs began relaxing their effort and gave in. At the conclusion of their meeting with Montreal this season, Max Domi and David Savard tried to engage in an altercation which ultimately dispersed with Josh Anderson having enough time to step in and neutralise him before Max Domi could continue. It resulted in their sixth straight loss; coach Jacques Martin blamed a lack of confidence among players as being responsible. Just like in their initial encounter against each other this season, Domi attempted to provoke Savard but eventually gave up when Josh Anderson intervened to prevent any altercations happening between both teams this season before Josh Anderson managed to step in neutralizing Domi once more and prevented further attempts by Max Domi trying to provoke Savard when Josh Anderson got there to neutralise him before Max Domi could start making plays by moving around him before Josh Anderson arrived to neutralise Domi and neutralized Domi before going any further in either fight or exchanges took place which followed then immediately afterwards a bout between these teams this season when Max Domi attempted to pick fight him against Savard but Savard did nothing as Savard gave up eventually dropping gloves before Josh Anderson arrived and neutralised Domi before Josh Anderson intervened and neutralized Domi from taking part by physically taking part. This was similar to when Arber Xhekaj tried to fight Sean Couturier but one of his teammates intervened on behalf of Arber. Just like that evening, there was no third man penalty and at least there was some consistency from referees there. St-Louis wanted his attack to spark something special and switched up Juraj Slafkovsky with Suzuki and Dach on his first line; Cole Caufield moved down one level as part of this strategy. Although he hadn’t scored since Game 1, moving a bonafide goalscorer off your top line seemed odd to me. Related: Canadiens: Big Problem Up FrontMontreal will now need to travel west for its match against Buffalo at 12:30 PM.You can follow Karine Hains via social media @KarineHainsBluesky or Threads (Tr) as @karinehains. Bookmark Hockey News Canadiens’ page for up-to-the minute Canadiens updates!