In Edmonton, the Oilers were sent a message by the
Montreal Canadiens on Saturday, “you’re not as good as you think” in a 5-2 win.
“I loved our focus tonight, I felt like we played a really strong game tonight with all the emotion, the ups and downs, and we stayed the course,” Montreal coach Martin St. Louis said. “I got to experience my first coach’s challenge, I guess. It didn’t go my way. It was weird how many calls could have affected the game on the offsides; the two goals. It was a weird game, but we stayed the course.”
Brendan Gallagher and Cole Caufield hit for a goal and two points apiece in the win.
“We feel pretty confident the way we’re playing. We’re just having fun, we’re playing a certain style that we all enjoy,” Gallagher said. “[St. Louis] seems to be bringing the best out of a lot of us and we’re just having fun playing the game right now. It’s good to see in our group.”
Sam Montembeault made 28 saves in the Habs win.
The Canadiens moved to 15-34-7, they have won seven of their last eight matches.
Evander Kane and Ryan McLeod were the Oilers’ strikers.
“We just weren’t good enough,” Edmonton’s Connor McDavid said. “They are a team that has obviously been playing well since their coaching change. They were better than us tonight. There was maybe a little fatigue, I guess, but that is no excuse. We have to be better out of the gate. Their power play was good and ours wasn’t. That was kind of the difference, for sure.”
Edmonton dropped to Oilers 30-22-4.
“We lost the special-teams battle, our penalty kill was not good enough (2-for-4) and our power play, although it had a few chances, didn’t generate the way we wanted it to (0-for-4),” Edmonton coach Jay Woodcroft said. “In the end, we gave up two goals on the penalty kill. One was a 6-on-5, one kind of on a 4-on-4, just at the end of it. They are all things we’d certainly like to have back, but we can’t. We’re going to digest it and work on it as we move forward here.”
Nick Suzuki potted a goal and added two assists in the Habs win.
“This team, from the start of the season, we’ve been through pretty much everything we can go through, it’s tough to rattle us now,” Gallagher said. “We were still in a pretty good situation, we just had to keep doing what we were doing and find a way to win a hockey game.”
Montreal’s Artturi Lehkonen and Mike Hoffman scored in the third period for the 5-2 final.
“I was thinking shoot first, but the [defenseman] did a good job of getting over and getting his stick in the lane and I think he would have broken up the shot,” Montreal’s Brett Kulak said. “I just waited it out and the goalie was playing it pretty aggressive. He was giving me plenty of space to come to the short side of the net and get the puck out to the middle. That’s the option I went with, and it seemed like I kind of caught him off guard, and ‘Lehke’ was in the right place at the right time and it worked out well.”
Mike Smith made 24 saves in the Edmonton loss.
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