In Montreal, Jake Allen made 25 saves and the Canadiens thrashed the Arizona Coyotes, 6-2, on Thursday night.
“I thought we had a deep-game mentality early and possessing in the O-zone,” Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis said. “We got a few good bounces. We forced a team to turn pucks over, we played on top of them, which I felt we really did against [the Pittsburgh Penguins on Monday in a 3-2 overtime win], and we were opportunistic with our chances.”
Juraj Slafkovsky scored his first career NHL goal in the Habs win.
“I don’t even remember how I scored the goal,” Slafkovsky said. “I just went to celebrate because I think that’s the best part of the goal, the [celebration]. I was focused more on the celebration than how I scored.”
Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki had markers for the Canadiens who built a 5-0 lead before the Coyotes scored twice in the third period.
Josh Anderson and Caufield scored to give the Canadiens a 2-0 lead.
Brendan Gallagher extended the lead to 3-0.
At that point, the Coyotes were being pushed around.
“We need to find a way to have more urgency to start a game, and it snowballed from there,” Coyotes coach Andre Tourigny said. “Our play with the puck was nowhere near what it has to be in the first two periods. We played with more confidence in the third, we kind of regrouped, but that’s on us. That’s on me to find solutions.”
Slafkovsky and Suzuki scored to push the lead to 5-0.
“I think I’ve tried to do it a couple of times,” Suzuki said. “I honestly didn’t really like my first look. He kind of came really far out of his crease, and then I just kind of improvised at the end.”
Arizona finally scored in the third off strikes from J.J. Moser and Travis Boyd.
“Obviously, this is a tough place to come in to play, and really the last thing you want to do is spot them a few early into the first period,” Arizona’s Clayton Keller said. “So I think puck management was a big part, and some of that’s just, I guess, mentally not maybe being as prepared as a team as we need to be to start a game.”
Montreal’s Sean Monahan hit an empty-net goals for the 6-2 final.
Connor Ingram made 24 saves in the Coyotes loss.
“I think we owe [Ingram] one, that’s for sure,” Coyotes coach Andre Tourigny said. “I think their first four shots there were maybe four scoring chances. We didn’t make it easy on him.”
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