A bright, shiny new head coach did not help the Montreal Canadiens Saturday.
Claud Julien was hired to fire up the Habs and the Winnipeg Jets did all they could to 
spoil the coming out party.
“You could see there was a lot of nervousness in the group, but also a little lack of confidence right now,” Julien said.
Two third period goals from the Jets ended the evening with a 3-1 loss for the Canadiens.
Mathieu Perreault and Patrik Laine scored in the third for the Jets to lift them to the win.
Andrei Markov put the Habs up 1-0 midway through the first period to the crowd buzzing.
“It wasn’t a strong game,” Montreal’s Max Pacioretty said. “We got outplayed, especially I feel in our end, and that was tough to create anything off of that offensively.”
With less than five minutes gone in the middle frame, Winnipeg’s Joel Armia scored on the penalty kill to tie and take much of the wind out of the building.
“That was huge,” Perreault said of Armia’s goal. “You know, it starts it up. We were playing a great game until then and then he ties it up, and from there we just feel like we took over.”
The Jets are 2-0-1 in their three games.
Connor Hellebuyck made 19 saves for the win.
“We were on the right side of pucks and we were battling. We battled the entire night and our forecheck was good,” Hellebuyck said.
Winnipeg improved to 27-29-5.
“It’s a continuation,” Jets head coach Paul Maurice. “We’ve had three really, really strong games, and more of the same tonight. They’re almost identical games that we’ve played, really strong with our gap, not giving the other team a whole lot, and getting enough offense. The time of year says you’re probably not going to see the 7-6 games anymore and you’re going to get into the 2-1 games, and we were comfortable with that.”
WATCH: All Jets vs. Canadiens highlights
Carey Price made 30 saves in the loss.
“I think we’re overthinking the game a little bit too much. I think once we build up our confidence and just let our instincts take over I think we’ll see an improvement,” Price said after the Habs’ seventh loss in eight games.
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