In Montreal, Kaapo Kahkonen made 28 saves in a 4-0 shutout of the Canadiens by the San Jose Sharks on Tuesday night.
“I think he’s getting back to the level that we all expect him to be and I thought this was his best game of the year,” Sharks coach David Quinn said. “He really looked comfortable in net tonight.”
San Jose took a 1-0 lead, all they would need, in the first period off a strike from Matt Nieto .
After a scoreless middle frame, the Sharks hit for three goals in the third period.
“It wasn’t the most smooth game,” San Jose forward Matt Nieto said. “But I think we just stuck to the process, and if we got hemmed in we just locked it down and got through that shift and didn’t give up massive opportunities for them to score. And obviously Kaapo back there was a wall for us.”
Tomas Hertl hit for his first of the period to push the Sharks lad to 2-0..
“It wasn’t like they were all over us and we didn’t have an answer,” Canadiens defenseman Mike Matheson said. “I think we were all over them for the most part of the game. It’s just one of those ones you have to credit them for the amount of shots they blocked. I think that was kind of the recipe of the game. We generated a lot of chances but didn’t quite get them through to their goalie.”
San Jose improved to 8-13-4.
“I feel so happy for [Kahkonen],” Hertl said. “He was great tonight. He looked confident in net. He made good plays on [the] PK and it wasn’t easy because we gave up some chances, but a really, really strong game from him.”
Logan Couture extended the San Jose lead to 3-0, at 3:44 of the third.
The Habs dropped to 11-10-1.
“I thought 5-on-5 we had the puck pretty much the whole game,” Montreal captain Nick Suzuki said. “They did a pretty good job of staying in the middle, blocking shots. We were skating around the zone a lot but not getting those prime opportunities.”
Hertl picked up his double with 2;14 left in the period when he popped the marker into an empty net for the 4-0 final.
Jake Allen made 20 saves in the loss, another effort wasted with no offensive support.
“We did have a plan, we just didn’t quite execute the plan and we just looked disorganized,” Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis said of the two-man advantage.
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