In Montreal, the visiting Vancouver Canucks very nearly gave away a game. On Friday night, the Canucks needed an overtime goal from J.T. Miller at 2:01 of the extra session to get a 3-2 win over the Canadiens.
“I was on the ice for a really long time, but I wasn’t really doing a whole lot,” Miller said. “I still felt fresh, so it was one of those things where I knew I was going against a forward, and then when I got by the first guy (Tomas Tatar), that’s a heat-of-the-moment move (to get past forward Nick Suzuki) that doesn’t happen very often.”
Suzuki scored off the power for Montreal with 57 seconds left in regulation to force the extra session.
“We’ve got to give credit to the guys, too, they’re not packing it in,” Montreal head coach Dominique Ducharme said. “They’re going at it, and the last game we came back with two goals (to tie it in a 4-3 overtime loss to the Winnipeg Jets on Wednesday). And tonight we came back, and we could have tied it before, we had some good chances, but we tied it in the last minute. So the guys never quit, they go all out.”
Thatcher Demko made 29 saves to get the win.
The Canucks are 7-1-0 in their last eight games, and climbed back to .500 with a 16-16-2 record.
“We’re playing the right way,” Miller said, “and if we believe in our game, have faith in our system and we play the right way most nights, we’re going to get the results.”
Corey Perry scored for the Habs off the power play.
“No problem at all,” Canucks coach Travis Green said. “They got a power-play goal. Nobody flinched.”
Adam Gaudette and Nils Hoglander gave the Canucks a 2-1 lead in the middle frame.
Jake Allen made 25 saves in the loss.
“I thought we had a really good start,” Suzuki said. “We were putting pressure on them a ton. That second period we were turning the puck over in the neutral zone too much. I thought our power play was good, our penalty kill was good, but just finding that two points is going to be huge for us, and coming down the stretch all of these points are going to be important.”
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