The Montreal Canadiens and Ottawa Senators were the only teams to grace the NHL schedule on Sunday night.
Carey Price’s backup, Mike Condon, made 20 saves in a 3-1 win for the Habs over the Sens; it was his NHL debut.
“It was exciting. I thought the guys played an awesome game,” Condon said. “I think we only had 15 shots against going into the third period, only maybe five or six scoring chances. They made my workload very light.
“A lot of energy going into the game, but after that first shot comes all the interior monologue just quiets down and all your training takes over. After the first shot, I was just having some fun.”
Condon played well and was supported by his defense in limiting the Sens chances all night.
“He made some key saves at the right time,” Canadiens coach Michel Therrien said of Condon. “This is just something he did through the course of the training camp. He played really well for us. He played well for us in the minors last year. He got the first win and that’s always something special for any player.
“He’s calm, but you know what? He’s a battler. You could see at the end the save that he made, he battled really hard on that one.”
The Sens started Matthew O’Connor for whom the game also represented an NHL debut.
The Canadiens got two goals from Tomas Plekanec and one from Torrey Mitchell.
The Habs’ P.K. Subban disagreed with the stiffer defensive posture.
“You know what? It’s so funny you say that because a lot of times when the backup goes in there, you see a sense in changing and we didn’t change anything today,” Subban said. “Guys felt confident with him in there. He established early that he was ready and he was sharp.
“Listen, I’ve got to give him credit. He went in there and did exactly what he had to do. We get that from Carey every night. What Carey brings, we got that from him tonight.”
It was a disappointing Ottawa effort for their head coach, Dave Cameron.
“We weren’t hard enough on pucks, right through the 12 forwards that were dressed,” he said. “We talk all the time about if we’re going to establish ourselves as any kind of team that’s tough to play against, you have to go through pucks, not around them. Montreal did a good job of choking us off. If you don’t respond by going through pucks and getting pucks to the net, it’s going to be a long night.
“It was a long night tonight.”
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