*Photo from TSN*
This team certainly plays hard. Nick Suzuki had a goal and an assist, Juraj Slafkovsky had an identical line, and the Montreal Canadiens defeated the Chicago Blackhawks with a 5-2 victory on Friday night in Chicago.
Despite a 15-13-5 record and a 6th place standing in the Atlantic Division, the Canadiens increased their point streak to 5 games with their second win over the Blackhawks this season. All 5 Montreal goals came unanswered as they overcame a 2-0 deficit to come out on top.
Montreal head coach Martin St. Louis said that "We got back to playing our game, so to speak. I always say, it’s not like one magic play that’s going to get us back and it’s going to win us the game. We’ve just got to do the positive actions on the ice based on how we want to play over and over and over again kind of stay patient, try not to beat yourself. I thought we got some big plays, some big goals at key times that gave us some life. And I thought we played an excellent third period."
Ryan Donato scored the only goal of the first period, giving the Blackhawks a 1-0 lead with assists from Connor Bedard and Isaak Phillips. Jason Dickinson scored 3:43 into the second period to double the lead to 2-0. Mitchell Stephens scored for the Canadiens 37 seconds later, cutting the deficit to 2-1 on his first goal of the season.
Josh Anderson scored at the 15:02 mark of the period for the Canadiens to tie the game 2-2. Slafkovsky then scored his 4th goal of the season to put Montreal ahead 3-2 after two periods. In the 3rd period, Suzuki scored his 10th goal of the season to pad the Canadiens lead to 4-2. David Savard scored on the empty net to make it a 5-2 final.
Suzuki said after the game that "We weren’t happy with our start, for sure. The first half of the game wasn’t great, but we know the style that we play and we can come back in games just with our relentlessness. We turned a lot of pucks over and got a lot of chances. It’s a big opportunity for us. I feel good going into the break. We wanted to show our best effort. I think that will really jump with us into the games after Christmas."
Getting the start for the Canadiens was Cayden Primeau, who was able to play good enough and pick up the win to improve to 4-3-0. Primeau stopped 19 of the 21 shots he was tested with, which was good for a .905 save percentage.
Starting for the Blackhawks opposite Primeau was Petr Mrazek, who got the loss as his record dropped to 8-11-0 in 19 starts. Mrazek turned aside 23 out of the 27 shots on goal the Canadiens had, recording a .852 save percentage.
Blackhawks head coach Luke Richardson said of the loss that "It was kind of 50/50 in the first period, and I don’t think we were great, but we had a nice goal and then I thought we started out the second period pretty good, skating. Then, we just weren’t playing smart; we were doubling up on forechecks and we were doubling up on backchecks, and that left people wide open. Just kind of unaware. It looked like we were the tired team, not them."
The Blackhawks play a back to back on Saturday before the Christmas break, with Arvid Soderblom starting against the St. Louis Blues. The Canadiens get back in action on December 28 after the break when they face the Carolina Hurricanes, with Sam Montembeault projected to start.
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