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After blowing a 3-1 lead, Habs bounce back with three straight goals in third period to finish exhibition season with a 3-3 record.
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The Canadiens finished their pre-season schedule on a high note Saturday night in Ottawa, beating the Senators 6-4.
After the Canadiens blew a 3-1 lead and fell behind 4-3 at 6:21 of the third period when the Senators scored two goals in 16 seconds, it looked like the pre-season would end on a low note. But the Canadiens got goals from Sean Monahan at 13:57 of the third period, Cole Caufield at 16:30 and Arber Xhekaj (who shot the puck right through the net) at 17:58 to come away with a victory and finish the pre-season with a 3-3 record.
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Juraj Slavkovsky, Michael Pezzetta and Nick Suzuki also scored for the Canadiens, who will open the regular season Wednesday in Toronto against the Maple Leafs (7 p.m., SN, TVA Sports, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM). Parker Kelly, Dominik Kubalik, Roby Jarventie and Ridly Greig scored for the Senators, who finish the pre-season with a 6-2 record.
The Canadiens outshot the Senators 38-25 with goalie Samuel Montembeault making 21 saves for the win.
The power play continued to be a problem for the Canadiens as they went 0-for-5 against the Senators. The Canadiens finished the pre-season 3-for-28 on the power play for an 11 per cent success rate. Last season, the Canadiens ranked 29th in the NHL on the power play at 16.1 per cent.
The Senators didn’t have any of their top six forwards or top four defencemen in the lineup Saturday night. The Canadiens’ lineup included five of the six players battling for a spot on the fourth line. Emil Heineman and Joel Armia were on the third line with Monahan at centre, while the fourth line had Jake Evans between Pezzetta and Jesse Ylönen. Tanner Pearson, the sixth candidate for the fourth line, wasn’t in the lineup.
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One of the biggest questions heading into the regular season is who will be on the first line with Suzuki and Caufield and in this game Rafaël Harvey-Pinard filled that spot. Harvey-Pinard made a nice pass to Caufield after Suzuki won a puck battle against the boards to set up Caufield for his goal. Caufield had 2-2-4 totals in the four pre-season games he played, while Suzuki had 2-5-7 totals in four pre-season games. Harvey-Pinard only had one assist in four pre-season games, but was plus-3 against the Senators.
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“He played a good game,” head coach Martin St. Louis told reporters in Ottawa after the game. “Rafaël can play in a lot of chairs.”
Suzuki, Caufield, Harvey-Pinard, Monahan, Slafkovsky, Alex Newhook, Josh Anderson, Kirby Dach and Brendan Gallagher are likely to be the top nine forwards when the Canadiens open the regular season, giving St. Louis plenty of options as to how he sets up his first three lines. St. Louis will also have to make a decision on who plays on the fourth line and — if he decides to carry 14 forwards on the 23-man roster — which player will get cut.
The 30-year-old Armia, who has two seasons left on his contract with a US$3.4 million salary-cap hit and has scored only 20 goals over the last three seasons, could be the odd man out if St. Louis prefers giving ice time and experience to Ylönen, 24, and Heineman, 21. Armia would have to clear waivers if he is sent to the AHL’s Laval Rocket, but it’s very unlikely another team would claim him with his contract.
Armia had no points and one shot in 15:32 of ice time against the Senators and was minus-2. He also took a bad penalty for holding with 22 seconds left in the third period and the Canadiens leading 3-2.
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St. Louis was asked this week while the team was in Mont-Tremblant what identity he wants his fourth line to have.
“I think more than anything you always think about your fourth line as an energy line, physical line, a line that can change the momentum of a game,” the coach said. “We’re definitely expecting that from our fourth line but, to me, that’s just the bare minimum. You got to be willing and able to do more than just that. What kind of identity? I don’t want them to play like a fourth line.
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“With how demanding this game is now, depth is everything, I feel,” St. Louis added. “Where like 30 years ago, I don’t think it was as important. But I think now it’s never been more important the way it’s so demanding physically this game right now that if you have that depth and you can spread your minutes a little bit over 82 games, I think it’s good.”
On Saturday morning, St. Louis said that the last pre-season game wasn’t only an audition for some players to make the opening-night lineup.
“You’re not just auditioning to have a jersey for Game 1,” the coach told reporters in Mont-Tremblant before the team headed to Ottawa. “You’re auditioning for are you going to be part of our depth throughout the season. That’s something that I think they know and I know they all want to make this team. But, at the end of the day, you need more than 20 guys to have success in a season. I really like our depth and we’ll see how it shakes out. I think we’re in a really good position depth wise.”
scowan@postmedia.com
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