In the space of a few minutes, the Montreal Canadiens lost three places in the standings in the Eastern Association of the National Hockey League on Tuesday evening, going from second to fifth in the race of drafted teams.
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In Columbus, the Blue Jackets won 4-3 in a shootout against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Thus, the Ohio team occupies the eighth and last place giving access to the playoffs.
Mike Sullivan’s men held a 3-1 lead with less than eight minutes remaining in the game, but then fell apart when Dmitri Voronkov, with his second goal of the game, and Adam Fantilli brought both teams in overtime.
Kent Johnson and Kirill Marchenko then made the difference in the shootout.
At least the start of the period was excellent for the visitors. They first tied the score 51 seconds into the second period when Michael Bunting shook the strings.
The Penguins then took the lead in the first 30 seconds thanks to Rickard Rakell. The latter did it again almost 10 minutes later to double his club’s lead.
In the loss, Erik Karlsson and Sidney Crosby each had two assists. The captain of the Pennsylvania team also wrote another page in the history of the National Hockey League, winning a 15,183rd faceoff; a feat of arms that no one had previously achieved.
The Senators and the Red Wings neck and neck
We were treated to a similar scenario in another game of interest for the Habs, when the Detroit Red Wings won 3 to 2 in overtime against the Ottawa Senators.
Patrick Kane gave the Red Wings the victory in the extra period with the ninth goal of his campaign. The Senators can blame themselves, however, since they led 2 to 1 after 40 minutes of play following the successes of Thomas Chabot and Brady Tkachuk.
A perfect shot from Thomas Chabot –
Dylan Larkin opened the scoring, while Quebecer Joe Veleno equalized after five minutes in the third period.
Even if the Ottawa team had the opportunity with a victory to steal eighth place from the Canadian, this point obtained remains important, since it displays a better points percentage than the Canadian, the Blue Jackets and the Penguins.
As for the Red Wings, they are two points behind Columbus. Todd McLellan’s players have won their last five games.
The Flyers are losing ground
At the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, the Flyers blew a 2-1 lead against the Toronto Maple Leafs only to lose 3-2.
The first line of attack for the visitors did its thing again. Auston Matthews, on a great play from his friend Mitch Marner, leveled the score at 2 to 2 a few seconds after Travis Konecny’s second goal of the match.
The Marner-Matthews combination still works well –
That’s not all, because Matthew Knies continued his excellent momentum of recent matches by scoring his 16th goal of the year, which proved to be the winning goal. John Tavares was the other Maple Leafs scorer.
The Flyers are sixth (39 points) in the Metropolitan section, while Craig Berube’s men are first in the Atlantic with 56 points.
