Cole Caufield and Kirby Dach hit the target in the shootout and the Montreal club concluded its journey by beating the Colorado Avalanche 2-1, Saturday night at Ball Arena.
The Canadian (18-18-3) therefore concluded his holiday trip with a record of 4-1-0. He defeated the Florida Panthers, the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Vegas Golden Knights, then the Avalanche.
“You know when you face these teams that you must not shoot yourself in the foot, that you must play mature games,” said Canadian head coach Martin St-Louis. It’s a trip that can give a lot of confidence to our young team, who believe in themselves.”
It took a 38-save performance from Arvid Soderblom to deprive the Habs of a perfect trip, as they lost 4-2 on Friday against the Chicago Blackhawks — the worst team on the Bettman circuit.
Mackenzie Blackwood almost played the same trick on the Canadian, less than 24 hours later. Caufield finally tied the game late in the third period, then he and Dach came back in the shootout.
“The start of the match was not very easy. We were punished early and that gave them rhythm, St-Louis pointed out. Afterwards, we built our game. We didn’t shoot ourselves in the foot, we didn’t commit many actions that could help them.
“It took some big saves and a big goal in the third period,” he added.
Jakub Dobes stopped 22 shots in front of the Habs net. He was perfect against Jonathan Drouin and Mikko Rantanen in the shootout.
“I am very impressed. He faced two big challenges as a young goalie and he overcame them,” St-Louis said of Dobes, who shut out the Panthers to open the trip.
Rantanen scored in the first period for the Avalanche (24-15-1), who had won their previous six games. Lackwood stopped 23 shots.
The Canadian was without defender David Savard (upper body) and forward Patrik Laine (flu symptoms) for a second consecutive game.
For his part, forward Juraj Slafkovsky was benched during the second portion of the third period.
The Habs will be back in front of their fans on Monday, when they host the Vancouver Canucks at the Bell Centre.
By trying
For a second time in as many evenings, the Habs showed indiscipline, allowing their opponent to open the scoring on the power play.
This time, Rantanen hit the target at 9:01, deflecting a sharp pass from Nathan MacKinnon into the opening while he was set up at the mouth of the net.
Dobes showed up moments later, frustrating Ross Colton, who had escaped.
The Canadian finally fired a dangerous shot on goal toward Blackwood with a little over a minute left in the first period. Caufield was able to shoot from the slot after a nice exchange started by Nick Suzuki and Slafkovsky.
The Avalanche threatened early in the second period. Dobes twice stopped dangerous shots from Drouin in the same sequence. The Czech goaltender also barely made the save against Colton during a two-on-one attack by the Avalanche.
Dobes got some help from Mike Matheson late in the second period, when the Montreal defenseman blocked a point-blank shot from MacKinnon. Matheson appeared to be injured during the sequence, but he was at his post after the second intermission.
The Canadian had two great chances to tie the game early in the third period. Blackwood made a good save against Josh Anderson, then Jake Evans missed the target as he took advantage of a return to the slot.
Evans came up against Blackwood a little later, after a good staging by Joel Armia and Emil Heineman.
For his part, Dobes kept the Canadian in the game with another good glove save against Colton.
The Canadian finally tied the game with 6:35 left, shortly after a turnover caused by Evans. Suzuki set the table for Caufield during a two-on-one attack with a nice cross-field pass.
Christian Dvorak came close to giving the Habs the lead a few moments later. His shot, however, hit the handle of Blackwood’s stick.
Dobes then stole a sure goal from Rantanen, who thought he had an open net in front of him.
Kaiden Guhle could have ended the debate early in overtime, when he escaped after leaving the penalty box. Blackwood, however, stopped the Canadian defender’s shot with his glove.
Dobes played the same trick on Artturi Lehkonen a little later, as the Avalanche forward came out of the penalty box. Dobes made the save by locking the pads.
Caufield, thanks to a shot from the side of the shield, then Dach, by aiming from the side of the mitt, finally allowed the Habs to slip away with the shootout victory.
