MONTREAL – During its reconstruction, the Canadiens will not dominate several categories of statistics in the NHL. And, to give himself a chance of winning, he should definitely not lead for the penalty minutes as is currently the case.
No wonder CH was overwhelmed with frustration once morest the Florida Panthers. The five penalties imposed on the Montreal troops in the second period led to four goals for the visitors.
Montreal finished its game with 53 penalty minutes and an unequivocal score of 6 to 2.
“Obviously we were frustrated with the way we were playing. It’s difficult when you have the best intentions, but it doesn’t go the way you want, ”testified Michael Matheson who had to throw down the gloves once morest Matthew Tkachuk since the Panthers had not digested his blow to Eric Staal .
“We were frustrated with the way we played and our penalties. You just can’t win with all these penalties,” admitted Joel Edmundson.
But the frustration did not only come from this recurring indiscipline, it was also linked to blows deemed bastards by the Panthers and in particular by Radko Gudas.
“I think he’s a bastard player and he’s been like that throughout his career. But that’s his way of playing. Except if you play like that and try to hurt players, you should at least answer for your actions,” Anderson said without embarrassment.
Anderson wanted to go following Gudas late in the game when the latter tried to hit Kirby Dach with a knee in revenge for a bodycheck taken.
“He’s aiming for his opponents’ knees the whole game. Yes, he plays tough and I’ll give him that, but he has to be held accountable,” Arber Xhekaj added to the ongoing Gudas debate.
In the final third, the emotion was palpable in the Bell Centre. Needless to describe the scenes of violence, but the players of the Canadiens and their coach retained the spirit of solidarity displayed.
“They have taken over our amphitheater. Our penalties hurt a lot, but in the third period, we didn’t want to let our teammates down,” Anderson said.
“I asked the boys to finish the game, to stand together. In the first period, physical games occurred and wrote the rest of this game, we expected that a bit, ”said Martin St-Louis.
what they said
“I thought I had a good chance. You think it will come back 0-0, but you put them back on the power play. Our penalty kill has been better recently, but we had a bit of a hard time in this game,” St-Louis noted of the challenge.
“We have to play better than that, especially following two good performances,” lamented Xhekaj.
“It was good to be on the bench at the start of the third period because I was pretty angry at the end of the second period. I had been hit viciously,” Xhekaj added.
“We did a good job of sticking together, we are a tightly knit group,” concluded Suzuki.
