On Thursday night, the Montreal Canadiens were at Madison Square Garden to open the final month of the regular season against the New York Rangers. It was also the fourth game of a five-game road trip. The result was a 3-2 win.
There are a few things worth taking about.
Mr. Saturday Night will have a chance to score #50 on Saturday night.
Another two goal game for Cole Caufield. Hitting the 50 goal mark is not really a question now – the only question is when. Perhaps he’d rather do it at home on Sunday, but can he resist scoring on a Saturday night?
We can’t write enough about the dominance of that top line since they were reunited. What a play by Slafkovsky to set up Caufield’s first goal! Each player in the trio is chasing their own milestones.
Goaltending is suddenly a strength in Montreal.
Where would the Canadiens be in the standings if they had even average goaltending earlier in the season? Now they’re in a place where they can roll out their “back-up” for two of three games.
The Habs did not slip into their tendency to play down to a lesser opponent.
After winning six games in a row, including two wins against the Hurricanes and a win against the Lightning, it would have been easy to take the foot off the pedal a little and let this game get away from them. It’s tough to bring the emotion every night in a long season, but the Montreal Canadiens still brought it to MSG.
A less mature Habs team from not so long ago would have won the big games against the top teams, and then dropped the ball for the winnable games. We’re watching them grow up and it’s beautiful.
The road trip ends on Saturday night in New Jersey. A sweep would be special.
Hab At Her 