Of the 729 games the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs have played against each other, Wednesday night’s contest won’t go down as one of their classics.
But the game lived up to expectations in many ways.
What’s more predictable than a Michel Therrien-coached Canadiens team surrendering 37 shots, relying on their all-world goaltender Carey Price to bail them out on several occasions, and having their best forward Max Pacioretty carry the load by scoring two of their three goals?
We’ve seen this story before. Last season, it ended with 50 wins, 110 points, and a packed trophy case for Price. Pacioretty was eventually awarded the team’s captaincy. And Therrien, incidentally, was not named one of three Jack Adams Trophy finalists.
On Toronto’s side of the ledger, it was expected new coach and two-time Jack Adams nominee Mike Babcock wouldn’t take long to put his stamp on a Maple Leafs team that lacked discernible structure through a 2014-15 season forward Joffrey Lupul recently referred to as “hell”.
“Having the puck is way more fun,” Babcock recently said in a pre-season interview with MacLean’s Magazine. “Playing in the offensive zone is way more fun. So let’s build a structure and habits so that we can do that.”
Babcock may not have the personnel to dominate the possession game on a nightly basis as his talented team in Detroit had done for the better part of a decade before he came to Toronto, but the Leafs’ work habits that he says will enable him to leave the rink content on any given night were certainly apparent in Game 1.
A 66-55 advantage in shot attempts, a considerable surplus in scoring chances, and a 53 per cent success rate in the faceoff circle for Babcock’s team were all signs of his vision taking shape.
But as Babcock cautioned in May, on his first day on the job: “if you think there’s no pain coming, there’s pain coming.”
Attempting to start the season on a positive note months later and losing to a Canadiens team they outplayed is a first dose of pain for the Leafs to deal with. Avoiding chronic pain as the season moves along will be the ultimate challenge for Babcock and his team.
Without further ado, let’s go through the painless process of identifying five takeaways from Wednesday night’s game.
Galchenyuk passed his first test at centre
He played 14:35, rocked a 59 per cent Corsi for at even strength and scored the game-winning goal. Equally impressive was his showing in the faceoff circle, winning seven of his 10 draws.
“He was good in all facets of his game, which is a very encouraging sign,” Therrien said in French.
Perhaps what’s most encouraging about it is that Galchenyuk’s impressive performance came on the road, where he struggled last season in his 14-game audition at centre before eventually shifting back to wing.
The Canadiens are in Boston Saturday, Ottawa Sunday and Pittsburgh next Tuesday. We’ll have a proper indication of how smoothly Galchenyuk is adjusting to his new position by the end of that sample.
Babcock won the NHL’s first ever coach’s challenge
The officials could see that Leafs goaltender Jonathan Bernier had fallen awkwardly before attempting to slide over to stop Canadiens defenceman Jeff Petry from scoring on him in the second period. But they didn’t see Canadiens forward Tomas Plekanec’s stick catch Bernier in the neck, knocking him off balance and rendering him helpless on Petry’s shot—which they counted as a goal.
Coaches have assistants in the press box reviewing every play. They have the luxury of speaking to those men in real-time to guarantee they’re making the right decision in challenging a call. In a game in which you’re only allowed to call one timeout, losing it to a blown challenge isn’t acceptable.
Babcock obviously got the right intel on this one. It’ll be interesting to track which teams falter regularly in this department.
Quick sidebar on challenging calls: Therrien was asked after the game if he was reticent about using his timeout 2:36 into the third period, in a 1-1 game that could’ve easily been decided on a blown call later on.
“I had Galchenyuk and [Alexander] Semin on after an icing and they were burnt,” Therrien said in French. “The percentages that a goal call will be overturned are very minimal. It was different for the Leafs tonight, but if you look at the percentages from last season, the 14 or 15 times it happened to our team the goals were rarely overturned, so I didn’t hesitate to take my timeout tonight.”
One can only imagine Therrien’s reaction had he landed on the wrong side of the percentages later in the game.
That sequence of three saves by Carey Price
That was something to behold, wasn’t it?
It’s not just about the quality of those saves; it’s mostly about Price coming up with them at such a critical juncture of the game. The Canadiens were clinging to a 2-1 lead, there was 4:30 remaining in the third period, and Toronto was on the power play—where they appeared dangerous all night.
“We’re used to that,” said Pacioretty.
And there will certainly be more of “that” to come from Price over the next 81 games-plus.
A memorable first night as captain for Pacioretty
He scored his first goal of the season on Montreal’s first shot of the game—a wrist shot from his off-wing that trickled through Bernier.
Déjà vu: if you can believe it, Pacioretty did the same exact thing when the Canadiens and Leafs opened the 2014-15 season.
Playing in his 400th NHL game, he added an empty-net goal to give the Canadiens some much-needed insurance.
And after all the doubts about whether or not Pacioretty would struggle out of the gate due to a 12-week rehabilitation from an off-season knee-injury that kept him out of most of Montreal’s training camp, he responded quite well. He played over 18 minutes and scored on two of his five shot attempts—all of which landed on Bernier.
Montreal makes habit of beating both the Leafs and Babcock
The last time Toronto beat Montreal was January 18, 2014. Since then, the Canadiens have won seven straight games against their oldest rival.
Wednesday’s game also marked the seventh consecutive win for Therrien’s Canadiens over Babcock.
