Author: Ron Reusch

Let me break out a couple of old adages.

“A win is a win – take it.” and “Never look a gift horse in the mouth”

That said, all of the things that seem to have troubled the Canadiens this season came to the fore in their 5-4 shootout win over Las Vegas Saturday night. For the fifth time in the last nine games the Canadiens blew a third period lead. This time they got away with it thanks to Ilya Kovalchuk and Tomas Tatar in the shootout.

Years ago I gave up trying to figure out why NHL teams behave the way they do.

Wednesday night at the Bell Centre in front of 20,000 of their fans they were a horrible mess against Chicago.  On the road 24 hours later they were top-to-bottom dominant in a 4-1 win over the Philadelphia Flyers.  

If you have the answer as to why teams can blow cold one night and hot the next, I’m sure there are coaches all over the world who would like hear from you.

Two years ago the Canadiens were not only a terribly constructed team, worse they were boring. Last season few called them boring, but they missed the playoffs again. One constant from both of those teams was the fact that they were fairly prolific winners on home ice.

This season the Canadiens are sinking back to their 2017-2018 level of play with the difference being their home ice record. Having witnessed the Canadiens 16th loss in 25 home dates, fans sent the Canadiens off the ice under an avalanche of boos. With one win at home over the last month, the patience of Montreal fans, who pay the second highest ticket prices in the league, has obviously reached it’s limit.

It’s all about Carey Price.

Face it, with the Canadiens it’s always about Carey Price.

When Price is in control of his game, the Canadiens have a good chance of winning. When he’s not we get things like eight game losing streaks.

Thanks to Price and only to Price, the latest losing streak ended with Saturday night’s 2-1 overtime victory over the Senators in Ottawa.

Coming off the loss to Detroit Price admitted he was “beyond frustrated” at the way he was playing. He channeled that frustration against the Senators.

Even as the Canadiens were taking their 2-0 lead early in the second period there was a kind of inevitability about this game.  Somehow they were going to find a way to lose on home ice once again.  

It’s not that they were playing badly. They weren’t.  But they weren’t that great either despite a decided shots on goal advantage.  The steady offensive pressure wasn’t there and Edmonton has a killer attack when they put their collective mind to it.  And in the third period the Oilers did just that. Three unanswered goals and the Canadiens went down for the eighth consecutive time; their second eight game losing streak in two months.