Habs squander six chances with the man advantage in frustrating 4-0 defeat to the Sharks at the Bell Centre.
There seems to be a disconnect between coach Martin St. Louis’s vision of the Canadiens’ power play and the product on the ice.
St. Louis has been preaching quick strikes, two or three passes followed by a shot to the net.
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That wasn’t what happened Tuesday night as the Canadiens’ power play went 0-for-6 and managed only four shots on net while enjoying the man advantage.
The failure of the power play was a key factor in the 4-0 loss to the San Jose Sharks at the Bell Centre.
The Canadiens wasted a golden opportunity at the start of the third period. Trailing 1-0, they began the period with a 5-on-3 advantage for 55 seconds.
They had a meeting during the intermission and drew up a plan, but whatever it was, it never materialized on the ice. The Canadiens passed the puck for 43 seconds before Cole Caufield took the only shot during the two-man advantage and it was blocked.
“We were trying to be patient,” said Nick Suzuki, who was frustrated because the Sharks had a defender come out and take away his signature move of jumping into the play from the blue line.
St. Louis said he would have to review the tape to see where things went wrong, but he suggested there are times when you can’t wait for the perfect shot and you have to get pucks to the net. That was something Montreal failed to do.
It should be noted that, while the Sharks are near the bottom of the Pacific Division, they boast the No. 1 penalty-killing record in the NHL and they seem to enjoy blocking shots. They had 13 blocked shots in the first period, including seven on the PK. They finished the game with 28 blocks, which matched the number of pucks the Canadiens put on net.
While St. Louis expressed satisfaction with Montreal’s 5-on-5 play, the reality is the Canadiens were outscored 3-0 at even strength.
The success of the penalty-kill seemed to energize the Sharks, who had only 13 shots on goal over the first two periods. San Jose scored on its first two shots after getting back to full strength in the third period. Tomas Hertl scored at 2:29 and Logan Couture effectively ended any hope of a Montreal comeback when he made it 3-0 with his 13th goal at 3:44.
He beat Jake Allen with a shot through his pads, which is the kind of goal you don’t want to give up, particularly after St. Louis said earlier in the day that Allen is still the team’s No. 1 goaltender despite some shaky performances and some very good play from backup Sam Montembeault.
Hertl also scored an empty-net goal.
Giving up early goals has been a problem for the Canadiens this season, and the Sharks needed only 93 seconds to take a 1-0 lead. Matt Nieto managed to slip past Joel Edmundson and pushed the puck behind Allen after the goaltender stopped a wraparound attempt by Alexander Barabanov.
St. Louis challenged the goal for offside, but was overruled by the video review folks in Toronto.
“I knew we didn’t have a 100 per cent chance of winning,” St. Louis said. “It was close and I wanted to try to help our start to the game.”
Kaapo Kahkonen got the start in goal for San Jose because James Reimer is injured, and the Finn made 28 saves for the shutout.
phickey@postmedia.com
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Canadiens suffer power outage in 4-0 loss to the Sharks
