Lethargic Canadiens have no answer for Matthew Tkachuk and resurgent Florida Panthers

Florida 5, Montreal 2. "We struggled to get anything going," Gallagher says.

The Canadiens were eliminated from playoff contention — hardly earth-shattering news — on Tuesday at Philadelphia. Two nights later, they looked like a team that already had checked out for the season.

Despite opening the scoring and facing a team that had played on the road 24 hours earlier, the Canadiens were sloppy and sluggish against the Florida Panthers, losing 5-2 Thursday night at the Bell Centre.

“We just looked flat,” Montreal head coach Martin St. Louis conceded. “We’re getting down the stretch here of the season. Obviously Florida’s desperation, where they are, we have to try and match that. We have to find a way to manufacture that a little bit. Our emotion level probably isn’t the same as them, based on what’s at stake for either team.

“It’s hard to fake it. We’re going to have to find a way here to bring that energy down the stretch and try to finish on a good note.”

There’s no denying the Panthers, who won the President’s Trophy last season as the best team in the regular-season but are now battling for their playoff lives, have more at stake than do the Canadiens, merely playing for personal pride. Florida, 38-31-7, remains one point behind Pittsburgh for the final wild-card position in the Eastern Conference, and has played one more game than the Penguins, who shut out Nashville 2-0 on Thursday.

But the Canadiens also were a well-rested group. St. Louis gave the team Wednesday off following games at the beginning of the week at Buffalo and Philadelphia.

And Montreal scored the all-important opening goal, 83 seconds into the contest, when rookie Sean Farrell, playing his second NHL game and making his home debut, sent a weak shot from a bad angle that somehow squeezed between goaltender Alex Lyon’s right side and the near post.

With the goal, Farrell became the 40th Montreal player to score in his first career home game. Of those, he now can lay claim to being the second-fastest in franchise history after Odie Cleghorn, who required only 60 seconds in a game played Dec. 21, 1918.

Otherwise, there was little else that moved the faithful until Rafaël Harvey-Pinard scored a power-play goal late in the third period, making the score 4-2, with Sam Montembeault on the bench for an extra attacker.

It was Harvey-Pinard’s 14th goal this season, and his fifth in four games. He has required only 32 games to produce that total and, by doing so, joined the injured Kirby Dach in fourth place among Montreal scorers. Harvey-Pinard has required 26 fewer games to reach that plateau.

The Bell Centre spectators have been remarkably patient this season watching a rebuilding team that continues being crippled by injuries. But even they might have finally reached their breaking point, braying cascading down the stands in the second period during a futile Canadiens power play.

“We struggled to get anything going,” Brendan Gallagher said. “It seemed our execution wasn’t there. Sloppy is probably one way to put it. We couldn’t execute a couple passes in a row. It seemed like guys wanted to. For whatever reason we didn’t have it tonight.

“We were eliminated a couple days ago. We’re no dummies. We understood at a certain point of the season you’re playing for something other than playoff position. There’s still a lot you can learn from these games. There’s a lot you can take from them. You want to take advantage of every single night. It was disappointing tonight. I thought it was a big opportunity for us to play a good team. We weren’t great.”

While defenceman Mike Matheson logged a team-high 29:16 of ice time, he also was a minus-3, as were Harvey-Pinard and Nick Suzuki. Mike Hoffman was the clubhouse leader, at minus-4. At one point in the first period, the Canadiens were being outshot 11-2 and generated only 20 shots against Lyon, who was playing on consecutive nights for the injured Sergei Bobrovsky.

Suzuki also lost the puck in his own zone midway through the third period, Anton Lundell scoring his second goal of the game on the ensuing breakaway.

Matthew Tkachuk paced the winners with three goals — the last into an empty net — and an assist. He now has 38 goals and 101 points, becoming the fourth player in NHL history to record 100-plus points in consecutive seasons after changing teams. It was Tkachuk’s 32nd multi-point game this season.

Florida won all four games between the teams this season, outscoring Montreal 27-11. The Canadiens suffered their second consecutive loss and will attempt to get back on track Saturday night at home, against Carolina, as this four-game homestand continues.

hzurkowsky@postmedia.com

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