NHL: Colorado Avalanche at Montreal Canadiens
Credit: Eric Bolte-Imagn Images

The Montreal Canadiens hosted the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday night, looking to capitalize on a downtick in results from the top team in the NHL.

It was a goal-filled game that featured little to no semblance of defensive structure, as the Habs emerged with a well-deserved 7-3 win. It’s worth noting the last time these two teams met, Colorado obliterated the Canadiens to the tune of 7-2, making it the perfect revenge game for Martin St-Louis’ troops.

Let’s dive into the highlights!

Defenceman Chemistry

St-Louis opted to pair Noah Dobson and Lane Hutson together, a situation that our analyst Roni Hermo analyzed in-depth earlier in the day.

As Roni suggested, it’s a combination that has its fair share of offensive potential. The pair immediately registered their names on the scoresheet versus the Avalanche, giving the Canadiens the ever important 1-0 lead less than a minute into the game.

Follow The Leader

Suzuki built on the momentum by scoring his first goal of the game, a second-chance powerplay opportunity assisted by Hutson and Ivan Demidov. It was his 17th goal of the year, not to mention his 60th point.

It was the first hint that special teams would play an influential role throughout the game.

The Canadiens captain extended the lead to 3-1 midway through the second, though this time around he scored shorthanded, putting him on pace for the ‘supernaturalexpialidocious hat trick‘, which is three consecutive goals in all three situations.

Full disclosure, I just invented that term, but it clearly deserves its own moniker given the difficulty level involved.

Have To Be Good To Be Lucky

The Canadiens have had their fair share of misfortunes this season, making their impressive streak of luck in the second period a refreshing change of pace.

To their credit, the Habs were controlling the play, and thus, put themselves in the ideal situation, but there’s no doubt a few bounces went their way, starting with Jake Evans’ seventh goal of the year.

Kirby Dach then took the chance to get in on the goal scoring action, finding the back of the net for the first time since November 8 versus the Utah Mammoth. His fifth goal of the year extended the Canadiens’ lead to 5-1.

It’s been a slow road back for Dach, but he’s shown encouraging signs that he’s starting to finally remove some of the rust that took over during his latest long-term injury.

Hockey Philanthropy

The Avalanche scored a pair of goals to close out the second period and open the third, reducing Montreal’s lead to just two goals in the process, far from a comfortable situation against the best team in the NHL.

Thankfully, the Avalanche decided to go with a defence-optional strategy on Thursday night, which led to Alex Carrier’s sixth goal of the season, and a 6-3 Canadiens lead.

It should be noted that Suzuki had an opportunity to shoot for the hat trick, but did not hesitate to send the puck to a streaking Carrier, another good example of his lead-by-example style of play.

Go For The Safety!

The Canadiens added insult to… well, insult, late in the third period, when Juraj Slafkovsky scored his 20th goal of the season, matching his career high in goals with almost a third of the season left to play.

The Montreal Canadiens are back in action on Saturday, facing the Sabres in Buffalo, with the puck drop scheduled for 7 pm ET.

All Montreal Canadiens statistics are 5v5 unless otherwise noted, via Natural Stat Trick.

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By Marc Dumont
Marc has been covering the Habs for over a decade. He previously worked for Journal Metro, The Athletic, The ... More about Marc Dumont

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