Canadiens Game Day: Eric Staal excited about chance to face Leafs
Bergevin #Bergevin
Paul Byron must have felt like an unwanted man at times this season with the Canadiens.
Three times the Canadiens placed Byron on waivers to save money on the salary cap, risking losing the 32-year-old veteran forward to another NHL team. The Canadiens insisted it was only a salary-cap move, but they probably wouldn’t have minded if another team took Byron’s contract off their hands. His four-year, US$13.6-million contract has two more seasons after this one remaining with an annual salary-cap hit of $3.4 million.
On Thursday night, the Canadiens were very happy they didn’t lose Byron after he scored the game-winning goal short-handed in a 2-1 victory over the Maple Leafs in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series in Toronto.
It was a highlight-reel goal and it epitomized the type of determined, never-give-up game that Byron plays.
Byron sped past the Leafs’ Rasmus Sandin in a race for a loose puck at Toronto’s blue line and was then tripped by the defenceman as he drove to the net. While sliding on his knees, Byron was able to take the puck from his backhand to his forehand and then chip it over Leafs goalie Jack Campbell at 12:44 of the third period.
“Committed” is the word teammate Josh Anderson used to describe Byron after the game.
That’s a perfect word to describe the 5-foot-9, 165-pound Byron.
“He’s got a lot of heart,” Anderson said. “He’s been through a lot this year. He’s a really, really hard-working guy on and off the ice. He doesn’t really show that he’s defeated in any way. He just comes to the rink each and every day and puts in the hard work. So it was really nice to see him get rewarded tonight and he played amazing for us.”
Byron is a class act on and off the ice, so it was nice to see.
Good start for Habs
Anderson opened the scoring for the Canadiens at 12:08 of the first period when he took a nice pass from Eric Staal at centre ice, split the defence and beat Campbell with a quick shot to the glove side.
The Canadiens had 28 hits in the first period and ended up outhitting the Leafs 55-27 in the game.
“There’s a lot of emotion … there’s a lot on the line,” Anderson said about playing in the playoffs. “It’s the best time of the year and you got to show up ready to play. You got to be ready by puck drop. Like I said many times, it’s a totally different game out there and you got to bring that energy level for a full 60.
“We wanted to start the game off being physical, especially on their top guys and their top D pairing,” Anderson added. “Just know that we were coming. I thought everyone bought right into the system, the game plan, and we got to keep going.”
Anderson failed to register a point in the last 11 regular-season games, but was a dominant force all night in Game 1 against the Leafs.
William Nylander scored for the Leafs at 4:28 of the second period to tie the score 1-1, banging in a rebound while standing beside goalie Carey Price, who made 35 saves in the game as Toronto outshot Montreal 36-30.
Price missed the last 13 games of the regular season after suffering a concussion during the first period of a game in Edmonton on April 19. Price did play one game for the AHL’s Laval Rocket Monday night at the Bell Centre, allowing two goals on 15 shots in two periods of play in a 2-0 loss to the Toronto Marlies.
The Marlies were able to score one more goal on Price than the Leafs were.
“It was nice to get some game time and to diversify my Hockeydb (stats website) portfolio,” Price said with a grin.
While Price’s regular-season play has been inconsistent in recent seasons, he has been able to elevate his game in the playoffs.
Last season, Price had a 1.78 goals-against average and a .936 save percentage in the postseason when the Canadiens were eliminated by the Philadelphia Flyers in the first round after upsetting the Pittsburgh Penguins in the qualifying round.
In 2017, when the Canadiens were eliminated by the New York Rangers in the first round, Price had a 1.86 goals-against average and a .933 save percentage.
Hard to understand ‘The Code’
There was a scary scene midway through the first period when the Leafs’ John Tavares was bodychecked by Canadiens defenceman Ben Chiarot and as the Leafs captain fell to the ice Corey Perry’s knee caught him in the head. Perry, who was back-checking, tried to jump out of the way of Tavares but wasn’t able to and his knee knocked Tavares out.
The Leafs captain had to be placed on a stretcher, but was thankfully able to give a thumbs-up sign as he was taken off the ice. After the game, Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said Tavares was conscious, was communicating and that his tests were “clear” but that he’d remain in hospital overnight.
Even though the collision was obviously an accident, the Leafs’ Nick Foligno felt compelled to fight Perry as soon as the puck dropped for the next faceoff as a result of hockey’s old-school and outdated “Code”.
“Our captain is laying on the ice,” Foligno said after the game. “They would have done the same if (it was) their captain. (The hit) wasn’t malicious. (The fight) takes away any grey (area). Perry’s a big boy. It just allows everyone to go back and play.”
If that’s the case, then why did the Leafs’ Wayne Simmonds want Perry to fight again in the second period?
Is that also part of “The Code”? How many fights will be enough?
Perry said he felt sick to his stomach after seeing what happened to Tavares and called it a scary situation.
“He got hit and I was coming in the (neutral) zone,” Perry said about what happened. “I tried to jump over him and, unfortunately, I caught my knee on his head. I don’t know what else to do there. I tried to jump and it was an unfortunate incident. I know Johnny pretty well and I just hope he’s OK.
“I’ll reach out to him and talk to him and hopefully he’s OK,” Perry added. “And then after that Nick came up to me and he said: ‘Let’s just settle this now … let’s not wait.’ You got to do what you got to do.”
As Tavares was being taken off the ice on the stretcher, Perry skated over to him and said something.
“I’ve played with John a few times,” Perry said. “The Olympics, the World Cup here in Toronto. I went over and just gave him a little pat on the pants and said: ‘Get better.’ It’s a scary situation when that happens. You never want to see that. Unfortunately, it did happen. Like I said, I’ll reach out to him and make sure he’s doing all right.”
It will be interesting to see if the Leafs still want to fight Perry in Game 2 Saturday night in Toronto (7 p.m., CBC, SN, TVA Sports, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM).
Who knows what “The Code” says?
I told you so?
Canadiens head coach Dominique Ducharme took a lot of heat — including from this corner — for his decision to leave Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Cole Caufield and Alexander Romanov out of the lineup for Game 1, opting for experience over youth.
After the Game 1 win, Ducharme was asked if he felt like telling some people: “I told you so.”
“I’m happy to know that I’m taking heat,” Ducharme said. “I didn’t know. I’m not watching or listening or reading too much.
“We’re confident,” he added. “Like I said, we have depth and we’re going to use it and we focus on the things we can control. I think tonight we did a good job, playing our game the way we want to play it. We want to take that and make it better for Saturday and we’ll see who’s in, who’s out.”
When asked how the Canadiens were able to win the game, Ducharme said: “Because we were solid from start to finish. There’s always ups and downs in the game. I thought our second period was a little bit slower and Carey did a great job tonight … he was solid. And we were always a team … I thought we were pretty consistent on both sides and that’s the type of game that we want to play.”
Canadiens centre Jake Evans left the game early with an injury and his status for Game 2 is uncertain.
“The first thing we got to know is we don’t think it could be like too long … but how long is something not clear yet,” Ducharme said about Evans’s status. “So we’ll see tomorrow, we’ll see Saturday and we’ll go from there.”
Power-play problems
The Canadiens’ penalty-killers had a great night, killing off all four Toronto power plays and getting the game-winning goal from Byron short-handed.
However, the Canadiens’ power play was brutal — again — going 0-for-5.
“Our PK did a good job against their power play,” Ducharme said. “Their PK did a good job. For sure, we want to take those opportunities and make them pay. So we’ll go back at it and work at it. We had a great chance on the rush in the second period (by Joel Armia), didn’t bury it. But there was a lot of things that we can do better and we’ll address that tomorrow.”
A long time waiting
This marks the first time Montreal and Toronto are meeting in the playoffs since 1979 when the Canadiens swept the Leafs in the Stanley Cup quarter-finals en route to winning their fourth straight Stanley Cup.
Toronto still hasn’t beaten Montreal in a playoff game since May 2, 1967, when the Leafs won the Stanley Cup with a 3-1 win over the Canadiens in Game 6 of the final at Maple Leaf Gardens. The Leafs haven’t won another Stanley Cup since, while the Canadiens’ last Stanley Cup came in 1993. No Canadian team has won the Cup since.
“Honestly, it means a lot,” the Canadiens’ Eric Staal said about the Montreal-Toronto matchup. “I grew up in Thunder Bay, Ont., watched the Leafs every Saturday night. One of those things throughout my career, every time I got a chance to play against Toronto or against Montreal those are the teams that I grew up watching and fell in love with the game. So now, at this point of my career, the opportunity to play them in the playoffs, it doesn’t get much better. You got to embrace it, you got to enjoy it, you got to have fun, play free, play hard, and play the way we know we can and hope that in the end we get the result we want and we move on.”
The 36-year-old Staal added that he isn’t taking this opportunity for granted.
“I have never not enjoyed lacing up the skates and being out on the ice with my teammates and playing in the NHL,” he said. “I’ve never for once in my life taken it for granted. Habs-Leafs, first round of the playoffs … beside the fact that there’s going to be no fans in the building it doesn’t get much better. It’s still going to be very, very intense. We wish it was full houses both buildings, but it’s the reality we’re living in. I’m going to enjoy every moment, no question.”
Dynamic duo
If the Canadiens are going to upset the Leafs, they’ll need to find a way to contain Toronto’s dynamic duo of Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner.
They did a good job of that in Game 1 as Matthews and Marner were both pointless and minus-1. Matthews had a game-high eight shots on goal and Marner had five.
Matthews led the NHL with 41 goals this season and finished fifth in the NHL scoring race with 41-25-66 totals, one point behind Marner, who finished fourth with 20-47-67 totals. In the 10 regular-season against the Canadiens, Matthews had 7-7-14 totals and Marner had 4-7-11 totals.
“When (Matthews) plays with Marner he’s the guy that makes everything … he stirs the drink,” Byron said ahead of Game 1. “(Marner) always has the puck. He can always find (Matthews) — even when he’s not looking at him he finds great passing lanes to him right on the tape. It’s a great hockey line. They’re dangerous. …. When you’re on the ice you got to know you’re up against them and for us I think the recipe doesn’t change. We got to stay above them, attack, put lots of pressure and just try and eliminate as much time and space. They’re great players and sometimes they’re going to make plays, but you got to eliminate those (things) as much as you can.”
Byron said the key to stopping Matthews is somewhat similar to playing against the Edmonton Oilers’ Connor McDavid, who led the NHL in scoring the season with 33-72-105 totals, in that you have to take away time and space. But Byron added that they are two different types of players.
“When (McDavid) doesn’t play with Leon (Draisaitl), McDavid’s all over the ice,” Byron said. “He’s very dynamic, great skater, he can kind of turn nothing into something at any given point in the game. Such an electric player. Auston, I watch him play, very, very intelligent, a sneaky good skater, strong. He just finds areas to get himself open to shoot. McDavid you’re more worried about skating and Matthews you’re more worried about where the shot is.”
Some stats
Jeff Petry led the Canadiens in ice time with 23:16, followed by Shea Weber with 22:50. Nick Suzuki led the forwards with 20:40, followed by Tyler Toffoli with 20:08 and Phillip Danault with 19:35.
Weber led the Canadiens with six shots, while Anderson had four and Petry had three. Byron and Artturi Lehkonen tied for the team lead in hits with seven, while Joel Edmundson had five.
Edmundson, who finished the regular season tied for fifth in the NHL in plus/minus during at plus-28, was plus-2 against the Leafs and so was his defence partner Petry.
Danault went 15-12 on the team-leading 27 faceoffs he took (56 per cent). Suzuki went 12-13 on faceoffs (48 per cent), Staal went 3-3 (50 per cent) and Evans went 4-1 (80 per cent).
The schedule
Here’s the rest of the schedule for the Canadiens-Leafs first-round playoff series:
Game 2: Saturday, May 22, 7 p.m., at Toronto
Game 3: Monday, May 24, 7 p.m., at Montreal
Game 4: Tuesday, May 25, time TBD, at Montreal
Game 5: Thursday, May 27, time TBD, at Toronto, if necessary
Game 6: Saturday, May 29, time TBD, at Montreal, if necessary
Game 7: Monday, May 31, time TBD, at Toronto, if necessary
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