Montreal lost to Arizona 3-2 on Thursday – its third loss in four games (1-2-1) as life without goaltender Carey Price (lower-body injury) is becoming more hard.
Advertisement
“I liked our speed”, coach Dave Tippett said.
The 25-year-old rookie was making a ninth straight start.
With three losses in their last four games (1-2-1), the news of the return of all-star netminder Carey Price could not have come sooner for the Montreal Canadiens.
However, Price has not dressed in a game since, and the only update we have received from the team is that he would be out at least a week, and when that was up we were told he would be out at least another week.
3-1 Arizona: Montreal finally got on the board thanks to a broken outlet play by the Coyotes.
ABOUT THE CANADIENS (14-4-2): Dustin Tokarski is expected to make his first start of the season in goal Friday after Mike Condon fell to 5-2-2 while replacing Price, the reigning victor of the Hart and Vezina trophies who returned to practice Wednesday but doesn’t appear quite ready to return. “He’s progressing, we’re glad”, Canadiens head coach Michel Therrien said then, via Eric Engels of Sportsnet. He’s sitting on a. 927 raw save percentage and has a 5-4-0 record this year; he and backup Greiss have allowed almost identical numbers of goals on almost identical numbers of shots, and the duo have led the Metropolitan Division club in Brooklyn to a 10-6-3 record early on.
“He’s definitely a big reason for that because he’s our best player, but we had a lot to prove to the league and to people that, without Carey, we can play against the top teams”. He allowed eight goals in five starts after Price was injured but permitted 16 goals in the next four. “We’ve done a good job of it so far but I think the last couple of games we didn’t play for 60 minutes”. Tobias Rieder took a shot on the far side that Mike Condon was unable to corral, and Shane Doan batted the puck out of the air for his fifth of the season.
Pacioretty got one back when Gallagher’s pass went off a skate and the Canadiens captain was able to backhand it inside the right post at 16:59.
Weise deflected Andrei Markov’s shot in at 19:09 with Condon pulled for an extra attacker.
“Whenever you’re away you always feel secluded and not part of it, no matter how much the guys try to cheer you up”, said Price.
Advertisement
NOTES: Montreal forward Torrey Mitchell left in the third period with a undisclosed injury….
