About Last Night: Did Fix You fix the Habs on Saturday night? – Montreal Gazette

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Lights will guide you home And ignite your bones And I will try to fix you —  Chris Martin

The Montreal Canadiens have been stuck in reverse for much of the 2021-2022 regular season, and maybe it’s because they replaced their intro music at the Bell Centre? At the behest of injured defenceman Joel Edmundson, they changed it back to Fix You by Coldplay, and lo and behold, the home team won 6-3 against the Nashville Predators on Sunday. Were their bones ignited by a certain song, or was it mere coincidence?

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Rolling seven defencemen probably wasn’t the difference-maker, but that’s another thing they tried Saturday. Chris Wideman returned to the lineup and got two assists. Michael Pezzetta sat this one out.

Snake-bitten Artturi Lehkonen finally ended his season-long scoring drought at 2:41 in the first. Brendan Gallagher backed into the zone and dropped the puck to David Savard, while Lehkonen charged the net. After a give-and-go between Savard and Jake Evans, Lehkonen was in front to pocket the rebound for an early 1-0 lead. The Habs were outshot 15-9 in the opening frame, but starter Sam Montembeault stood tall.

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The offensive floodgates opened for Montreal in the second. Just over a minute in, Josh Anderson connected with Christian Dvorak on a pinpoint backhand pass. From one knee, Dvorak one-timed the puck past Juuse Saros for a 2-0 advantage.

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Just over two minutes later, and nine seconds into a power play, Brendan Gallagher was left all alone in front to redirect a one-touch pass from Jonathan Drouin into the open cage to make it 3-0.

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The midpoint of the period was the Ryan Poehling show. He scored his first of two at 9:31, after Wideman at the point found him coming down the left side. Poehling’s shot from the dot beat Saros to extend Montreal’s lead to four.

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Only 37 seconds later, Poehling did it again. Tyler Toffoli entered zone, hung back and found Poehling streaking in. The one-timer goal scored us chicken wings and sent Saros packing in favour of backup David Rittich.

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Mathieu Olivier looked to get a listless Predators squad going by skating into Montembeault’s kitchen and drawing the ire of Anderson before the end of the second. The pair dropped the gloves. More fisticuffs ensued, with Mark Borowiecki and Dvorak getting matching minors and 10-minute misconducts. The period ended with the Habs up 5-0.

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Matt Duchene scored a natural hat-trick in the third period to prevent a Montreal cakewalk. His first came on the power play with Toffoli in the box. His quick shot in full stride through a screening Ben Chiarot ended Montembeault’s shutout bid.

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The Predators went back on the power play when a bloodied Lehkonen was sent to the box after losing his stick and holding a Predator. Eight seconds later, Duchene scored his second with the man-advantage, this time with a one-timer in the slot. The Habs went back on the penalty kill after Chiarot was called for an ambiguous roughing call. That penalty was killed.

Duchene got his hat-trick from the side of the net with under four minutes left and his goalie headed to the bench for an extra attacker.

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With 90 seconds remaining, the Habs closed the leak when Toffoli scored in an empty net to make it 6-3. Potentially frightening third period aside, the Canadiens rebounded from their worst loss of the season with at least a very convincing 40 minutes. They get a break until Wednesday, when they hit the road to face the Washington Capitals.

The Liveblog commenters should be commended for sticking with the Habs through thick and thin this season, and they breathed a collective sigh of relief after the Habs held on to beat the Preds. Before their thoughts, I’ll leave you with another couplet from Coldplay’s Fix You that may remind some of sports fandom in general: “When you love someone, but it goes to waste. Could it be worse?”

3. “Much better effort. First 40 was good. Last 20, not so much. Good thing we got a 5 goal lead. Goes to show you, this team still needs to play a full 60 minutes. Nice to see Poeling get a couple, and good feisty game by Leks. I think the MB talk helped. One game at a time. It’s only one game, but there were good signs tonight. Nashville might have been a bit tired on the last game of the road trip. Let’s see what next game brings, hopefully they can build on this win. At least management called the players out for a change.” -Chris James

2. “The call on Lekhonen was a total joke. Chiarot call not much better. That said gotta kill the penalties. Thank goodness Poehling popped the 2 that turned to be the margin. Good for Sam M who has had a very rough time.” -Chris and Schooley

1. “Nice to get a different result. They deserved this win. Take a day to enjoy it and back to work.” -Kelly Morgan