About Last Night: The Montreal Canadiens were limited offensively by the Leafs – Montreal Gazette

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The same high-flying offence from the Montreal Canadiens that wowed fans at the start of the season has hit a bit of a snag.

Montreal has been held to two goals in each of their last three games after a 4-2 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs last night. The Canadiens were also held to a pair of goals in back-to-back games against the Ottawa Senators, a team that many (myself included) thought might be left in the dust due to Montreal’s league-best offence.

The Canadiens still lead the league in goals for per game, but it was once above four goals a game. It’s since fallen to 3.85.

Wednesday night, The Canadiens played against a Toronto Maple Leafs squad that tightened themselves up defensively and, despite playing a first period where they couldn’t get many shots on Carey Price, kept the Canadiens’ most deadly offensive weapons at bay. The same Leafs who allowed four goals from the Canadiens in their first match-up of the season.

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The Canadiens were able to get a number of goals and chances thanks to the space allotted to them against teams like Vancouver, where it felt like the Canadiens had breakaway after breakaway, while also breaking through defences with outlet passes. We haven’t seen much of these in the last three games, and certainly not many, if any, against Toronto.

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Allow to me give Jack Han, a former member of the Toronto Maple Leafs Player Development staff, a hat tip here for tweeting about the Leafs’ defensive scheme against the Canadiens. The Leafs had the Canadiens going up against a 1-1-3 that didn’t allow them much room and even led to turnovers in the neutral zone.

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When the Canadiens were in the offensive zone, the offence didn’t spend as much time as they’d like to crashing the net and fired many shots from the wing and blueline. Far shots that didn’t cause Leafs goalie Frederik Andersen too much trouble either because he saved them, or they went wide of the goal.

The Canadiens did lead the way in high-danger chances (10-9) but only came away with two goals to show for it. Forward Corey Perry even feels his team did not do a sufficient job of generating more traffic in front of Andersen.

“I think he saw most of his shots,” Perry said. “They played a solid defensive game and you’ve got to give credit when they play well. I think we can be better at limiting our turnovers and playing that game down low and getting to the front of the net, crashing the front of the net.

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“Every goal, you see where they were scored tonight, in that 5-10 ft. area of the crease. You have to go there.”

The Canadiens, who were known at the beginning of the season as a team that applied relentless pressure on their opponents, have shown that when that same pressure it brought upon them, it could lead to more mistakes. Even when they’re on the defensive.

“We had the puck four times on our blade and we didn’t get out and (we) turned it over,” Canadiens head coach Claude Julien said.

The Leafs played a good game against the Canadiens by limiting their offensive chances while also forcing them to make mistakes defensively. This comes after the Ottawa Senators played some of their best hockey of the season while also emphasizing more defense in their play.

With the Edmonton Oilers on the horizon, the Canadiens will need to come up with a way for their offence to breakout once more while continuing to keep their big guns in check.

Toronto looked at the game film from Ottawa. Get in front of Habs, take away time and space and neutralize our speed. Julien needs to figure out the response because it is not hard to beat us right now. Edmonton tomorrow and they will want to get even. — Derek Stevens

Why did the Habs wait to be down 3-1 to start playing with some intensity? — James Toth

The Leafs are shooting. We aren’t. — Carin Latzel

This is NOT the same team we saw early on in the season. A lot of passengers