Canadiens vs. Canucks game recap: Moving up a rung in the lottery order - Habs Eyes on the Prize | Canada News Media
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Canadiens vs. Canucks game recap: Moving up a rung in the lottery order – Habs Eyes on the Prize

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3 years ago

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It sure didn’t look like the Montreal Canadiens got the kick in the pants that typically comes from changes like what we witnessed on Sunday with the firing of Marc Bergevin. They stepped onto the ice the same disconnected group of players who had started the season with just six wins. The Vancouver Canucks came out with all the momentum despite playing a day earlier, jumping out to four shots early and only being denied a goal by some point-blank saves from Jake Allen.

Allen was no stranger to such an onslaught, facing 50 shots the game before and being the deciding factor in a win over the Pittsburgh Penguins. He was prepared to hold his team in at the start, doing so with little help on the defensive side.

Michael Pezzetta injected a bit of life in his team and the Bell Centre crowd with a big hit in the opening minutes, but it wasn’t enough to turn the tide on its own. The Canucks very nearly found a goal by keeping the puck out of Allen’s reach in a scramble in front of the net, but the referee lost sight of the puck and bailed out the home side with a whistle just before the puck was put in.

With shots 10-1 for Vancouver, another attack earned a power play when Nick Suzuki was called for tripping up Elias Pettersson. Pettersson took the punishment into his own hands by scoring 12 seconds into Suzuki’s sentence, a rare goal for the 23rd-ranked power play versus the league’s 29th-ranked penalty kill.

The Canadiens earned a sarcastic cheer when Tyler Toffoli registered the team’s second shot after the goal, but it did herald a shift in momentum starting from the midpoint of the period. It was followed soon afterward by a blue-line shot off the post from Ben Chiarot as the Canadiens slowly began to even up the shot counter by shifting the play to the offensive zone.

Fittingly, in a period that was a story of two halves, Montreal got its happy ending. With 80 seconds to go, Jonathan Drouin carried the puck into the zone on a turnover, and while the defencemen drifted back toward their net at his pace, Ryan Poehling was racing to the post at the other side. Poehling’s stick blade was the closest thing to the goaltender when Drouin was ready to pass, and he simply needed to hit it with the puck to tie the game.

The Canadiens picked up where they left off in the second with a quick chance at the side of the net for Josh Anderson, taking advantage of some good work from Artturi Lehkonen along the wall to keep possession. A shot from a similar spot on a later shift from Christian Dvorak also had promise after a cross-ice pass, but he took a bit too long on his release, focusing on accuracy rather than speed, and that allowed Thatcher Demko to get across to make the save.

With that, the game abruptly shifted in favour of the Canucks as the cycle of trading momentum continued. The Canadiens had gotten the shots nearly even after their large deficit earlier, but Vancouver started building up their advantage again.

Following a brief chance for Montreal on offence, Vancouver collected the puck and started up ice. Their zone entry was far from dangerous, going three-on-three with Habs defenders in proper positions, but that structure quickly dissolved with miscommunication between the players. Josh Anderson tokk the puck away along the boards, where Jeff Petry had gone over for support, while Sami Niku skated to the opposite corner to serve as a breakout option. Anderson decided to play the puck back in the direction he had come, and right onto an unfriendly stick. Conor Garland had continued on his path to the net while Niku had peeled off, and the defenceman was therefore in no position to cover the Canucks forward, who had plenty of space to put his team back on top.

Yet again, the Canadiens started playing better in the second period while being down a goal. They spent several shifts in the offensive zone, with their best moments coming with Drouin, Lehkonen, and/or Cole Caufield on the ice, but Demko was able to deny their chances to prevent another late tying goal from the home side.

The Canucks netminder probably expected to have to show more heroics when the third period began with a power play for Montreal, but the Habs couldn’t get any sustained pressure and gave him an easy two minutes to deal with.

Vancouver looked much more dangerous on its attempt to play a man up when Pettersson caught Jake Evans flatfooted in the neutral zone, drawing his second call of the night. Both units were getting the puck to the front of the crease where they wanted it, but the shooters just failed to get their sticks on very dangerous pucks in close.

It was Evans’s turn to be spilled to the ice a minute after he exited the box. His teammates didn’t seem to be eager to take advantage of the odd-man situation he’d earned them, however, keeping the puck along the boards for nearly the full duration of the power play. At the very end, Nick Suzuki decided to move the puck to the middle, deked around a defender who came out to meet him, and sent the puck to the net. He and three teammates lunged in looking to knock home the rebound, but after a few seconds of bashing away in front of Demko the whistle blew and the chance was gone.

In the final moments, desperate for an equalizer, Lehkonen was doing his best to win the puck and set something up, but to no avail. The final desperate attempt came with a half-chance off the rush in the dying seconds, but no goal came of it as the Canadiens fell by a 2-1 score.

It was the sixth failure in six tries to follow up one win with another. At the very least it wasn’t a lopsided score as the other five had been, but they all get recorded in the loss column just the same. With the defeat, they broke a tie and fell two points behind the Canucks in the standings, now fourth-worst by points and third if you go by the better metric of points percentage given that they’ve played more games than any other team in the NHL. The top odds for the draft lottery aren’t so far out of reach, and that’s probably the best outcome the team can hope to glean from this season.

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DeMar DeRozan scores 27 points to lead the Kings past the Raptors 122-107

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16 hours ago

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November 7, 2024

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — DeMar DeRozan scored 27 points in a record-setting performance and the Sacramento Kings beat the Toronto Raptors 122-107 on Wednesday night.

Domantas Sabonis added 17 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds for his third triple-double of the season for Sacramento. He shot 6 for 6 from the field and 5 for 5 at the free-throw line.

Keegan Murray chipped in with 22 points and 12 rebounds, and De’Aaron Fox scored 21.

The 35-year-old DeRozan has scored at least 20 points in each of his first eight games with the Kings, breaking a franchise mark established by Chris Webber when he reached 20 in his first seven games with Sacramento in 1999.

DeRozan spent the past three seasons with the Chicago Bulls. The six-time All-Star also has played for Toronto and San Antonio during his 16-year NBA career.

RJ Barrett had 23 points to lead the Raptors. Davion Mitchell scored 20 in his first game in Sacramento since being traded to Toronto last summer.

Takeaways

Raptors: Toronto led for most of the first three quarters before wilting in the fourth. The Raptors were outscored 33-14 in the final period.

Kings: Fox played strong defense but struggled again shooting from the floor as he is dealing with a finger injury. Fox went 5 for 17 and just 2 of 8 on 3-pointers. He is 5 for 25 from beyond the arc in his last three games.

Key moment

The Kings trailed 95-89 early in the fourth before going on a 9-0 run that gave them the lead for good. DeRozan started the spurt with a jumper, and Malik Monk scored the final seven points.

Key stat

Sabonis had the eighth game in the NBA since at least 1982-83 with a triple-double while missing no shots from the field or foul line. The previous player to do it was Josh Giddey for Oklahoma City against Portland on Jan. 11.

Up next

Raptors: At the Los Angeles Clippers on Saturday night, the third stop on a five-game trip.

Kings: Host the Clippers on Friday night.

___

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Whitecaps take confidence, humility into decisive playoff matchup vs. LAFC

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16 hours ago

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November 7, 2024

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VANCOUVER – The Vancouver Whitecaps are one win away from moving on to the next round of the Major League Soccer playoffs.

To get there, however, the Whitecaps will need to pull off the improbable by defeating the powerhouse Los Angeles FC for a second straight game.

Vancouver blanked the visitors 3-0 on Sunday to level their best-of-three first-round playoff series at a game apiece. As the matchup shifts back to California for a decisive Game 3 on Friday, the Whitecaps are looking for a repeat performance, said striker Brian White.

“We take the good and the bad from last game, learn from what we could have done better and go to LAFC with confidence and, obviously, with a whole lot of respect,” he said.

“We know that we can go there and give them a very good fight and hopefully come away with a win.”

The winner of Friday’s game will face the No. 4-seed Seattle Sounders in a one-game Western Conference semifinal on Nov. 23 or 24.

The ‘Caps finished the regular season eighth in the west with a 13-13-8 record and have since surprised many with their post-season play.

First, Vancouver trounced its regional rivals, the Portland Timbers, 5-0 in a wild-card game. Then, the squad dropped a tightly contested 2-1 decision to the top-seeded L.A. before posting a decisive home victory on Sunday.

Vancouver has scored seven goals this post-season, second only to the L.A. Galaxy (nine). Vancouver also leads the league in expected goals (6.84) through the playoffs.

No one outside of the club expected the Whitecaps to win when the Vancouver-L. A. series began, said defender Ranko Veselinovic.

“We’ve shown to ourselves that we can compete with them,” he said.

Now in his fifth season with the ‘Caps, Veselinovic said Friday’s game will be the biggest he’s played for the team.

“We haven’t had much success in the playoffs so, definitely, this is the one that can put our season on another level,” he said.

This is the second year in a row the Whitecaps have faced LAFC in the first round of the playoffs and last year, Vancouver was ousted in two straight games.

The team isn’t thinking about revenge as it prepares for Game 3, White said.

“More importantly than (beating LAFC), we want to get to the next round,” he said. “LAFC’s a very good team. We’ve come up against them a number of times in different competitions and they always seem to get the better of us. So it’d be huge for us to get the better of them this time.”

Earning a win last weekend required slowing L.A.’s transition game and limiting offensive opportunities for the team’s big stars, including Denis Bouanga.

Those factors will be important again on Friday, said Whitecaps head coach Vanni Sartini, who warned that his team could face a different style of game.

“I think the most important thing is going to be to match their intensity at the beginning of the game,” he said. “Because I think they’re going to come at us a million miles per hour.”

The ‘Caps will once again look to captain Ryan Gauld for some offensive firepower. The Scottish attacking midfielder leads MLS in playoff goals with five and has scored in all three of Vancouver’s post-season appearances this year.

Gearing up for another do-or-die matchup is exciting, Gauld said.

“Knowing it’s a winner-takes-all kind of game, being in that kind of environment is nice,” he said. “It’s when you see the best in players.”

LAFC faces the bulk of the pressure heading into the matchup, Sartini said, given the club’s appearances in the last two MLS Cup finals and its 2022 championship title.

“They’re supposed to win and we are not,” the coach said. “But it’s beautiful to have a little bit of pressure on us, too.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.

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PWHL unveils game jerseys with new team names, logos

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16 hours ago

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November 7, 2024

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TORONTO – The Professional Women’s Hockey League has revealed the jersey designs for its six newly named teams.

Each PWHL team operated under its city name, with players wearing jerseys featuring the league’s logo in its inaugural season before names and logos were announced last month.

The Toronto Sceptres, Montreal Victoire, Ottawa Charge, Boston Fleet, Minnesota Frost and New York Sirens will start the PWHL’s second season on Nov. 30 with jerseys designed to reflect each team’s identity and to be sold to the public as replicas.

Led by PWHL vice-president of brand and marketing Kanan Bhatt-Shah, the league consulted Creative Agency Flower Shop to design the jerseys manufactured by Bauer, the PWHL said Thursday in a statement.

“Players and fans alike have been waiting for this moment and we couldn’t be happier with the six unique looks each team will don moving forward,” said PWHL senior vice president of business operations Amy Scheer.

“These jerseys mark the latest evolution in our league’s history, and we can’t wait to see them showcased both on the ice and in the stands.”

Training camps open Tuesday with teams allowed to carry 32 players.

Each team’s 23-player roster, plus three reserves, will be announced Nov. 27.

Each team will play 30 regular-season games, which is six more than the first season.

Minnesota won the first Walter Cup on May 29 by beating Boston three games to two in the championship series.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.

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