Jesse Ylönen scores profitable objective and saves the day together with goalie Cayden Primeau after Habs fell behind 2-0 to the worst staff in NHL.
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The Canadiens prevented embarrassment Friday afternoon towards the Sharks in San Jose — barely.
Jesse Ylönen scored the profitable objective in a shootout as Montreal beat the worst staff within the NHL 3-2.
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Johnathan Kovacevic and Cole Caufield scored for the Canadiens in regulation time, whereas former Canadien Mike Hoffman and William Eklund scored for the Sharks.
The Canadiens improved their report to 9-9-2 with their second straight win on this three-game California journey after beating the Anaheim Geese 4-3 on Wednesday. The Canadiens will play the Kings on Saturday in Los Angeles (4 p.m., TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM).
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How dangerous are the Sharks?
Their report fell to 3-15-2 with the shootout loss they usually have been outscored 86-30, together with back-to-back 10-1 and 10-2 losses to the Vancouver Canucks and Pittsburgh Penguins, respectively. The Sharks’ minus-56 objective differential is by far the worst within the NHL. The Chicago Blackhawks are the second-worst at minus-19 after beating the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-3 in additional time Friday.
Issues began off nicely for the Canadiens in San Jose. They had been dominating the Sharks and outshooting them 9-4 within the first interval, however the rating was nonetheless 0-0 when defenceman Mike Matheson was penalized for holding at 16:29.
Canadiens goalie Cayden Primeau stopped all 5 San Jose photographs on the following energy play and the interval ended with the Sharks outshooting the Canadiens 11-9 and the rating nonetheless 0-0.
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Hoffman put the Sharks up 1-0 at 5:06 of the second interval along with his fifth objective of the season — all 5 coming within the final 5 video games. Friday was additionally Hoffman’s thirty fourth birthday. Eklund put the Sharks up 2-0 with a power-play objective at 12:30 of the second interval solely 4 seconds after Justin Barron went to the penalty field for tripping. The Sharks’ Tomas Hertl beat the Canadiens’ Jake Evans clear off a faceoff to arrange the objective.
It was beginning to appear like the Sharks may not solely beat the Canadiens, but additionally shut them out for the primary time this season.
However Kovacevic scored his third objective of the season — and his third within the final 4 video games — with a depraved bar-down shot at 18:02 of the second interval after a move from fellow defenceman Jayden Struble, who picked up his first NHL level in solely his second recreation after getting known as up from the AHL’s Laval Rocket.
Street to the Cup
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“That was a giant objective to chop the lead in half there,” Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis advised reporters in San Jose after the sport. “There was an ideal execution within the O zone. I believed we had a tricky time getting pucks on web. They packed their home, they block a whole lot of photographs. However we took benefit of the scenario the place they had been all on one aspect of the ice, so we activated our D. It was an ideal shot, guys going to the web. I feel it gave us somewhat little bit of life as a result of it’s not like we had been taking part in a poor recreation. We had been down within the scoreboard, however I didn’t really feel like we had been getting beat. We had been simply down on the scoreboard, sort of attempting to remain the course. Getting that objective on the finish of the second was large.”
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Caufield tied the rating 2-2 when he sniped a shot excessive over the blocker aspect of Sharks goalie Mackenzie Blackwood at 3:26 of the third interval after taking a pleasant breakout move from Juraj Slafkovsky. Primeau additionally had an help because the goalie earned his first NHL level. Caufield had gone six video games with no objective and had just one within the earlier 11 video games. Caufield’s sixth objective of the season was solely his second at five-on-five.
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“All of them depend the identical,” Caufield advised reporters after ending the sport with a team-high six photographs.
Three of Caufield’s objectives have are available additional time and one on an influence play. He virtually had his fourth OT objective towards the Sharks, however was stopped on a breakaway by Blackwood solely 10 seconds into the additional interval.
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The Sharks outshot the Canadiens 33-24 heading into the shootout.
Within the shootout, Eklund scored on the Sharks’ first try, however Primeau stopped the subsequent 5 shooters. Nick Suzuki scored on the Canadiens’ first try, earlier than Caufield, Slafkovsky, Christian Dvorak and Sean Monahan all missed, setting the stage for Ylönen’s heroics. Ylönen made an exquisite deke to his forehand earlier than beating Blackwood.
When Caufield was requested about Ylönen’s objective, he smiled and stated: “Slim Shady, child!” referring to the tune by rapper Eminem.
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Ylönen stated he had “somewhat little bit of an concept” what transfer he was going to make on Blackwood.
“It’s a must to react to how the goalie performs it and attempt to pretend him somewhat bit,” Ylönen added.
It may have been an embarrassing consequence for the Canadiens, however St. Louis stated the win will likely be good for staff morale, including nothing’s excellent and he’ll proceed to work on correcting errors and making his staff higher.
“This league is difficult,” St. Louis advised reporters in San Jose. “You bought to search out methods and I feel that’s what we did tonight.”
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