Montreal, Quebec (WGR 550) - During the playoffs Lindy Ruff doesn’t want his team skating on two consecutive days, so on Monday they stayed off the ice and held meetings trying to figure out how they get their game back on track.
If Buffalo does figure it out and can get to their game, they’ll have the opportunity to go home tied 2-2 for Game 5 on Thursday. I was thinking if they win, they can erase the last two games and start new, Alex Tuch said he has no interest in erasing the last two games,
“I don’t think we want to forget about that feeling last night. Me personally that was definitely my worst defensive game of the playoffs, so I’m not going to forget that feeling, but it’s only 2-1 in the series, we have to come out flying tomorrow, no excuses, we've got to be a lot better.”
Tuch mentioned they’ve got to play quicker. Montreal has had success because they’ve been getting in on the Sabres quickly making them make plays before they’re ready. Tuch said the mistakes that are being made are their own fault,
“Very much self-inflicted, it’s all on our decisions and our will and our compete.
“We all have to look ourselves in the mirror and get back to the game that we know we can play which has been successful for us.”
Zach Bolduc got the killer goal when he used his speed to pull away from Tuch and Tage Thompson to make the game 3-1, Habs. Many questioned both player’s effort on the play and Tuch questioned his own,
“That’s unacceptable, that’s just a missed backcheck on my part, that’s on me, I can’t leave ‘Lyzy’ (Alex Lyon) out to dry like that.”
So how does Tuch get better? He said it’s not complicated,
“It’s work. For me it’s moving my feet, it’s working, it’s holding onto pucks, it’s making it difficult for them to play offense.”
Ruff liked the morning meeting he had with his team. He said,
“We’re pretty honest with each other, I might not be honest with you guys, but I’m honest with them and we weren’t good enough to win the game.”
Jason Zucker played 6:47 in Game 3. I’ll give you what Ruff said and let you decide what’s going on,
“Like I said last night, we got into penalty killing and power play and the power play was good and he’s not on that No. 1 power play and then I felt it’s not really fair, he’d been sitting there a long time with the engine not running, but that line on a whole, (Zucker, Ryan McLeod and Jack Quinn) needs to produce for us and it hasn’t, it got scored against early.
“They’ve been in on some good opportunities particularly Jack has had a lot of opportunities but he hasn’t finished. I looked at the game last night and I think there was four times on entries we got around the top of the circle and we didn’t make a good decision, we threw some pucks in the middle of the ice which fueled their breakouts, so I’d like to see that cleaned up.”
So what's the bottom line? What does he need out of Tuch, Thompson and Dahlin? Ruff said,
“I need their best game, I need what they gave is in Game 6 in Boston, I thought our group gave us the best game of the series and this is the type of game where we need that and they understand that.”
Beck Malenstyn has been fined $3,515.63, the maximum allowable under the CBA, for goalie interference. Montreal’s Arber Xhekaj has been fined $3,385.42, the maximum allowable under the CBA, for roughing Buffalo’s Sam Carrick.
The Canadiens lead the best of seven series 2-1
The Canadiens lead the best of seven series 2-1
