MONTREAL— The Canadiens’ side of the penalty box was nearly as crowded as their infirmary, which is currently overflowing with injuries to Jake Evans, Juraj Slafkovsky, Jonathan Drouin, Brendan Gallagher, Sean Monahan and Joel Armia.
It was a remarkable sight — basically seen from the beginning of the second period all the way through 19 minutes of the third — considering how rare it is to see a guy kneeling in there because three others are glued to each other on the small bench beside the timekeeper.
That image, though, sums up a 6-2 Florida Panthers win in Montreal on Thursday.
What the Canadiens could take from it is they stuck together, and not just in the penalty box.
It’s what coach Martin St. Louis said he told them to do after things got completely out of hand through 40 minutes of play, and they did it, with three fights serving as acts of solidarity in a rough-and-tumble third period.
In one respect, this game arguably turned on a first-period power play for the Canadiens, when Mike Matheson went back to retrieve a puck and pancaked Eric Staal with a reverse hit that should’ve been called for interference.
In another, it unquestionably turned for the Canadiens on a failed challenge for goaltender interference by St. Louis, which left the coach wondering afterwards what the clear definition of the rule is.
“It’s not black and white, there’s some grey,” he said. “Some calls, you feel it’s a little darker. Some, you feel it’s a little lighter. You have to be careful. I knew that one was grey, but I took a chance.”
With the first of six second-period penalties the Canadiens took expiring, Samuel Montembeault challenged an Aleksander Barkov shot successfully. As he scrambled back to his crease, Matthew Tkachuk was there impeding his route to a save on Sam Reinhart’s shot.
Montembeault, who came into the game with a .946 save percentage over his last five starts and began this one with several tremendous stops, might not have been able to get his stick on Reinhart’s shot.
But he definitely couldn’t with Tkachuk in his way.
After a lengthy review, NHL officials in Toronto decided Montembeault wasn’t making the save even if Tkachuk wasn’t in his way.
“The Situation Room supported the Referees’ call on the ice that the contact between Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Montembeault had no bearing on the puck entering the net,” read the statement from NHL public relations. “Therefore, it did not constitute goaltender interference.”
Subjective, for sure.
“I thought I would win that one,” St. Louis said of his decision to challenge.
He didn’t, and the Canadiens got scored on again right away to fall down 2-0.
They took consecutive two-many-men penalties shortly after, which were two self-inflicted wounds players took ownership of after the game.
Like them, St. Louis said most the frustration the Canadiens experienced throughout the night was the product of their own mistakes.
But a lot of it came from the way this one was called.
Matheson became a target of the Panthers as soon as Staal left the game and didn’t return. A penalty called on the play would’ve helped keep things under control, but the opposite happening made this look more like a game from 1993 than one in 2023.
Prior to the consecutive bench minors, Josh Anderson and the Canadiens were incensed he was headed to the box for a crosscheck on Radko Gudas, who clearly embellished on the play.
Gudas went unpenalized for a blatant knee thrown at Kirby Dach after Dach hit him clean in the third period, just as Girgori Denisenko went unpenalized for hitting Arber Xhekaj straight in the numbers late in the second.
“You don’t like that,” said Xhekaj, who spent the first 10 minutes of the third period serving a misconduct penalty and cooling off in the box with several teammates rotating in and out. “Obviously, if they call Andy’s penalty on Gudas, it’s a weak call. And then my neck into the boards like that?
“I get it, I’m a big guy, but you’ve gotta call the game. That’s how it gets out of control there.”
Matheson fought Matthew Tkachuk, Xhekaj fought Givani Smith, and Michael Pezzetta and Ryan Lomberg both had long locks flying in every direction as they exchanged blows following Pezzetta’s big hit on Anton Lundell.
When all was said and done, the Canadiens had 53 penalty minutes, the Panthers had 37, and bad blood is sure to spill over next time these teams play in March.
When asked if scores were settled, Xhekaj said, “No. Not for me, at least.”
The Canadiens did, however, stand up for each other in this one.
They tested Alex Lyon but couldn’t beat him more than twice after Sergei Bobrovsky went down early in the game. They lost, but grew a bit as a team through the process.
“We were getting called for a lot of that game, so we were obviously frustrated,” said Xhekaj. “And then their team’s taking runs at us. We’re not going to sit there and take that. We’re going to push back and, if it comes down to it, we’re going to drop the gloves if we need to.”
