Coming back on four separate occasions, the Montreal Canadiens’ first lead of their Sunday night tilt against the New York Rangers ended up the 5-4 overtime winner. Patrik Laine scored the difference-maker on a give-and-go with Kaiden Guhle to pull the 23-19-4 Canadiens within one point of the second-wild-card spot. Securing a single point with the loss, the visiting 22-20-4 Rangers are meanwhile three back of the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Game Recap
Each team was playing their second game in two nights (and their backups, including Rangers goalie Jonathan Quick, in search of his 400th career victory). As a result, the contest was as sloppy as one might imagine, rife with giveaways and broken plays. Alexis Lafreniere opened the scoring after corralling a puck that took a weird bounce over the net off a K’Andre Miller shot midway through the first. Canadiens forward Brendan Gallagher replied a few minutes later, tipping home a Christian Dvorak point shot.
Both Gallagher and captain Nick Suzuki each celebrated getting named to the franchise second quarter-century team earlier in the day with goals. With the score 3-2 late in the second, Suzuki took advantage of a Will Borgen giveaway to tie the game again… only for Chris Kreider to put the Rangers out on top just over a minute later, tipping in an Adam Fox pass.
The score stayed 4-3 until 12:52 in the third when Juraj Slafkovsky put home a Cole Caufield shot. Canadiens defenseman Lane Hutson got the second assist on the goal, marking the eighth straight game in which he’s scored at least point. Over the stretch he’s tallied one goal and 12 total points.
The eight-game streak also marks a new personal best for the 20-year-old, not to mention a new franchise record. On Dec. 9 against the Anaheim Ducks, Hutson had tallied a point in his seventh straight contest to pass Chris Chelios as the Canadiens rookie with the longest point streak.
Related: Canadiens Clearly Still Have Special Defenseman in Goalless Hutson
The game also marked Canadiens prospect Owen Beck’s season debut, after he had been called up from the American Hockey League to offset the recent injury to Emil Heineman. Will Cuylle and Mika Zibanejad rounded out the scoring for the Rangers. Dvorak scored the other Canadiens goal, his second point of the night. Gallagher assisted on the goal, also collecting two points total…
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