Montreal 5 - Washington 2
December 20, 2007
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The Habs got off to their typical slow start in Washington tonight, being outshot badly through the first few minutes of the game. On only their third shot and with only a few minutes remaining in the first, Saku Koivu put a perfect pass onto the blade of Latendresse from behind the net of Olie Kolzig to put the Canadiens up 1-0 going into the first intermission.
The second period didn’t look much better from Montreal’s bench with the Capitals continuing to dominate time on the attack and shots on goal, but Huet stood very strong in his injury return, maintaining the Montreal lead throughout the first half of the period. An odd-man rush lead by Alex Kovalev at about the 10 minutes mark saw him put a crisp pass to Plekanec who was left with a wide open net. Despite the state of the net, Plekanec missed the net entirely and had a prayer answered when goaltender Olie Kolzig turned to have the badly aimed shot redirect into the net and the Habs had a 2-0 lead. Youngster Nicholas Sundstrom put a puck over Huet during a Washington powerplay only a couple of minutes later to cut the lead to 2-1. Latendresse put a beautifully aimed wrist shot past Kolzig with only 2 minutes left in the second, grabbing his second goal of the game and giving the Habs a 3-1 lead with the third period looming.
Despite the scoring of the previous two periods, the Habs looked much more lively in the third. They took a 4-1 lead on the powerplay about midway through when Sergei Kostsitsyn tapped in his first ever NHL goal off of another great Kovalev pass. Washington responded only 34 seconds later when Alexander Semin ripped a wrist shot high over Huet’s shoulder but Mark Streit gave the Habs a three goal lead once again when he finished a Kyle Chipchura shot to put Montreal all up 5-2 and helping the Canadiens to their third win in four games.
GAME NOTES: The Habs were great on the powerplay and even scored a couple of goals at even-strength but they were still badly outshot, 37-21 in this case. Huet played wonderfully in his first game back since suffering a back pull and made several key saves throughout the game. Segei Kostsitsyn notched his first NHL goal and brother Andrei earned an assist on Plekanec’s goal.
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