Second injury to Price could be concern for Canadiens

Price has won two consecutive starts – both over the New York Islanders with the latest Sunday’s 4-2 decision in Montreal – since missing nine games with a groin injury.

Mike Condon, 25, has gotten off to the start anybody would want to have in their first National Hockey League season. The Canadiens insist that they did not rush him at all.

Evgeni Malkin scored the game-winning goal after Sidney Crosby (two) and Ben Lovejoy had exchanged goals with Paul Stastny, Robby Fabbri and Alex Pietrangelo. The assists on the power play goal were credited to Ryan McDonagh and Derick Brassard.

After it was over, coach Michel Therrien said Price was sidelined by the same lower-body injury that kept him out for eight games earlier this month.

Of the Canadiens’ five goals, only Galchenyuk’s bad-angle goal in the third period could not be pinned on poor defensive coverage by the Rangers. One has to wonder if Montreal might have rushed Carey Price back. “When you make the type of mistakes we made tonight, they are going to make you pay for it and that’s what happened”.

“It was early on in the season but it was a bit of a wake-up call to how we need to play to beat elite teams and win games”, Marc Staal said.

“They’re good at finding that room right in front of the net”, Lundqvist said.

The Canadiens (17-4-2) made sure Condon never felt the pressure of a close game at Madison Square Garden. “It enables us to continue our efforts in giving our fans a winning team”, said Geoff Molson. The schedule is heavy, and the Blueshirts are doing themselves a disservice if they truly believe they played well in Wednesday’s first period against Montreal, as Vigneault said after the loss.

Counterpart Henrik Lundqvist allowed five goals for the first time in 45 starts and was pulled with 10 minutes left in the game. Eller forced a turnover at center ice and controlled the puck into the Rangers zone before working it back to P.K. Subban at the point.

Predators 3, Sabres 2: Mike Fisher ended Nashville’s franchise-record scoring drought in the first period, and the visiting Predators halted a three-game losing streak. In the second, Girardi mishandled a puck and Smith-Pelly made it 2-0, untouched in front. “They really pushed the pace, we took some penalties”. Of course, just because that’s how it played out last time doesn’t mean that history will repeat itself, but it highlights that we don’t really know if this will be a relatively short-term absence or not. “Make a couple of quick passes and it seems to be in the back of your net”.

The loss was only the second in the last 13 games for Rangers, who still lead the Metropolitan Division with 34 points. He took the place of D Greg Pateryn…. Vigneault was considering inserting Emerson Etem for Viktor Stalberg as the fourth-line right wing and Dylan McIlrath on defense, saying, “I wanted Emerson and Dylan to get some normal reps…so I can have that option for [Friday]”.