Are the 6-0 Montreal Canadiens for real?

The club’s offensive woes were well-documented last season, as the Canadiens relied exclusively on exceptional goaltender Carey Price to net them an exceptional 50-22-10 record and an Atlantic Division title. Desharnais’ shot deflected off a stick and Fleischmann picked up the loose puck before beating Lundqvist blocker side at 8:46 of the second period.

The Blueshirts’ power play, however, continued its early slide, going 0-for-5 to fall to 1-for-14 on the season.

It was far from a whole squad on the ice Monday, but there were more players on the ice than one might guess.

Most frustrating, of course, was the Rangers’ tendency to surrender odd-man Canadiens rushes again and again and again. Where Canadiens teams of recent vintage would annoyingly fall back into a defensive shell in a third period, whether ahead, behind or tied, this season’s club is tending to put the hammer down.

However, with an All-Star scorer like Pacioretty – who’s flirted with the 40-goal plateau in each of the last two seasons – that game-changing offensive ability seems extremely attainable.

Price went 3-0-0 with a 1.00 goals-against average, .963 save percentage and one shutout as the Canadiens improved to 6-0-0, their best start in their 98-year National Hockey League history. “There’s probably somebody who’s got more, I don’t know. An absolute clinic. I really enjoyed watching it. He made a dozen really spectacular saves”.

ALLEN: With as much time as we’ve spent discussing Montreal’s offense, you would think the NHL is a goal-scoring league. “It’s just incredible. The crowd feeds off it and we feed off it”. Can’t we see how they look after 20 games before we plan the Stanley Cup parade? Sure, it’s a small sample size, but is it time for us to believe in the Canadiens as one of the best teams in the National Hockey League?

Moore was effective on the penalty kill but I’ve never seen him get smoked at the face-off dots as badly as he was Thursday night: 2-for-10 on defensive zone draws in the first two periods and 5-for-14 overall in face-offs for the game. The Rangers have served as the visitors for a team’s home opener in all three road games they have played this season. Seguin followed that performance with 1-1-2 in a 5-3 triumph over the Tampa Bay Lightning October 15.

“You know what? I’m kind of sick of hearing that we’re a team that’s just about Carey”, Plekanec said. The Habs’ adversity this season, in its entirety, lasted less than three minutes, the first time they’ve played from behind since Game 6 of the Eastern Conference semi-finals in Tampa last May. They return to the Bell Centre to play the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday night before embarking on a three-game swing next week through Western Canada. You just have to focus on your job, and that’s stopping the puck.

Apparently it wasn’t all good for Therrien, as Alex Semin found himself demoted to the third line in way of Devante Smith-Pelly and we witnessed our first shuffle of the season.

Dale Weise and Tomas Plekanec, with an empty-net effort, also scored for the Canadiens (5-0-0), who handed the Rangers (3-2-0) a second straight defeat.

“That’s what we’re doing – no matter if we have a lead or we’re losing, we’re pushing, always attacking, making it hard for the other team”.