Price leads Canadiens past Maple Leafs, 3-1

But Price, the reigning Hart and Vezina Trophy victor, was there to stop the puck nearly every time.

Mike Babcock was noticeably vocal on the bench tonight. “We were in the 10-hole there”, he said with a laugh of the Orange County sports scene, which includes the Dodgers, Angels, Lakers, Clippers, and Kings, not to mention a rabid college football and basketball fascination. “There will be disagreements, but that is healthy as long as we come out with the same plan”. It was the right move on his part as Plekanec’s still clearly hit and interfered with Bernier, intentional or not. The Canadiens are expecting a strong season from captain Max Pacioretty and he led the team in goals previous year with 37.

The game had a scary moment in the first period when Habs all-star defenceman P.K. Subban absorbed a scary blow from the Leafs’ Leo Komarov. “There’s still obviously a lot of things I can improve on, but I’m focused and I’m doing this right”.

What will be interesting to watch in this game is if the Canadiens offense, something that has been a weak spot, can get it together. The Leafs have an extremely young defensive team, lack a scoring touch, and aren’t overly physical or fast. The Leafs spent more time in the opposition’s offensive zone.

“On talent, they should be a bottom-three team”, one rival executive in the Eastern Conference said recently of the Leafs.

After a stunning 36 hours of revelations, a news conference at which a visibly angry Bergevin looked capable of chewing up Kassian’s skates and spitting them out – and the rehab announcement – the Canadiens must have been suffering from situation overload before Wednesday’s season opener in Toronto. “Just by the decision they made they clearly thought that it wasn’t good enough”.

It’s unique that the first coach’s challenge of the year would be called during the first game played in the season, but that’s proof that the rule is likely going to get a few serious usage moving forward. So we’re going to have to have a lot of guys step up to score goals, but we’re going to play better.

In the third, the winning goal was scored on a bullet by Canadiens forward Alex Galchenyuk, shortly after newly acquired Leafs centre Nick Spaling missed the team’s best chance of the evening from between the hash marks. The penalty kill though allowed the Leafs only goal. Babcock will get his name in the history books, but he gave the credit to assistant coaches Andrew Brewer and Jim Hiller. I maintain that he held Phil Kessel back while he was in Toronto and that he needs to be a priority to trade. But the Leafs’ greatest concerns will be keeping opponents’ shot totals low. Last season he set the franchise record with 44 victories and had a league-leading 1.96 goals-against average and. Six seconds into the power play the JVR scored and tied the game at one each. Overall, Toronto outshot Montreal 37-30.

But there was plenty to like about the Leafs performance against Montreal.

Still, their opponents took notice.

“You see the highlights so many times so you think you remember it, but I don’t think I actually remember it”, Bozak said. “They were definitely hard-nosed, in our face”. “There’s two ways to look at that: I don’t know if we could be much worse than we were at the end of previous year, but we’ve put in a lot more work”. “I can see the way we play”.

Now it’s up to the Leafs to prove they can bring that complete effort over the course of an 82-game season.

But on Wednesday, the chant had a more positive slant as several members of the playoff-bound ball club were raucously cheered – it was the loudest ovation of the night – when shown on the scoreboard, watching the game from a loge.

An impression that was rekindled at the Air Canada Centre on Wednesday.