Practice doesn’t always make perfect, and Antti Niemi’s performance on Thursday made that abundantly clear, as the 35-year-old Finn sunk the Canadiens. That and more in EricEngels's takeaways from Montreal's loss to San Jose:
Canadiens coach Claude Julien had a difficult call to make and elected to start Niemi and rest, who had appeared in 15 consecutive games prior to this one for the first time in his career.
“He’s done some extra work for a long time now and he’s ready for this, so we have to make sure that we give him that opportunity because we need our other goaltender to get a bit of a rest,” Julien explained. “With a back-to-back [against Anaheim on Friday night], this is probably a good time for it.”
The coach looked past Niemi’s last performance — a rough outing that saw him pulled after allowing three early goals in a loss to the Florida Panthers on Feb. 17 — and thought enough time had passed for him to file it away. The 35-year-old Finn sunk the Canadiens in this one, allowing three goals on the first eight shots he faced. Meanwhile, they had 23 to their names whenThe Canadiens have 14 games remaining on their schedule and only one more back-to-back situation to deal with. Expect Price to start all of them, bringing his total to 67 appearances this season.
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