Much improved effort on the part of the Montreal Canadiens, yet same end result. The Canadiens lost their third game in a row on Thursday night, losing to the San Jose Sharks eventually losing in a sixth round shootout, 4-3. The Canadiens entered the Shark Tank with a more determined approach to winning.

PHOTO CREDIT - NHL.com

Whitby - December 2, 2011 - Much improved effort on the part of the Montreal Canadiens, yet same end result. The Canadiens lost their third game in a row on Thursday night, losing to the San Jose Sharks eventually losing in a sixth round shootout, 4-3. The Canadiens entered the Shark Tank with a more determined approach to winning than the game plan they followed 24 hours earlier in Anaheim.

Against the Sharks, the Canadiens speedy diminutive centreman David Desharnais was his offensive best, finishing the game as a plus-3, with a goal and two assists. However, his strong performance wasn’t enough of a catalyst to propel his team to a win on this night.

The contest was a back-and-forth affair with Montreal taking a one-goal lead on three different occasions. Michael Cammalleri scored the game’s opening goal on a nice backhand tip from a P.K. Subban point shot.

San Jose’s Ryan Clowe would round out the scoring at 18:34 of the third period to send the contest into extra minutes with a fortunate Montreal bad bounce on the part of netminder Carey Price. Price had made the initial save on a Martin Havlat wrist shot from the top of the right faceoff circle but couldn’t lasso it and instead pushed the biscuit out into the slot where Clowe was approaching, to which Clowe wristed it past Price.

The announced three stars of the contest were San Jose’s Logan Couture (3rd star, one goal, one assist), Montreal’s David Desharnais (2nd star, one goal, two assists) and the Sharks’ own Ryan Clowe (1st star, game-tying goal, one assist).

Carey Price took the loss in yet another strong performance for Les Bleu-Blanc-Rouge, stopping 38-of-41 (.927 save percentage) shots. San Jose’s Antti Niemi notched the win as he made 29 saves (.906 save percentage). For a complete statistical review, please click onto the NHL.com Boxscore at the end of this article.

The Canadiens face the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday afternoon at 3:00 p.m. to wrap up their unsuccessful three-game western road trip. View From The Whitby Cheap Seats Montreal continues to suffer in the faceoff department. On Thursday night, normally successful Tomas Plekanec was schooled by fresh-faced Logan Couture in the faceoff dot. Plekanec finished the night with only winning 6-of-26 faceoffs for a .231 winning faceoff percentage.

Price redeemed himself in the overtime frame as he beautifully robbed San Jose’s defenseman Dan Boyle to keep the game tied and to send it to a shootout. Montreal needs to continue working on their defensive zone play. San Jose had a tonne of shots on Price and seemed to work well in Montreal’s zone, skating around the Canadiens’ defensive units. Give Montreal props however as they showed good fight in bouncing back against San Jose from an ugly game in Anaheim. Montreal also showed determination by digging down deep against a very strong San Jose club. With San Jose tying the game on three different occasions in regulation, I expected to see Montreal’s wind stop in their sailsâ€"such was not the case.

STATS & PHOTO CREDIT - NHL.com

Can anyone explain why Aaron Palushaj is still with the big club? He saw only 3:19 of icetime and was a minus-1 on the night. This kid is known to be more of an offensive player, so why isn’t Coach Jacques Martin giving him a chance to show his wares? Jacques, give the kid a chance and give Mathieu Darche some more time on the bench. Thankfully Louis Leblanc was given more icetime in his second game as a Hab. While Leblanc didn’t register a point and was even in the plus-minus department, he did see 14:25 of icetime. With more playing time, expect to see his confidence sky-rocket and the offence to appear.

Not to sound like a broken record, but Alexei Emelin is looking more and more like a Russian Thunderbolt. Man can he hit! Game-in-game-out this Thunderbolt is leading his team in hits. On Thursday night he delivered five hits, the prettiest of the bunch was the one he handed to San Jose’s Joe Pavelski.

Thank you to HabsOnDemand for providing the footage. All Habs fans alike can’t but love to see this sort of physicality from Montreal’s defensive pairings.

Until next time, play every game as if it is your last one…