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Canadiens Game Day: A rough return to action for Habs' Carey Price

“I felt pretty good," goalie says after allowing three goals on 14 shots in loss to Senators after missing six games with lower-body injury.

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Carey Price’s return to the Canadiens’ lineup did not get off to a good start.

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After missing six straight games with a lower-body injury, the goaltender was back in net at the Bell Centre for Saturday afternoon’s game against the Ottawa Senators.

Artem Zub scored on Ottawa’s first shot on Price at 3:03 of the first period and the Senators went on to win 4-0, including an empty-net goal.

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Price allowed three goals on 14 shots as his record fell to 12-7-5 with a 2.67 goals-against average and a .900 save percentage.

“I felt pretty good,” Price said after the game. “Whenever you take a break there’s always a bit of an adjustment period getting back. But I thought the adjustment was really quick.”

The Canadiens finished their six-game home stand with a 2-4-0 record while being outscored 20-9. The Canadiens scored the first goal of the game only twice in those six games — the two games they ended up winning.

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“It would be nice to get a lead early,” Price said. “Just get some confidence going. Get those feel-good starts. I think it’s all about just building momentum right off the start of the game.”

“We just need to find some consistency,” Price added. “I think everybody in the league wants to find that. Everybody in this league wants to win and everybody’s playing hard. We just got to find a way to do it on a nightly basis.”

The Canadiens remain in fourth place in the all-Canadian North Division with a 19-14-9 record. They are six points ahead of fifth-place Calgary and still hold two games in hand on the Flames.

“When our team scores first it seems like we have so much more jump, energy,” the Canadiens’ Paul Byron said. “Our starts have been pretty flat and that’s kind of been our Achilles heel lately.”

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Tough back-to-back

The Canadiens were playing their second game in less than 24 hours after beating the Flames 2-1 Friday night at the Bell Centre.

“It’s not easy,” Canadiens defenceman Ben Chiarot said. “Any back-to-back’s not easy. Especially, on top of that, give them credit. They worked very hard … they don’t make it easy out there. They knew they had a team coming off a back-to-back so they jumped on us pretty early. It’s not easy, but every team goes through it.”

The Canadiens have a 3-3-2 record this season against the Senators, who are in last place in the North Division with a 15-26-4 record. It was the second straight win for the Senators over the Canadiens after beating them 6-3 on April 3 at the Bell Centre.

When asked about giving up the first goal again on Saturday, Chiarot said: “I wouldn’t say there’s any strategy (issue). It’s more so just being ready off the drop of the puck. Starting the game on time, sort of as the cliché goes. That’s the biggest thing is just being ready right from the start and matching the intensity that the other team’s going to bring.”

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Not enough chances

Chiarot played his second straight game after missing 15 games with a fractured hand he suffered during a fight with the Vancouver Canucks’ J.T. Miller on March 10.

“I think we need to create more chances around the net,” Chiarot said. “It doesn’t seem like we get very many dangerous chances. Before I came back in the lineup, being upstairs, you get to watch kind of from a different angle and that’s something I noticed is we need to generate some more offence and more high-dangerous chances and get the puck to the slot a little more. So that’s something we need to do to put the puck in the net a little more.

“You’re not going to win many games scoring 1-2 goals,” he added. “so that’s going to be key for us.”

The Canadiens have now scored two goals or less in six of their last seven games without Brendan Gallagher in the lineup while posting a 2-5-0 record. Ducharme said before Saturday’s game that Gallagher won’t need surgery on his fractured right thumb.

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“No surgery needed, so that’s good news,” Ducharme said. “He’s doing good. Obviously, he needs time but no surgery, so that’s positive.”

Gallagher had 14-9-23 totals in 35 games before a slapshot from teammate Alexander Romanov fractured his thumb during a 3-2 OT win over the Edmonton Oilers on April 5 at the Bell Centre.

“There’s a lot of little things that he brings,” Canadiens head coach Dominique Ducharme said about Gallagher. “But that’s everyone’s job. When one guy’s missing it’s everyone’s job to pick up the slack. Yes, there’s goals, but his energy (also).”

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Hit the road

The Canadiens now have a 10-10-2 record at the Bell Centre this season. They have been a better team on the road with a 9-4-7 record.

So, it might be a good thing that the Canadiens’ next five games are on the road — two in Edmonton, starting Monday night — and three in Calgary. Those three games against the Flames will be huge in the playoff race.

“It’s good any time you can get on the road,” Chiarot said. “This is sort of the last long road trip that we have in the regular season. Kind of get everyone together again and spend lots of time together. So it’s good to get on the road and spend time with your teammates.”

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What about Cole?

Ducharme said before Saturday’s game that Cole Caufield will make the road trip with the Canadiens after getting called up from the AHL’s Laval Rocket on Friday and being placed on the taxi squad.

As he did on Friday, Ducharme explained after Saturday’s game that the Canadiens can’t make any changes to their roster at this point — including adding Caufield — because of salary-cap restrictions.

When asked if he had spoken with GM Marc Bergevin and John Sedgwick, the Canadiens’ vice-president (hockey operations and legal affairs) who looks after the salary cap, about figuring out a way to make changes, Ducharme said: “Yeah, I talked with them, for sure. It’s not only salary-cap wise. It’s the number of recalls and we used three to play against Toronto (a 4-2 win over the Leafs last Monday). We don’t have much left.”

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Caufield had 3-1-4 totals in his first two games with the Rocket, including two game-winning goals, after leaving the University of Wisconsin. In 31 games with Wisconsin, the 5-foot-7, 170-pound right-winger had 30-22-52 totals to lead the NCAA in goals in points and the 20-year-old also won the Hobey Baker Award as the top player in U.S. college hockey.

Caufield will miss only one Rocket game while on the road trip with the Canadiens.

“He’s going to be around the team,” Ducharme said about bringing Caufield on the trip. “We’ll practise maybe once or maybe twice and a couple of morning skates. He’s going to be around the guys, he’s going to be with the guys on the ice when possible. We want to give him that experience to be around the guys.”

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When asked if he’s feeling a sense of frustration about the current roster situation, Ducharme said: “We’re all in this together and we’ll get out of it together.”

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Some stats

The Canadiens outshot the Senators 23-15 and outhit them 36-17. The Senators won 54 per cent of the faceoffs and had 18 giveaways, while the Canadiens had 10. The Canadiens led 36-17 in hits.

The Senators went 1-for-4 on the power play, while the Canadiens went 0-for-4. The Canadiens’ power play is 1-for-19 in the last eight games.

Jeff Petry led the Canadiens in ice time with 22:26, followed by Shea Weber with 21:41 and Chiarot with 21:01. Nick Suzuki led the forwards with 18:29, followed by Tyler Toffoli with 17:22 and Josh Anderson with 16:55.

Chiarot had a team-leading five shots and Petry had three. No Canadiens forward had more than two shots.

Jonathan Drouin had no shots on goal in 14:59 of ice time and has now gone 24 games without a goal and has only two all season. He does lead the Canadiens with 21 assists.

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Phillip Danault had five hits, while Byron, Chiarot and Joel Edmundson had four each.

Romanov had three giveaways, while Weber and Chiarot were both minus-2.

Danault went 6-5 on faceoffs (55 per cent), Suzuki went 8-9 (47 per cent), Jesperi Kotkaniemi went 4-6 (40 per cent) and Eric Staal went 3-3 (50 per cent).

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What’s next?

The Canadiens were headed to the airport after Saturday’s game for a flight to Edmonton.

They will play the Oilers on Monday (9 p.m., TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM) and Wednesday (10 p.m., TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM) before heading to Calgary to play the Flames on Friday (9 p.m., TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM), Saturday (7 p.m., CITY, SNE, TVA Sports, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM) and the following Monday (6:30 p.m., TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM).

scowan@postmedia.com

twitter.com/StuCowan1

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