OTT@MTL: Three for three in 12

MONTREAL - There were two games within this Saturday night affair between the Canadiens and Ottawa Senators at the Bell Centre. There was everything that happened before The Call, and there was everything else that happened after it.

The Before
The Habs and Sens didn't waste any time getting things going in this one. Matthew Peca opened the scoring 3:39 into action, and Colin White replied for the visitors just 20 seconds later, leaving the teams tied 1-1 by the time the first intermission crept up.
In the second, Mikkel Boedker scored at nearly the halfway mark to put the Sens ahead 2-1, a lead they would hold onto until Jesperi Kotkaniemi evened things up early in the final frame.

And then…
The Call
Not long after the Kotkaniemi goal, Artturi Lehkonen fed Phillip Danault on a rush while he was getting tripped by Thomas Chabot, a pass which Danault was able to wire past Ottawa goaltender Mike McKenna to presumably give the Habs a 3-2 third-period lead against their divisional rivals.
Presumably.
The problem, see, was that the referees deemed that Lehkonen had exaggerated his fall on the Chabot trip and handed him a simultaneous embellishment call. No goal Montreal.
Needless to say, the home crowd was livid - and they showed it.
Which brings us to…
The After
In typical Montreal fashion, Habs fans in attendance let the refs have it, booing heartily whenever the moment warranted it.
Turns out it was just what the Canadiens needed.
"They had a lot of energy that way. They're booing, not towards us. But they're fired up and we're fired up," described Shea Weber. "It was just a good intensity and energy from everyone and we found a way to get it done."
The way the Habs would get it done is to score three more goals in the third period after the Kotkaniemi tally - including a fourth of the season for the aforementioned captain - to beat the Senators 5-2 for the third time in under two weeks. The Canadiens channeled the angry energy from their fans and used it to their benefit.

"I wouldn't say pumped. I think we were a little upset, and I think we transferred that energy the right way, actually," recounted Weber, whose goal would stand as the game-winner. "It was a good reaction. Guys were obviously really upset; we thought we deserved a goal there. But we did the right things; we came back and played the right way after that."
Paul Byron would pad the lead off a beautiful passing play with Kotkaniemi and Lehkonen, and Jonathan Drouin would add an empty-netter to ring up it up to a fitting 5-2, the same score by which Montreal defeated Ottawa twice last week, to satisfy the energized Bell Centre faithful's thirst for revenge.

"It was like at a Drake concert, everyone is cheering all the time," described Kotkaniemi, the game's first star with a goal, an assist, a plus-2 differential, four shots on net, and a 50% success rate in the dot.
"It's easier to play better when the crowd is cheering all the time," he added. "It gave us so much more energy."

With the win, the Canadiens have given themselves a comfortable seven-point cushion over their rivals down the 417. And with the Bell Centre decked out for the holiday season, they picked the perfect night to give head coach Claude Julien an early but very special Christmas gift: his 600th career win in the big leagues.
"It may be special, but I'm not the kind of person who pays much attention to things like that. In 20 years, when I'm in my rocking chair, maybe I'll be able to look back on these kinds of moments, but right now I still have a lot of drive in me to continue winning," admitted the coach, who becomes the fifth active bench boss to reach the plateau. "It's good, but to me it's not as important as what I see in front of me."