*Al Montoya went as Carey Price for an early Halloween night. Montoya was the major difference in the outcome of this game as he posted a 36-save shutout. He came up with clutch save after save. It would have been a different game had the Pens scored one early, but Montoya kept them off the board. Montoya even picked up an assist on the Canadiens' third goal, just to help his own cause.
*The Pens were a banged up bunch after tonight's contest. Conor Sheary left the game after taking a high stick to the face. Kris Letang left halfway through the third period.
*It is still very early in the season, and certainly there are areas of the Pens' game that they need to clean up. One area is their discipline. They took seven penalties against the Colorado Avalanche Monday night. The Pens took six penalties against the Canadiens. But what really hurt is that four of those penalties came within seconds of Montreal penalties, negating power-play opportunities.
*The Pens had a little trouble in their goaltender-defensemen exchange behind the Pittsburgh net. The first one occurred in the opening seconds when Marc-Andre Fleury hit Brian Dumoulin from behind the net. The puck caromed off of Dumoulin's stick and almost to a Habs player with a wide-open net. That wasn't the only exchanged that led to a scoring chance for the Canadiens. Again, I will stress that it's early in the season so things won't be clicking just yet, but it's an area that needs improvement.
*Tom Kuhnhackl might want to consider wearing full body armor for his next game. He was hit hard, and in some serious pain, after blocking three shots in the first period alone. And he still came back for more. The first went off of his foot. Kuhnhackl fell immediately and struggled to get to his feet, but still battled to rejoin the play. Later in the same frame a shot hit him in the chest area, resulting in him skating hunched over. Luckily Kuhnhackl is OK. Maybe he's just made of steel. In that case, forget the body armor.
*While the Pens were on a power play late in the first period Phil Kessel teed up a one-timer from the circle. It's the second one-timer in the past two games for Kessel, and two more than he used all of last season. At least it feels that way.
