St. Louis on allowing nine goals: Habs defensively 'forgot everything'

The Montreal Canadiens allowed seven first-period goals and nine total in their loss to the Florida Panthers Thursday night.

Head coach Martin St. Louis was distraught with his team's effort in the 9-5 defeat, which saw starter Sam Montembeault pulled in the first, only to return to the game to replace Jake Allen in the second period. 

"Defensively we, like, forgot everything," St. Louis said. "Offensively, we had three goals after three shots, but you have to know how to defend. I know we know how to defend, but tonight we forgot everything.

"I don't know if it was a lack of effort. I'd say we weren't very smart on the ice defensively."

Montembeault allowed three goals on the first six shots of the game. Allen entered in relief, allowing six goals on 18 shot before he was pulled. Montembeault closed out the game with 18 straight saves after returning to the crease.

"I can't imagine mentally what he was going through," Canadiens forward Rem Pitlick said of Montembeault. "You're kind of off, goals go in, you're off the ice. And then as a goalie, you want to get your touches, I'm sure, and you're cold and you have to be flexible, all those different things.

"So, for him to kind of like bear that mentally and come back and play well and play strong, good for him. And I think that's a good sign of character."

Panthers set franchise record in win

Florida's seven first-period markers set a franchise record for goals in a period, topping a previous high of six.

Despite the strong offensive output, the Panthers aren't looking to follow the same strategy moving forward after a total of 10 goals were scored in the opening frame.

"I have never seen anything like that," Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. "In 25 years, never seen that many goals. There were more goals than chances to score and that is a rarity. All I can say is it affected the game for both teams, and I do not think anything on video is useful to the game of hockey."

"If you came 30 minutes late, you missed it," winger Matthew Tkachuk added. "Hope people did not get stuck in traffic. Definitely we have some things to clean up, but a win is a win. We did score a ton of goals, so we did a lot of good things as well."

Florida closed within three points of the Islanders for the final wild-card spot with Thursday's win, with two games in hand on New York. The Panthers are 6-3-1 in their last 10 games.