The game was well in hand, and as Max Domi carried the puck in the neutral zone late in the third period, he could have entered the New York Islanders zone with relative ease. But when he looked over to his right, he saw something that caused him to choose a different course of action.



He saw Artturi Lehkonen.



Instead of carrying the puck into the zone, Domi lobbed the puck into the Islanders corner, allowing Lehkonen to go in after it. He knew he would get there first. He knew he would secure possession of the puck. That’s exactly what happened.



This was the third game Domi had Lehkonen as his winger, something that appeared at first to be a curious decision by Claude Julien considering Domi’s line is expected to score, and that Lehkonen does literally everything but score.



But the context of that decision is important. It came following the last time the Canadiens played the Islanders, a game the Islanders thoroughly dominated, a game...