Luke Richardson didn’t envision his debut as an NHL head coach coming this way.
But he’ll take it.
Josh Anderson scored his second goal of the game at 12:53 of overtime and Carey Price made 43 saves as Montreal beat the Vegas Golden Knights 3-2 on Friday night for a 2-1 lead in the Stanley Cup semifinal series hours after learning interim coach Dominique Ducharme tested positive for COVID-19.
“I would have thought my first chance running an NHL bench would be an exhibition game,” said Richardson, a Canadiens assistant temporarily promoted to the top job in Ducharme’s absence. “But it happened to be in third round of the Stanley Cup playoffs in overtime, so it’s pretty exciting.
“We’re just hoping to keep this thing going and we’ll get the whole group back together.”
Cole Caufield also scored for Montreal in front of 3,500 fans at the Bell Centre as the Canadiens won in overtime for the fourth time in the playoffs.
