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NEWARK Reilly Smith Jersey , N.J. (AP) — If the Montreal Canadiens don’t make the postseason, they can blame the lowly New Jersey Devils.Three games. Three losses. And only one point for a team fighting for its playoff life.Monday night’s 2-1 defeat might have been one of the low points all season for Montreal. With the Canadiens needing a win to improve their hold on the top wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference, last-place New Jersey beat them with a lineup that included seven players who spent the majority of the season with the Devils’ top minor league affiliate.“We just didn’t start on time,” Montreal coach Claude Julien said. “We didn’t play well enough to win a hockey game. This time of year you have to play 60 minutes and we didn’t do that.”The Devils did.Nathan Bastian scored his first NHL goal and Kurtis Gabriel got his second. Recently acquired defenseman Connor Carrick set up both goals and Cory Schneider made 34 saves to cap the Devils’ best season series against Montreal since going 3-1-0 in 2011-12.“When you have young guys called up and guys in the lineup due to injury or trades, you need people to step up,” Schneider said. “The top line was getting keyed on, so to have guys step in and contribute like that was huge. We’re going to need everyone to contribute. Win or lose games like tonight, we can live with this effort and that compete level.”The Canadiens still hold a one-point lead over Carolina and Pittsburgh for the first wild card in the East, but the Hurricanes and Penguins now each have a game in hand.“Every single game from here on out will be absolutely huge,” Montreal center Max Domi said. “We’ve got to find ways to win as many games as possible. We’re going to try and win every game, obviously. We’re going to leave it all out there.”Paul Byron scored a short-handed goal for Montreal, and Carey Price made 20 saves.Trailing 2-0 and with the Devils on a power play, the Canadiens got back into the game on a great individual effort by Byron, who recently returned to the lineup after missing six games with an arm injury.Byron picked up a loose puck near his own blue line, outskated defenseman Damon Severson into the Devils zone and beat Schneider with a shot to the top corner at 6:30 of the third period.Montreal threatened in the final 13 minutes but Schneider made excellent saves on Domi and Brendan Gallagher on a power play in the last 10 minutes. Schneider’s best save might have been a stop on a short-handed breakaway by Artturi Lehkonen in the first period.Bastian, recalled from the minors Sunday, tipped Carrick’s shot under Price’s pads at 12:35 of the first period. He made his NHL debut on Jan. 19 and this was his second game.“Being a big guy, I pride myself in being big and strong and good around the net Michael Ferland Jersey Womens ,” Bastian said. “Sometimes when you tip it, it goes in, and sometimes it doesn’t. I was lucky enough to get it through Price’s legs.”Gabriel, who scored his first NHL goal against Ottawa last week, got his second by tipping a shot from the point by Carrick at 3:06 of the second period and putting in the rebound.“That’s the kind of goal you feel good getting to the net and rewarded for your hard work on it,” Gabriel said. “That’s why you saw the exuberance and celebration. The first one I didn’t see go in. To be able to contribute and get a game-winning goal in a big game against that team, it’s great.”NOTES: Price has started the last 11 games for Montreal. … Devils D Eric Gryba cleared waivers and was assigned to Binghamton of the AHL. … New Jersey called up four players from its AHL affiliate the past two days: Bastian, G Mackenzie Blackwood, D Egor Yakovlev and forward Michael McLeod. … New Jersey D Will Butcher and forward Jesper Bratt were scratched with lower-body injuries. … New Jersey traded G Keith Kinkaid to Columbus and forward Marcus Johansson to Boston earlier in the day.UP NEXTCanadiens: Play the second of back-to-back road games in Detroit on Tuesday night.Devils: Play the second of a three-game homestand Wednesday night against Calgary. Behind the mask is a mind filled with a web of a thousand thoughts, worries and a singular focus of what it takes to win a game.Then the next game, then the one after that.”There is no shut-off for a goaltender,” retired goalie Brian Boucher said. ”The mind doesn’t shut off.”A starting NHL goaltender bears a burden unlike any position in hockey and few others in sports, and the resulting pressure builds up over the course of a season. By this time of year, with the playoffs on the horizon, No. 1 goalies have grinded through almost six months of work and are battling fatigue that threatens to derail their team’s hopes.Andrei Vasilevskiy of Tampa Bay is going through it for the first time while Braden Holtby of the Washington Capitals is used to it by now. Goalies of all ages have no choice but to manage the physical and mental hurdles.”It’s one of those things that you’ve got find ways to make sure you’re prepared and ready to play every game,” Holtby said. ”As a goaltender, there’s not much room to take nights off.”It’s worse for the goalies whose teams can’t afford to start a backup. Boucher started the final 13 games for Philadelphia in 2010 to help them make the playoffs, Jonathan Quick started 20 of the final 21 games for the Los Angeles Kings when they tried to make a furious push to make it in 2015 and Kari Lehtonen could be counted on to play the final nine games of the Dallas Stars‘ season now as they claw for a spot.”You’ll go through the whole night thinking about tomorrow William Karlsson Jersey , show up to the rink in the morning thinking about tonight and then you show up to the game thinking about the game,” said Boucher, now an analyst for NBC Sports. ”Not until that horn goes off at the very end can you finally go, `Whew,’ and take a deep breath and hopefully it’s in a celebration with your teammates. …. You have a shower, you feel good about things, you go home, you kind of decompress and then the next day it starts again: the butterflies, the nerves, the thinking about your opponent. And that’s the mental fatigue that comes into it.”That’s what Vasilevskiy is dealing with at age 23, 58 starts into his first season as the full-time starter and the league leader in victories.”Tiredness is something that I probably never faced before,” he told The Tampa Bay Times.The same goes for Winnipeg goalie Connor Hellebuyck, who is between the pipes for meaningful games and on the cusp of his first playoff appearance. Jets goaltending coach Wade Flaherty talks to Hellebuyck almost daily about what he needs to be successful, and the staff pays careful attention to making sure the 24-year-old is good to go.Coach Paul Maurice said the Jets are aware of the balance between rhythm and rest but aren’t holding Hellebuyck back.”There’s a fatigue component that a No. 1 goaltender also has to embrace,” Maurice said. ”He has to learn how to play when he doesn’t feel 100 percent right because that’s basically going to be his life.”Winnipeg has been able to give Hellebuyck blocks of two or three days completely off, a rarity for top goalies this time of year. The Nashville Predators have a big enough lead atop the Central Division that they can afford to lighten Pekka Rinne’s workload down the stretch, which could be a huge benefit.”I like thinking outside the box,” former goalie Martin Biron said. ”You may have a Friday-Saturday game Alex Ovechkin Jersey Kids , have a Tuesday game, have a Thursday game. You can play your starter on Friday-Saturday and not play him on Tuesday so he gets Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday (off) and then he gets ready for the weekend again for the Thursday. There’s a lot more days to be able to decompress and really think about how to reset and re-prepare.”Holtby got a 10-day reset from a month-plus of struggles as Philipp Grubauer started four games in a row. Having a reliable backup is a luxury Washington has – and Holtby doesn’t like taking days off, either. Toronto starter Frederik Andersen recently joked that he’s more tired of being asked if he’s tired than he is from facing the most shots in the league.Practice shots, warmups, travel and mental and physical preparation are also part of the wear and tear. Analyst Justin Goldman of The Goalie Guild said those can be spaced out over weeks and months.”Anything you can do to get a little bit of extra sleep over the course of the season is absolutely monumental when it comes time for the playoff push,” Goldman said.Biron, who started 59 games for Philadelphia in 2007-08 and backed up Henrik Lundqvist when the New York Rangers realized the ”King” needed more time off, figures 60 is the perfect number for a starter. For someone like Vasilevskiy who can’t afford to learn and wait for next year, Boucher said he hopes a more relaxed market like Tampa Bay helps now and the rush of the playoffs gets him through the grind in a few weeks.”I think Vasilevskiy’s going to be fine just because you watch his physical attributes, they’re through the roof,” Boucher said. ”So the physical side doesn’t look like it’s an issue. Now it’s his time to shine.”—