The Montreal Impact’s stingy defense on Saturday ended the LA Galaxy's ten game (all competitions) winning streak at the StubHub Center with a scoreless draw.

In those games the Galaxy scored 46 times and only allowed seven goals in the process. The least amount LA scored in a match during their win streak was the 3-1 victory against the Seattle Sounders on August 9th. However, the Impact did their homework and frustrated the Galaxy’s lethal offense.

“There’s a mentality developing here – not giving up anything,” Impact defender Wandrille Lefèvre said after the draw. “It’s a shame about last week, because you look at the result, and we gave up three goals, so we absolutely wanted to address that. Looking at our mentality, our togetherness, our readiness to fight for a colleague that lost a ball, it’s important to build a group’s identity. We saw that tonight.”

The Canadians made 16 tackles and cleared the ball 32 times from danger. When physical play was needed, the Impact did not shy away from doing whatever was needed to stop an attack or just prevent the Galaxy from developing any rhythm, the Canadians had no problem of doing so as they committed 11 fouls.

The Galaxy’s offense struggled to break through Montreal’s defense. The home team was only able to muster 11 chances in the match. Robbie Keane, Giovani Dos Santos, Steven Gerrard, Sebastian Lleget, Juninho and Gyasi Zardes combined for three of the four shots LA got on target. However, Montreal keeper Evan Busch was there each time to stop it, and to add on to LA’s frustration.

“It was clear to see it was very frustrating,” Keane remarked after the disheartening 0-0 draw at home. “We weren't at the races tonight. A lackluster performance, but full credit to them. They made it hard for us, they defended well, but we certainly weren't at the races.”

However, Montreal’s offense did not suffer from their dominant defensive performance. Instead, they launched four more shots than LA did in the match in addition to having five shots on frame.  

Yet, Galaxy goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts did his part to preserve the draw as he blocked each shot to get LA’s eighth shutout of the year at home. This was the Galaxy’s first clean sheet against an MLS club since July’s 4-0 victory against Toronto FC on Independence Day.

“I think that's one of the positives to take away from this game, is that our defense was solid and we put out a shutout,” Galaxy center back Omar Gonzalez said. “We haven't had that since maybe early July, sometime around then. So that's one of the positives.”

The Galaxy drop to third place in the Western Conference with 47 points and they only have five games left in the regular season. If LA wants to win the West and the Supporters' Shield they will need to get back on track when they face Real Salt Lake at Rio Tinto Stadium on Saturday.

As for the Impact, they are holding to the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference with 32 points. Montreal still has nine games left in the campaign, but if they begin to catch on fire they might be able to climb up the standings.

The Canadians will still be in California for their next game, when they take on the San Jose Earthquakes on Wednesday at the Avaya Stadium.

Highlights provided by MLS Soccer.