CANADIENS
Montreal

1-3

JETS
Winnipeg

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings 

[one_half]Pacioretty – Galchenyuk – Radulov
Byron – Plekanec – Gallagher
Lehkonen – Danault – Shaw
Flynn – McCarron – Mitchell
[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Emelin – Weber
Markov – Petry
Beaulieu – Nesterov
[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders

Price
Montoya

Scratches

David Desharnais, Greg Pateryn, Sven Andrighetto

Injured Reserve

Game Report

If you didn’t look too closely, one might be tempted to claim that the change behind the bench had no effect on the listless Canadiens, interpreting today’s result as evidence that coaching wasn’t the problem. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

On the contrary, Michel Therrien was not only a coach with a stale message and an outdated system, he was a coach who inflicted considerable damage on this team. In other words, the worst kind of coach.

Therrien had a stubborn, arrogant approach. He took no responsibility for his inability to adapt and poor communication with his team. But Therrien was expert at stripping confidence from players.

Post-game today, new head coach Claude Julien more than once mentioned observing his player’s lack of confidence. The Canadiens are a fragile team, thanks to Therrien, and that will take time to repair. But Julien has recognized the problem and will take steps to turn the ship around.

Today, we witnessed the same lack of shots and scoring chances that have been plaguing the Habs in calendar year 2017. And oh those neutral zone turnovers. The Jets are a weak team in their own end, but the Canadiens didn’t spend much time there.

So the fragile Canadiens were outbattled by the exuberant Jets.

Julien has his work cut out for him. He has already started to implement new tactics. Today the Canadiens abandoned the diamond formation on the penalty-kill opting for the box instead. And own-zone breakouts used the middle of the ice rather than simply chipping it off the boards.

But the most critical job for Julien is rebuilding the player’s confidence. We have already heard many players acknowledge Julien’s positive messages, something that was sorely missing under Therrien. That’s a good start but Julien will have to work miracles in a short period of time.

~~~

▲     Carey Price, Andrei Markov

▼     Nathan Beaulieu, Phillip Danault

1.  Mathieu Perreault  WPG
2.  Dustin Byfuglien  WPG
3.  Carey Price  MTL

• “This team is much better than the one you saw today, and they will continue to be moving forward.”
• “I can use the example of last year in Pittsburgh — a new coach comes in, then struggles a little until things are put into place. I still need to sort out some things I’d like to see on the ice, then hopefully things will turn around and we get the same result. There were a lot of things today that I wasn’t able to see until a game situation.”

Max Pacioretty

• “It wasn’t a strong game. We got outplayed, especially in our end, and that made it tough to create anything offensively. That’s something we’ll need to clean up.”
•  “We obviously all want to play better — especially when our goalie plays well — but we’re a team in here.”
• “It’s not too often this year that we get two practices in a row between games, so we’ll see what the video says, and how we can improve.”
• “We still have a good thing going, but we want to use these two days to really dive into the tweaks to our game. We’ll work on what we want to brush up on, and then get on a roll.”

Carey Price

• “Personally, I felt a lot better. It’s always nice to get some time off to refocus and reset.”
• “I didn’t think about hockey at all. I put it at the back of mind, which is what I do during the summer as well. I think it’s good to take a break from the game every once in awhile. Physically, I felt a little bit better — not as worn down.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com

True, players spoke about how positive Julien was yesterday. https://t.co/DdxANNNR7H

— All Habs (Canadiens) (@AllHabs) February 18, 2017

https://twitter.com/Ivka_habs/status/833038636358762497

Hockey is so easy for Price he decided to make the save with his stick upside-down. #Habs #Canadiens #CH

— Matt Campbell (@mattCH_) February 18, 2017

Follow @AllHabs on Twitter