Canadiens Lineup

Tyler Toffoli – Nick Suzuki – Brendan Gallagher

Mike Hoffman – Jake Evans – Josh Anderson

Artturi Lehkonen – Christian Dvorak – Joel Armia

Michael Pezzetta – Cedric Paquette – Alex Belzile

Ben Chiarot – Jeff Petry

Brett Kulak – David Savard

Alexander Romanov – Chris Wideman

Jake Allen – Sam Montembeault

Sami Niku, Adam Brooks

Jonathan Drouin (upper body), Mathieu Perreault (eye), Joel Edmundson (undisclosed), Carey Price (player assistance program), Paul Byron (hip), Shea Weber (multiple injuries)

Game Report

For the first twenty minutes, the Montreal Canadiens dominated a Vegas Golden Knights team decimated by injury. No Mark Stone. No Max Pacioretty. No William Karlsson. And while a blockbuster trade was made this week, no Jack Eichel, yet.

Shots on goal were 20-1 for Montreal with the home side taking a 2-0 lead into the first intermission. What could possibly go wrong?

Early in the second period, a puck over the glass penalty sent Ben Chiarot to the box. No problem. Vegas had not scored with the man advantage in 19 opportunities, the only team in the NHL without a power-play goal this season.

Eleven seconds later, the Golden Knights were on the board as Alex Pietrangelo beat Jake Allen with a short side shot. Just like that Vegas had solved it’s power-play issues against the 30th ranked penalty-kill in the league.

From that point, the fragile Canadiens collapsed. Jonathan Marchessault scored with Allen out of position, having overplayed the point shot. And with eight minutes left in the second, the awakened Vegas power-play scored its second goal of the period to take the lead for good.

After managing just one shot on goal in the first period, the Golden Knights scored five unanswered goals. Of note, Christian Dvorak was on the ice for each of the five goals against. 

It could have been worse

After the start the team had tonight, it was a devastating loss. Not only that, it was a very historic loss. The 2021-’22 edition of the Montreal Canadiens is off to the worst start in franchise history. 

That’s a lot of teams in the 112 year history of the organization. And this start is the worst. The record happened under the watch of Geoff Molson. And he owns it.

To allow the team to continuing to go forward into futility without changes is cruel. And to expect that Carey Price will be the savior once again for a management-created mess is irresponsible.

All of the half steps have been attempted with no change. The Canadiens organization is at a crossroads. Will there be decisive action?

Up Next

Plus

Minus

Game Preview