Canadiens Lineup

Harvey-Pinard – Nick Suzuki – Jesse Ylonen

Denis Gurianov – Chris Tierney – Josh Anderson

Rem Pitlick – Alex Belzile – Mike Hoffman

Jonathan Drouin – Anthony Richard – Michael Pezzetta

Mike Matheson – David Savard

Joel Edmundson – Justin Barron

Johnathan Kovacevic – Chris Wideman

Sam Montembeault – Jake Allen

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Carey Price (knee), Paul Byron (hip), Sean Monahan (lower-body), Brendan Gallagher (lower-body), Jake Evans (lower-body), Juraj Slafkovsky (lower-body), Cole Caufield (shoulder), Arber Xhekaj (upper-body), Kirby Dach (lower-body), Joel Armia (illness), Christian Dvorak (lower-body), Jordan Harris (lower-body), Kaiden Guhle (lower-body)

Game Report

Sadly, blanks across the stat sheet – 0 goals, 0 assists, 0 points, 0 hits, 0 blocked shots – are not unusual for Jonathan Drouin this season. What was odd? Zero was also Drouin’s total for time on ice in this game.

Marty St. Louis inserted Drouin in the lineup, but stapled him to the bench for the entire game, his punishment for skipping out on a team meeting.

Drouin was given a front row seat to watch his team be dominated, and a second star performance from Mikhail Sergachev, who earned two assists in almost 22 minutes of ice time. Sergachev is tied with Cale Makar for the most assists of any player in the league in the month of March.

The contrast between the players couldn’t have been any more stark. It’s been almost six years since Steve Yzerman unloaded a perennial problem and secured a top-four defenceman. It was undoubtedly the worst trade of the Marc Bergevin regime, setting the franchise back many years.

Sergachev has 53 points this season, which is tied with the Canadiens top scorer, Nick Suzuki.

The score in this game flattered the Canadiens. They were dominated throughout. Tampa gained the Montreal blue line with ease and occupied the offensive zone for extended periods of time. Shot attempts were 70-29 for the Lightning.

Tampa has won all three games between these two teams by a combined margin of 14-5.

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▼  Jonathan Drouin, Rafael Harvey-Pinard, David Savard, Denis Gurianov, Alex Belzile, Joel Edmundson, Jonathan Kovacevic, Nick Suzuki, Josh Anderson, Sam Montembeault

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