Canadiens Lineup

Mike Hoffman – Nick Suzuki – Jonathan Drouin

Artturi Lehkonen – Christian Dvorak – Jake Evans

Mathieu Perreault – Ryan Poehling – Cole Caufield

Michael Pezzetta – Cedric Paquette – Laurent Dauphin

Ben Chiarot – David Savard

Alexander Romanov – Chris Wideman

Brett Kulak – Kale Clague

Jake Allen – Sam Montembeault

Corey Schueneman

Joel Armia (undisclosed), Tyler Toffoli (upper-body), Jeff Petry (upper-body), Josh Anderson (upper-body), Joel Edmundson (back), Carey Price (knee), Paul Byron (hip), Shea Weber (multiple injuries)

Brendan Gallagher, Sami Niku

Game Report

It’s often said that there are no moral victories in hockey, but in a season that is lost already, there can be priorities that are as important as winning. The Canadiens are in 31st place in a 32-team league. A realistic possibility of making the playoffs hasn’t been in the cards since October.

Dominique Ducharme says that if he gets the message from management to give more ice time to younger players, he will comply. But a head coach with vision would already have made them a priority.

The future success of the Canadiens relies on the growth of Nick Suzuki but also players like Ryan Poehling and Cole Caufield. Yet Ducharme would much rather defer to spare parts like Cedric Paquette, Mathieu Perreault and the recently recalled Laurent Dauphin.

Ducharme explained the loss of a centre to injury as his rationale to use Dauphin for 15:09. Dauphin began the game on the wing of the fourth line. Poehling had another strong game but received a minute and a half less in ice time.

Dauphin was on the ice for Tampa’s first goal of the game. And oddly, he was out there with less than a minute to go in a tied contest. Dauphin finished the game with a minus-2 rating.

Paquette was also on the ice for the Lightning’s first goal. And he was only successful on 22 per cent of his faceoffs throughout the evening.

Perhaps Ducharme is hoping for another supportive tweet from Francois Legault for prioritizing ice time for home grown players. Otherwise, his decision-making is doing little to demonstrate that he has an understanding of how to develop young players for the future of the Montreal Canadiens.

Let them play

And while we’re on the topic, Canadiens management sent Mattias Norlinder to the Laval Rocket to get more ice time and some experience on the power-play. Why? It’s simply bad coaching if Norlinder can’t get into the lineup of a 31st place team and a sputtering 28th ranked power-play.

The Habs’ issues go well beyond coaching. But coaching matters particularly when grooming young, talented players to become the next core of the Montreal Canadiens. 

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