Canadiens Lineup

Joel Armia – Nick Suzuki – Cole Caufield

Tomas Tatar – Jesperi Kotkaniemi – Corey Perry

Paul Byron – Jake Evans – Artturi Lehkonen

Alex Belzile – Michael Frolik – Jesse Ylonen

Brett Kulak – Ben Chiarot

Alexander Romanov – Xavier Ouellet

Erik Gustafsson – Jon Merrill

Cayden Primeau – Charlie Lindgren

Tyler Toffoli, Joel Edmundson, Jeff Petry, Josh Anderson, Eric Staal, Jake Allen 

Joseph Blandisi, Michael Pezzetta, Joel Teasdale

Brendan Gallagher (hand), Carey Price (concussion), Jonathan Drouin (undisclosed), Shea Weber (upper-body), Phillip Danault (concussion)

Game Report

The Canadiens iced an unusual lineup to say the least. TSN broadcaster Gord Miller tweeted: “Not sure Montreal’s lineup tonight would be legal for a pre-season game.” The cumulative salary for tonight’s players totaled less than half of the NHL salary cap floor.

That’s all to say that it’s difficult to draw conclusions from this game. On the Oilers side, they mostly dressed regulars but the performance level was that line on the stove dial that sits between OFF and SIMMER.

In 60:27 of play, Edmonton registered just four high-danger scoring chances. That’s typically an average period for Connor McDavid alone.

But it was the goalies that made this game interesting. Mike Smith was going through the motions and let in a couple of softies. For Cayden Primeau, the nightmare  continued as he finished 2020-21 without a strong NHL start in four attempts.

Nick Suzuki scored twice, including his first shorthanded goal in the NHL, to reach the 15-goal plateau. That is a 22-goal pace over 82 games which puts him in great position to make the jump to the 30-goal ballpark next season.

Jesse Ylonen didn’t look out of place making his NHL debut with 11:23 in icetime. Ylonen had been a very poised player in Laval this season and could challenge for a roster spot at Canadiens training camp in the Fall.

The Canadiens backed into the playoffs with a five-game losing streak to end the season. An 18th place finish is very disappointing given the lofty expectations set by Marc Bergevin. For perspective, the Philadelphia Flyers and New York Rangers both finished the season with more wins than Montreal but both missed post-season play by virtue of being in a stronger division.

And despite the off-season changes, Montreal finished the season with a worse winning record this year in 56 games (24-21-11) than last season after the 56 game mark (26-23-7).

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