Canadiens Lineup

Tomas Tatar – Phillip Danault – Brendan Gallagher

Max Domi – Nick Suzuki – Joel Armia

Artturi Lehkonen – Jesperi Kotkaniemi – Jordan Weal

Charles Hudon – Nate Thompson – Nick Cousins

Victor Mete – Shea Weber

Ben Chiarot – Jeff Petry

Brett Kulak – Cale Fleury

Carey Price – Keith Kinkaid

Christian Folin, Mike Reilly

Paul Byron, Jonathan Drouin

Game Report

One week ago, the Montreal Canadiens squeaked out a shootout win over the Columbus Blue Jackets thanks to Carey Price. In this column, the red flag was waved, highlighting concerns about the Habs performances against bottom-feeding teams.

After tonight’s game, the 27th-ranked Blue Jackets have taken three of a possible four points from Montreal in the period of a week.

The Canadiens played reasonably well for the first 40 minutes. But a lack of sustained focus led to mistakes. And Habs mistakes led to bad bounces.

And before you knew it the Blue Jackets scored four unanswered goals, each followed by a cannon blast, after Montreal had taken a 2-1 lead.

It goes without saying that the Canadiens will not make the playoffs with the 30th ranked penalty-kill. We know that it is on Claude Julien’s to-do list. But the coach needs to fix it post haste. 

The Canadiens return home to host the Ottawa Senators at the Bell Centre on  Wednesday. 

Plus / Minus

▲  Artturi Lehkonen, Joel Armia

▼  Brett Kulak, Max Domi, Phillip Danault, Ben Chiarot, Tomas Tatar, Jeff Petry, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, penalty-kill