CANADIENS
Montreal

2-3

FLYERS
Philadelphia

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings 

[one_half]Pacioretty – Drouin – Lehkonen
Byron – Plekanec – Gallagher
Galchenyuk – Danault – Hudon
Deslauriers – Froese – Carr
[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Alzner – Petry
Morrow – Benn
Mete – Schlemko

[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders

Niemi
Price

Scratches

Jacob De La Rose, Jakub Jerabek, Logan Shaw

Injuries

Ales Hemsky – concussion, Shea Weber – lower-body, Andrew Shaw – lower-body

Game Report 

“When Jonathan Drouin is in the defensive zone, he doesn’t even attempt to play ‘D’.” One of my colleagues passed this on to me. They are the words of Comcast colour man Bill Clement during the Flyers broadcast tonight.

Sometimes it takes the words of an outsider to simply and accurately express the truth that no member of the adoring Montreal mainstream media will dare utter.

Marc Bergevin’s off-season plan was simple. Feeling rather unloved after the trade of fan favorite, P.K. Subban, the Canadiens general manager had a way of turning the tide. Acquire the next great francophone hope, no matter the cost, and send him on a PR tour.

Jonathan Drouin appeared in all the right places and said all the right things. He even became the captain’s best buddy over the summer months in a failed attempt to create on-ice chemistry, off-ice.

Then the red carpet was rolled out to the double CH’s under the Jumbotron in the Bell Centre. With no background for the position Drouin was anointed as the number one centre of the Montreal Canadiens.

In May 2015, Marc Bergevin infamously said that NHL trades aren’t made on Playstation. Well, neither is the pro game played there. Right now the Canadiens are dealing with a stark dose of reality after concocting an absurd plan that could have only worked on a video game.

The Jonathan Drouin experiment has been a disaster. 

Drouin’s offense has been impotent. His goals for per 60 of 1.6 is right between Logan Shaw and Byron Froese. Drouin’s goals against per 60 is 3.6, among the worst forwards on the team. As Clement correctly pointed out on the broadcast, Drouin has shown no interest in contributing to team defense.

The 22-year-old’s relative number GF-GA/60 is dead last on the Canadiens.

With just over a minute to play in this game, the Canadiens had a 2-1 lead enroute to a rare road win. As the Flyers entered the Canadiens zone unchallenged, Drouin managed a courtesy fly-by. Jake Voracek used the screen of Karl Alzner to get the tying goal with 1:26 left.

Details. They are the margin between winning and losing many nights. And post-game, Claude Julien said that his team isn’t good enough right now to be attentive to details.

But why should we expect otherwise? This team was constructed with primary attention to how it would be received off-ice. The on-ice product continues to find ways to lose. 

===

▲  Carey Price, Tomas Plekanec, Jeff Petry, Paul Byron

▼  Jonathan Drouin, Joe Morrow, Jordie Benn, Nicolas Deslauriers, David Schlemko, Phillip Danault, Karl Alzner

1. Jakub Voracek  PHI
2. Nolan Patrick  PHI
3. Alex Lyon  PHI

• “We’re not good enough with the mistakes we’re making. As a team, we competed head to head against a pretty good hockey club. It’s little details in this game that make a big difference, and the details right now just aren’t there on a consistent basis.”
• “Carey played a heck of a game tonight. He made some big saves and really gave us a chance to win. I thought we played well enough to leave with the win.”

Max Pacioretty

• “We’re focusing on the next one, and we have the Rangers at home [on Thursday]. I think we’re a much better team at home. We would have liked to prove something on the road, but now we’ve got to go back to our building and play hard.”

Flyers head coach Dave Hakstol

• “I thought that their goaltender was excellent.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com

Habs defensemen are better at screening goalies than Tomas Holmstrom FFS…

— Simon Servant (@SimServant) February 21, 2018

Of all the Canadian teams this season, the #Habs may be going through the most disastrous season on the ice as team stats across the board have been consistently poor pic.twitter.com/dkWpRJqWUX

— StatsCentre (@StatsCentre) February 21, 2018

#Habs fall to 1-11-1 in their last 13 regular season games at Philly

— Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) February 21, 2018

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