CANADIENS
Montreal

LIGHTNING
Tampa Bay

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings 

[one_half]Byron – Drouin – Gallagher
Galchenyuk – De La Rose – Hudon
Lehkonen – Danault – A. Shaw
Deslauriers – Froese – Carr
[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Reilly – Petry
Alzner – Juulsen
Benn – Lernout

[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders

Niemi
Lindgren

Scratches

Nikita Scherbak

Injuries

Ales Hemsky – concussion, Shea Weber – lower-body, Carey Price – concussion, Victor Mete – hand, Max Pacioretty – lower-body, David Schlemko – undisclosed, Rinat Valiev – lower-body

Game Report 

With a depleted line-up and playoffs out of the question since January, the Canadiens have a real opportunity to give their young players an opportunity to gain valuable experience. Transition to the NHL is the weakest link in the Canadiens development of prospects and that is primarily the fault of successive head coaches.

Mistakes should be expected with youngsters and can be exacerbated when the head coach is primed to throw these players under the bus, as happened last game.

Following his last recall, in a game once again versus the Lightning on December 28th. Brett Lernout had an equipment issue. It obviously affected his confidence for the remainder of the game.

So full credit to Lernout for a solid performance today against the NHL’s best team. He brought a physical presence in almost 16 minutes of ice-time.

And many fans, pushed by the mainstream media, are triggered to have a knee-jerk negative response to any questionable play by Jacob De La Rose.

Today, De La Rose was flagged for two first period penalties. A high-sticking call wasn’t flagrant but a result of a careless stick. The tripping call was necessary to drag down Steven Stamkos after a bad pass by Noah Juulsen put the Lightning captain in a scoring position.

Fast forward to early in the second period and it was De La Rose who provided the decoy that distracted Louis Domingue enough to be beat by a Alex Galchenyuk shot for the Canadiens second goal.

Patience and opportunity have also been keys to bringing the best out of Artturi Lehkonen and Charles Hudon.

And speaking of opportunities, let’s question two decisions by the head coach. It would have been wise for Julien to add Galchenyuk to his shootout list. And Nikita Scherbak could have played the right wing with Phillip Danault and Artturi Lehkonen rather than being a healthy scratch. Andrew Shaw could have centred the Habs fourth line with Byron Froese in the press box.

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▲  Charles Hudon, Artturi Lehkonen, Alex Galchenyuk, Brett Lernout

▼  Jonathan Drouin, Nicolas Deslauriers, Byron Froese, Jordie Benn

1. Tyler Johnson  TBL
2. Charles Hudon  MTL
3. J.T. Miller  TBL

• “I don’t want to make it sound like I’m okay with losing because I’m not and we’re not, but I appreciated the effort this afternoon. I thought our guys played hard and we really pushed. At the end, we had a couple of injuries, guys not coming back for the third. The bench got short real quick and you could tell the pace of the game was starting to catch up with us.”

Jonathan Drouin

• “We had opportunities and power plays in the third. You have to make sure to capitalize on those chances and get a two-goal lead. Especially when you’re playing a team like that with so much offense and so much power.”

Andrew Shaw

• “The standings don’t show it, but we’re working hard and we’re competing. It [stinks] to have a lot of injuries but guys are stepping up, working hard and doing what they can.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com