Canadiens Lineup

Tomas Tatar – Phillip Danault – Brendan Gallagher

Jonathan Drouin – Nick Suzuki – Joel Armia

Paul Byron – Max Domi – Jordan Weal

Artturi Lehkonen – Jake Evans – Dale Weise

Ben Chiarot – Shea Weber

Brett Kulak – Jeff Petry

Karl Alzner – Christian Folin

Carey Price – Charlie Lindgren

Victor Mete, Xavier Ouellet

Game Report

The shadow of the trade deadline loomed large over the Bell Centre tonight. Marc Bergevin missed a golden opportunity to take full advantage of extremely generous buyers. Instead he tiptoed through the day as a seller light. 

And then he followed a weak performance with an incoherent, sometimes contradictory, press conference. 

So the players can’t be faulted if their own effort in tonight’s game wavered at times. 

You’ve heard the pattern before. The Canadiens took a multi-goal lead, the opposition  tied the game and the Habs lost another game at home. 

Tonight the proficient Vancouver power-play victimized Phillip Danault and the Habs penalty-kill twice in two opportunities.

Then a poorly managed overtime by Max Domi, Paul Byron and Jeff Petry put an end to the game handing Vancouver their 34th win.

The elephant in room is the dreadful play of Jonathan Drouin since his return from injury. In eight games, Drouin has no points, just seven shots on goal and a minus-10 rating. In addition to the poor numbers, Drouin has the look of a player going through the motions, which is a reminder of how he played last February.

The Canadiens will practice at 11:30 am. on Wednesday morning in Brossard.

Plus / Minus

▲  Carey Price, Shea Weber, Max Domi, Paul Byron 

▼  Jonathan Drouin, Christian Folin, Nick Suzuki, Dale Weise, Phillip Danault