Canadiens Lineup

Tomas Tatar – Phillip Danault – Brendan Gallagher

Artturi Lehkonen – Max Domi – Andrew Shaw

Jonathan Drouin – Jordan Weal – Joel Armia

Jesperi Kotkaniemi  – Nate Thompson – Paul Byron

Victor Mete – Shea Weber

Brett Kulak – Jeff Petry

Jordie Benn – Christian Folin

Carey Price – Antti Niemi

Charles Hudon, Dale Weise, Mike Reilly, Charlie Lindgren, Matthew Peca, Nicolas Deslauriers, Ryan Poehling

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Game Report

The Canadiens are still alive! With two games left to be played in the regular season, three teams, Montreal, Carolina and Columbus are within one point of each other.

The Habs are still on the wrong side of the tie-breaker with respect to the two other teams so they now have the task of winning their final two games and hoping for help.

But Tuesday night, the Canadiens took on the Herculean challenge of facing the number one team in the league. The Lightning had only lost eight games on the road this season.

While Tampa didn’t have their ‘A’ lineup on the ice, the Habs still needed their ‘A’ game to claim the victory.

It didn’t start well with Max Domi having a horrendous shift resulting in an own goal just over two minutes into the contest. Nate Thompson answered before the first period was out, scoring his first goal in a Canadiens jersey.

Then the Finns took over. Joel Armia was a man on a mission tonight following up on a strong effort in Winnipeg.

Artturi Lehkonen was the best player for the Canadiens by a wide margin in this game. Lehkonen has been a god send to the Habs second line. He recorded a goal and an assist and was a beast defensively.

Still want him traded? With Lehkonen, one of the Habs best defensive players this season, scoring his 11th of the season (that’s just one behind Phillip Danault) maybe we can get a re-vote on the Beauchamp-Molson Trophy.

It was a crucial game for the Canadiens and there was Lehkonen with the game-winner, his fourth of the season. That’s tied for best on the team.

While he wasn’t as busy as his Tampa counterpart, Carey Price was outstanding making stops of the season-saving variety.

In the undercard, it was the eternal comparison between Mikhail Sergachev and Jonathan Drouin. While both players were on the ice for a goal against finishing minus-1, the edge has to go to Sergachev who played more than 22 minutes of icetime and recorded five hits and three blocked shots.

Plus / Minus

▲  Carey Price, Joel Armia, Artturi Lehkonen, Nate Thompson

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