CANADIENS
Montreal

PANTHERS
Florida

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings: 

[one_half]Pacioretty- Galchenyuk – Andrighetto
Byron – Plekanec – Mitchell
Matteau – McCarron – Lessio
De la Rose – Danault – Brown[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Markov- Barberio
Emelin – Pateryn
Bartley – Dietz
[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders:

Condon
Scrivens

Scratches:  Lars Eller (flu), Brendan Gallagher (lower-body), P.K. Subban (upper-body)
Injured reserve:  Carey Price, Daniel Carr, Brian Flynn, Jeff Petry, David Desharnais, Tom Gilbert, Nathan Beaulieu

Game Report

The Florida Panthers are a big, skilled team with a talented coach behind the bench. A rather large hole remained in the Canadiens coaching staff when Gerard Gallant left to become head coach of the Panthers. Gallant is a player’s coach and was the communication link between the players and the arrogant Michel Therrien.

Like Marc Bergevin, the Panthers GM Dale Tallon is an alumn of the Chicago Blackhawks management team. Like he did in Chicago, Tallon has executed a rebuilding plan bring the Panthers to first place in the Atlantic Division this season. With some key depth additions at the trade deadline, Tallon has given his troops a chance to surprise many during the upcoming playoffs.

On the Canadiens side, it’s status quo. Bergevin continues to rearrange the deck chairs at the bottom of the lineup while ignoring gaping holes. Perhaps it’s not neglect but simply that he isn’t up to the task of being an NHL general manager. Despite the inability of Therrien to find a way to win without Carey Price, Renaud Lavoie reported that Therrien will be back next season too.

So perhaps it shouldn’t be any surprise that Canadiens fans are bailing in droves.  Many fans are past the anger of December and have moved on to apathy.  That’s a dangerous point and should be of serious concern to Geoff Molson.

The players can’t help being affected by the current environment in Montreal.  If you are looking for an example of the phrase ‘playing out the string’ let me present Tuesday night’s game.

With the Canadiens general manager content to be a spectator in the world of hockey and a lack of leadership behind the bench, players are left on their own to find the motivation to play the remaining games in the season. The result was a disjointed effort sprinkled with a few individual moments of accomplishment.

Not exactly worth the price of admission to the Bell Centre.

Post-game the temperature of this team was made even more clear. Quotes from the Lessios, Barberios and McCarrons were overflowing with the word “I.”  That’s where this organization is right now. Team goals are gone. And for fans, it is getting more difficult to watch with each passing game.

The Canadiens head to Buffalo to play the Sabres on Wednesday.

~~~

▲     Mike Brown

▼     Stefan Matteau, Paul Byron, Alexei Emelin, Lucas Lessio, Mike Condon

1. Vincent Trocheck  FLA
2. Nick Bjugstad  FLA
3. Brian Campbell  FLA

• “[Lucas Lessio] needs to be consistent about the way he plays his game. He’s got some ups and downs.”

Max Pacioretty

• “They’re a good team. They’re primed up, ready for the [Stanley Cup Playoffs], They made a lot of big deals at the deadline, and that’s a team that I think is going to open up a lot of eyes in the playoffs.“

Mike Condon

• “They played hard. I thought we matched them. I thought we had a really good effort and tonight was a game of inches and they got what they needed, and we didn’t.“
• “I had my glove on it and I’m not sure who it was, he got his skate on it and got the puck loose, and obviously I didn’t agree with it but I’m not the ref so that’s how it goes.”

Panthers forward Jaromir Jagr

• “Montreal, it’s a big hockey town. It’s always special to play here. The people love hockey, they love their Canadiens team no matter what the score is.”
• “I remember when I was playing for [the] New York Rangers; we had a 5-0 lead after 30 minutes and the fans were still cheering. I couldn’t believe it, because if this one would happen in Madison Square Garden everybody would have left and [been] booing us. And it was the biggest surprise ever and they came back and they won 6-5.”
• “But when they were down 5-0 and every time they have a shot on the net people go nuts, in that moment it was telling me the most about the fans here.”

Panthers coach Gerard Gallant

• “I thought we played a good bounce-back game.”
• “[Vincent Trocheck] plays his game and he gets scoring chances every night so we really like the way he’s skating and moving his feet.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com