Canadiens Lineup

Tomas Tatar – Phillip Danault – Brendan Gallagher

Artturi Lehkonen – Max Domi – Nick Suzuki

Jonathan Drouin – Jesperi Kotkaniemi – Joel Armia

Paul Byron  – Nate Thompson – Jordan Weal

Victor Mete – Shea Weber

Ben Chiarot – Jeff Petry

Mike Reilly – Christian Folin

Carey Price – Keith Kinkaid

Nick Cousins, Brett Kulak, Cale Fleury

Noah Juulsen (headaches), Joel Teasdale (knee)

Game Report

After a Wednesday night overtime loss, the Canadiens head coach said, (paraphrasing)  ‘we can’t keep digging holes for ourselves and falling behind in games.’ The inference was that perhaps sometime soon, the Habs would not be able to mount a magic comeback.

Turns out, that game was tonight. 

Some nights, the Habs offence will not be able to outscore the mistakes of their porous defence. Some nights, Carey Price, despite a superhuman goaltending performance and being an excellent puck-mover, won’t be able to overcome players who don’t have the talent to be in the roles they have been handed.

The offence wasn’t creating offence against the Red Wings backup goaltender. And at the other end, Carey Price was outstanding. Chants of “Carey-Carey” broke out multiple times throughout the game. The Red Wings dominated high danger scoring chances 12-4. 

With the usual caveat that it is early, for the last four games we are getting a taste of the product of inaction by Marc Bergevin this past summer. 

Ben Chiarot can be a solid third-pairing defenceman. A smooth-skating Victor Mete wouldn’t look overwhelmed on the bottom pair. It’s fair to contend that Brett Kulak and Cale Fleury can also make solid contributions in a third pair slot as well.

So with everyone in the proper roles, there are two rather large holes on the left side of the Canadiens defence. And a glut of bottom-pairing d-men. That’s exactly the way the off-season began.

So when Marc Bergevin rushed out to re-sign Christian Folin and Mike Reilly (for two years), we were critical. We accurately predicted that the defence would be a major Achilles heel for the Canadiens this season. 

There’s no joy in being right in this instance. But it was obvious to us, why was the general manager believing his own fairy tale?

So far in 2019-’20, we have observed a few things. The Canadiens have significant issues on defence. Despite the excitement about young players, the head coach prefers veterans. Price will have to be sensational for the team to win games. And there is a problem with one of the special teams units.

To borrow a phrase, it’s like deja vu all over again.

Just in case someone is thinking of trotting out the excuse of playing three games in four nights this week (looking at you, coach), the Canadiens had three nights off heading into Wednesday night’s game. And as has been mentioned in this column before, Montreal has the third easiest schedule in the league.

The Canadiens will opt for a team meeting rather than a practice on Friday in Brossard. They have a Saturday night date with the reigning Stanley Cup champions at the Bell Centre.

Plus / Minus

▲  Carey Price, Joel Armia, Shea Weber

▼  Ben Chiarot, Mike Reilly, Christian Folin, Nick Suzuki, Phillip Danault, Brendan Gallagher, Tomas Tatar, Nate Thompson