by Chris G, Senior Writer, All Habs Hockey Magazine

LAVAL, QC. — The Canadiens won two of the four games they played last week. They lost both road games on their schedule by a score of 1-0 on Monday against Minnesota and 4-1 on Thursday against St. Louis. Montreal was able to win both their games at the Bell Centre as they beat Detroit 3-2 on Tuesday and they shut out Colorado 3-0 on Saturday.

It is another busy week for the Habs as they face the Bruins in Boston on Monday night before coming back home to face Florida on Tuesday. After a couple of days off, they head to Columbus to face the Blue Jackets on Friday and then return home immediately after the game to host the Flyers on Saturday night.

My top-5 Canadiens takes of the week

Julien defends Domi

Late in the third period of Monday night’s game against the Wild, Max Domi was undisciplined when he retaliated on a hit behind the net from Greg Pateryn that was not penalized. I was reminded about another occasion when the former Canadiens defenceman was the talk after the game against his former team.

It’s not the first time this season that we have seen Domi get frustrated and get a penalty after a non-call. “Max Domi takes an elbow in the head. They don’t want to call it, so Max Domi has to charge of his situation,” said Claude Julien after the game. “If I’m Max Domi, I do the same thing.”

I was surprised to hear Julien defend the actions of Domi in that situation. It wasn’t a good time for the Habs number one centre to lose his discipline. His team was down by one goal and needed him on the ice rather than the penalty box to help them win the game.

Drouin’s effort level

There was a lot of discussion this past week about Jonathan Drouin and his performance. Up until Saturday’s game, Drouin was in a stretch where he was not only in a scoring slump, he didn’t seem to be putting any effort while playing.

You can probably think of a dozen plays last week where this was evident, and you would be right. The one that stood out to me was during Monday night’s game while Montreal had an empty net, Drouin caused a turnover and didn’t even try to fix his error, instead he casually skated to his bench.

“I think Jonathan has had a good season. The last little while has been tough for him. I see the same thing everybody else does,” said Julien on Wednesday.

I think the coach’s assessment is accurate. Overall, Drouin has had a good season, a significant improvement over last season. I’m not part of the group that wants him sent to Laval or traded for a bag of pucks.

On Saturday, Drouin had an excellent game on a line with Philip Danault and Brendan Gallagher. He set up Jesperi Kotkaniemi for a one-timer with a beautiful pass in the offensive zone. Drouin has the skills to be a very good player in the NHL, but he needs to improve on his consistency.

Power-play woes

The Canadiens’ power play continues to be at the bottom of the league with an embarrassing 12.5 percent success rate. Shea Weber‘s return did not improve the results with the extra attacker.

For Saturday’s game, Julien shuffled the players on both units, replacing Artturi Lehkonen with Kenny Agostino. I suppose the hope is that Agostino can get a dirty goal in front of the net. The end result was the same as the Habs went 0-for-3 against Colorado.

“We definitely had some momentum after the power-play. We moved the puck well, we worked harder actually on the power-play,” said Phillip Danault (who was not deployed with the man advantage)on Saturday. The power-play was better against Colorado but the bar was low.

Price’s usage

The Canadiens are playing two back-to-back games this week and there’s travel involved in both of those situations.

There was a lot of discussion recently around Carey Price‘s nagging injury and how it could impact his performance. Tuesday night’s game against the Panthers will be the team’s third game in four nights. Considering the Canadiens are fighting for a wild card position, I feel that the number one goalie should play as much as possible.

Price has been phenomenal with a .926 save percentage since December 1st and two shutouts in his last five starts. There’s definitely no concern over his performance to hesitate to play him to the maximum. I expect Price to play three of the four games this week with Antti Niemi starting Friday night’s game against Columbus.

Youppi’s birthday

Several of Youppi’s mascot friends from other professional teams were at the Bell Centre on Saturday night to celebrate his 40th birthday.

This is the perfect opportunity for me to mention that if the Montreal Expos return to Major League Baseball, I think that Youppi needs to return home with the Expos. Youppi is a legendary Montreal figure but the baseball diamond is where he belongs. Happy 40th to Youppi and can’t wait to see him at the ball park soon.

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