Canadiens Lineup

Artturi Lehkonen – Nick Suzuki – Jake Evans

 Tyler Toffoli – Christian Dvorak – Josh Anderson

Jonathan Drouin – Ryan Poehling – Joel Armia

Michael Pezzetta – Mathieu Perreault –  Cole Caufield

Ben Chiarot – David Savard

Brett Kulak – Jeff Petry 

Alexander Romanov – Chris Wideman

Jake Allen – Sam Montembeault

Cedric Paquette, Mattias Norlinder

Joel Edmundson lower-body), Mike Hoffman (upper body), Carey Price (knee), Paul Byron (hip), Shea Weber (multiple injuries)

Brendan Gallagher, Sami Niku

Game Report

At the end of the first period, a photo of the newly-minted EVP of Hockey Ops was widely circulated on social media. It featured Jeff Gorton, eyes closed, hands in prayerful form sitting in his executive box.

It certainly wasn’t the worst 20 minutes of hockey played by the home team at the Bell Centre but it would have been quickly apparent to Gorton that the to-do list is lengthy. The Avalanche badly outplayed the Canadiens in the first period with a 12-4 shot count for Colorado. The Habs were quite fortunate to escape the first frame with a scoreless tie.

Montreal should have come out of the gates flying to impress their new boss. The Habs should have taken advantage of a tired Avs team who were bested 8-3 by the Maple Leafs on Wednesday night. And they definitely should have taken the opportunity to pepper goaltender Jonas Johansson with shots after he gave up eight goals on 41 shots the night before.

The Canadiens didn’t do any of those things in the first period.

The Avalanche capitalized on a costly turnover by Chris Wideman during an early second period Canadiens power-play to open the scoring. Valeri Nichushkin scored Colorado’s fifth short-handed goal of the season just three minutes into the frame.

Ben Chiarot continued to raise his trade value scoring his fifth goal of the season, the second power-play goal of his career. After that the visitors took control taking a 2-1 to the dressing room after 40 minutes.

The Canadiens didn’t manage a high-danger scoring chance in the third period which ended with barely a whimper: 20 shots total.

Toward the end of the game a Canadiens jersey, then a cap landed on the ice. Habs fans are frustrated.

Up Next

Post-game it was announced that Brendan Gallagher and Sami Niku have both tested positive again for COVID-19 and must quarantine for 10 days.

Dominique Ducharme said that Josh Anderson suffered an upper-body injury when he has driven hard into the boards by Kurtis MacDermid. Initial assessment is that Anderson will be out for two to four weeks. The Canadiens recalled Laurent Dauphin from the Laval Rocket.

Alexander Romanov revealed that he broke his nose when attempting to hit Avalanche defenceman Cale Makar. Romanov returned to the game wearing a cage.

Gorton will meet the Montreal media for the first time as Executive Vice-President of Hockey Operations on Friday morning at 10:00 pm.

The Canadiens head to Nashville for a brief one-game road trip as they play the Predators on Saturday night.

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