Canadiens Lineup

Mike Hoffman – Nick Suzuki – Josh Anderson

Rem Pitlick – Christian Dvorak – Jonathan Drouin

Artturi Lehkonen – Jake Evans – Joel Armia

Laurent Dauphin – Ryan Poehling – Cole Caufield

Ben Chiarot – David Savard

Alexander Romanov – Jeff Petry

Brett Kulak – Chris Wideman

Cayden Primeau – Sam Montembeault

Michael Pezzetta, Sami Niku

Cedric Paquette (undisclosed), Jake Allen (lower-body), Paul Byron (hip), Brendan Gallagher (lower-body), Mathieu Perreault (lower-body), Tyler Toffoli (hand), Joel Edmundson (back), Carey Price (knee), Shea Weber (multiple injuries)

None

Michael McNiven, Lukas Vejdemo, Corey Schueneman, Kale Clague

Game Report

This was a matchup of the bottom-feeders, the two worst teams in the NHL. The Coyotes and Canadiens had a lot in common: they don’t score much, they give up a lot of goals and their special teams are among the worst in the league. And it’s fair to say that the game lived up to the billing.

Clayton Keller is the top scorer for the Coyotes with 14 goals on the season, exactly double the total of the best Montreal Canadien.

Arpon Basu of The Athletic shared an interesting tidbit of information:

“Josh Anderson was injured Dec. 2 as the Canadiens team leader in goals with 7. He comes back 46 DAYS LATER and remains tied for the Canadiens team lead in goals with 7.”

Anderson, who missed more than six weeks, is tied for the team league in goals with Nick Suzuki and Rem Pitlick who was just picked up on waivers (if you count his totals from the Minnesota Wild.) The Canadiens are having an astonishingly bad year.

Speaking of Pitlick, after his goal in this game, he has seven goals on 14 shots this season, for a wildly unsustainable shooting percentage of 50.

Ryan Poehling had the nicest goal for the Canadiens redirecting a shot for a power-play marker. He continues to consistently go to the goal, one of the few Canadiens who do.

It was a rough outing for Cayden Primeau who is still struggling with positioning and lateral movement. Ducharme obviously wanted to boost his confidence by giving him the start against a weak opponent but it didn’t work out that way. Primeau was pulled after the second period making way for Sam Montembeault.

Up Next

Brendan Gallagher caused a stir during the second intermission when he tweeted about the Canadiens lost goalie interference challenge in the second period.

The Canadiens head to Dallas for the second half of their back-to-back games. Note that it is a 8:30 pm. ET start time.

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