Canadiens Lineup

Cole Caufield – Nick Suzuki – Kirby Dach

Mike Hoffman – Jonathan Drouin – Josh Anderson

Juraj Slafkovsky – Christian Dvorak – Brendan Gallagher

Michael Pezzetta – Jake Evans – Joel Armia

Jordan Harris – Johnathan Kovacevic

Joel Edmundson – Justin Barron

Arber Xhekaj – Chris Wideman

Jake Allen – Sam Montembeault

Anthony Richard, Evgenii Dadonov

Carey Price (knee), Paul Byron (hip), David Savard (upper-body), Sean Monahan (lower-body), Mike Matheson (lower-body), Kaiden Guhle (lower-body)

Game Report

How is it that the Canadiens seemed woefully unprepared for the start of every game? That’s the job of the coaching staff.

It’s tedious, detail-oriented work that involves pre-scouting the opposition by watching hours of tape, strategizing a game plan and implementing systems. It’s exactly the set of tasks that Marty St. Louis despises. He prefers that his players react from their gut,  be free to make their own decisions, and just have fun.

Well, it’s no fun playing for the Montreal Canadiens these days. And the lack of game prep shows: their opposition routinely scores the first goal and scores it early. Former  Canadien Erik Gustafsson opened the scoring just 32 seconds into this contest.

Four minutes later, the Capitals fourth line took advantage of Montreal’s top line to give Washington a 2-0 lead before the game was five minutes old. Falling behind by two goals against any team presents a challenge but particularly the Capitals who have the offensive firepower to exploit a team forced to open up.

And that’s exactly what the Caps did. St. Louis certainly did his troops no favors being content to send out the Jonathan Drouin line with Mike Hoffman and Josh Anderson against Alex Ovechkin and friends. That’s just a bad matchup.

Ovechin scored three times for his 30th career hat trick.

The final score was an embarrassment for the Canadiens. Washington outshot Montreal 40-33. But high-danger scoring chances were much closer with the Capitals having a 14-13 advantage. Charlie Lindgren simply outplayed Jake Allen by a wide margin.

On leaving Allen in for all nine goals against, Marty St. Louis said, “If it wasn’t for the mothers’ trip, maybe I would have made a different decision.”

Why is the head coach of a professional hockey team making decisions based on who is part of the touring entourage?

The Canadiens suffered their fifth straight loss. They have been outscored 26-8 during that stretch.

Up Next

Post-game, the Canadiens announced that defenceman Kaiden Guhle will not play in Nashville on Tuesday and will be re-evaluated when the team returns to Montreal.

The Canadiens will head to Nashville for the last game of their road trip and the first game of 2023. They face the Predators on Tuesday evening.

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