CANADIENS
Montreal

2-5

DEVILS
New Jersey

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings 

[one_half]Tatar – Danault – Gallagher
Drouin – Domi – Shaw
Agostino – Kotkaniemi – Lehkonen
Deslauriers – Chaput – Hudon
[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Benn – Petry
Schlemko – Reilly
Ouellet – Mete

[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders

Price
Niemi

Scratches

Peca, Alzner

Injuries

Weber, Byron, Armia, Scherbak, Juulsen

Game Report 

Post-game, Jonathan Drouin said that this is the type of game that needed to be thrown in the trash. It’s not the first time this season that Drouin has suggested that approach to a loss. Trash it, forget about it and move on.

With all due respect, that’s ludicrous.

Drouin and every skater on this team should watch the tape of this game. So should the coaching staff. And management.

American Thanksgiving has traditionally been a milestone in the NHL. By that point in the season, an organization will have a pretty good idea if they are a playoff team. And they will have a good sense of their strengths and weaknesses.

So what are the 2018-19 Montreal Canadiens?

The Habs currently sit in a wild card position. A poor power-play aside, the Canadiens are a very good offensive team. It is clear that they have solid goaltending.

But the Devils, and numerous team before them from the start of the season, exposed Montreal as a terrible defensive team. Just awful.

To be this bad requires a number of contributing factors.

First and foremost, the general manager did nothing in the summer to upgrade his defence. Marc Bergevin’s defence includes David Schlemko, Xavier Ouellet, Mike Reilly, Victor Mete, Jordie Benn, Karl Alzner.

Five of them were in the lineup tonight. And none of them is better than a third pairing defenceman.

In addition, too few of the Canadiens forwards have shown a true commitment to playing a defensive game. For some like Charles Hudon, it is a part of his game that is underdeveloped. For others such as Jonathan Drouin, it is a complete lack of interest in playing without the puck.

Lastly, Claude Julien has not demanded accountability from his players with respect to playing solid defensive hockey. Remember, this is a coach who spoke about his team needing to play entertaining hockey. He certainly hasn’t put in place an effective system to limit scoring chances. His personnel choices also leave a lot to be desired.

The bottom line is that the Canadiens don’t have the talent, the willingness nor the direction to ice a strong defensive team.

And while it might be fun to watch a one-dimensional offensive team in November, they won’t hang around very long in April even though their Thanksgiving placement in the standings seems to predict that they will have an admission ticket to the playoffs.

===

▲  Carey Price

▼  Xavier Ouellet, David Schlemko, Phillip Danault, Brendan Gallagher, Kenny Agostino, Victor Mete, Mike Reilly, Nicolas Deslauriers, Tomas Tatar

1. Pavel Zacha  NJD
2. Taylor Hall  NJD
3. Tomas Tatar  MTL

• “Our backend had a tough night, there’s no doubt about that, but at the end of the day there are a lot of things our forwards can do on the defensive side of things, too. We need to be better in those situations as a team, not just as defensemen.”
• “I think from our defensemen, we need a bit more in terms of winning battles and killing plays and making sure the kinds of situations that happened tonight [don’t repeat themselves].”

Max Domi

• “We knew exactly what they were going to do. That’s a hard-working team; it’s one of the hardest-working teams in the League. We weren’t able to match their intensity.”

Brendan Gallagher

• “We had pretty good jump there for awhile, but they’re as good as they are for a reason. They made plays, and Pricey made timely save after timely save. It’s disappointing we weren’t able to get a win for him.”

Xavier Ouellet

• “We have to give them credit, they came out hard and put a lot of pressure on us. Still, we need to execute better as a group and find a way to tighten up on defense.”

Jonathan Drouin

• “It’s a game you take and you throw in the trash. It’s a team that wanted more than us, they won more battles, they went to the net. We were passive instead of being aggressive.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com

Marc Bergevin should definitely start looking at improvements to the blue line… Especially on the left side. Getting Shea Weber back will be an improvement, but they still need someone to play with him. @AllHabs @RocketSports @HabsUnfiltered

— Matt Smith (@Snakebite350) November 22, 2018

Consistency is the issue. Neither Reilly or Mete can reliably play at that level, particularly in their own zone. Too many third-pairing defencemen.#Habs

— All Habs (Canadiens) (@AllHabs) November 22, 2018

Join our talented @RocketSports team! Currently looking to add sports writers, photographers and podcast producers. https://t.co/RZwfzrNj4J #Habs #GoHabsGo #NHL #podcast pic.twitter.com/TU2MZ7gm1w

— All Habs (Canadiens) (@AllHabs) September 22, 2018

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