Canadiens Lineup

Jonathan Drouin – Nick Suzuki – Jesse Ylonen

Harvey-Pinard – Ryan Poehling – Cole Caufield

Lukas Vejdemo – Cedric Paquette – Alex Belzile

Michael Pezzetta – Cam Hillis

Brett Kulak – David Savard

Sami Niku – Kale Clague

Corey Schueneman

Sam Montembeault – Michael McNiven

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Brendan Gallagher (lower-body), Joel Armia (undisclosed), Mathieu Perreault (undisclosed), Christian Dvorak (lower-body), Josh Anderson (upper-body), Carey Price (knee), Shea Weber (multiple injuries)

Jake Allen, Ben Chiarot, Jeff Petry, Joel Edmundson, Chris Wideman, Laurent Dauphin, Mike Hoffman, Artturi Lehkonen, Tyler Toffoli, Cayden Primeau, Paul Byron, Louie Belpedio, Gianni Fairbrother, Brandon Baddock, Jake Evans, Alexander Romanov

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Game Report

Let’s be honest: this was a game that never should have been played but, as has been reported, was done so with the full blessing of the ownership of the Montreal Canadiens. Let that sink in a bit.

The virus has been rampaging through the team sidelining 16 Habs players and one coach. Prior to the game, the Canadiens announced that they would ice 11 forwards and five defencemen. Not to disparage the players suiting up, but this was a lineup dominated by players from the AHL.

With the result not in much dispute, players should have been given opportunities to showcase their abilities for a role in the future. Penalty-killing is often a way that a bottom six player can stay in the lineup from game-to-game.

A future Canadiens lineup could feature Ryan Poehling, Lukas Vejdemo or Cam Hillis. All three have experience killing penalties. But only Vejdemo was deployed while shorthanded and only for 1:38. Instead Dominique Ducharme relied on his favorite son, Jonathan Drouin for 5:05 on the penalty-kill.

Drouin will never again be used in this role once the Canadiens are healthy. It was a wasted opportunity and just one example of poor decision-making by the coaching staff.

Vejdemo and Jesse Ylonen are showing promise and should be given lots of icetime for evaluation for the remainder of the season.

On defence, Sami Niku can get himself in trouble in his own end. But moving the puck is his specialty and he can create scoring opportunities. Niku finished the game with two assists, a plus-2 rating in almost 21 minutes of work today.

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