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Canadiens Lineup

Forward lines

Tyler Toffoli – Nick Suzuki – Cole Caufield

Artturi Lehkonen – Ryan Poehling – Laurent Dauphin

Mathieu Perreault – Cedric Paquette – Alex Belzile

Brandon Baddock – Jean-Christophe Beaudin – Lukas Vejdemo

Defence pairings

Alexander Romanov – Jeff Petry

Brett Kulak – Gianni Fairbrother

Xavier Ouellet – Arber Xhekaj

Goaltenders

Cayden Primeau – Michael McNiven

Scratches

Injuries

Brendan Gallagher (personal), Joel Edmundson (undisclosed), Carey Price (knee), Paul Byron (hip), Mike Hoffman (lower-body), Josh Brook (knee), Joel Teasdale (knee)

Game Report

It was a highly anticipated rivalry match for both Habs and Leafs fans, the first meeting since the Canadiens shocked the Maple Leafs by upsetting them on the last day of May. It was a meaningful game for players too as John Tavares returned to the ice after suffering a knee injury and a concussion in that round one playoff matchup. On the Canadiens side, Dominique Ducharme inserted his entire top line and his top defenceman for the contest.

But this was a game dominated by the Leafs from the outset. The Canadiens played a sloppy brand of hockey and spent much of the game bottled up in their own zone. There was little reason for Habs fans to cheer, particularly in the second period where the team went 18:38 before registering their first shot on goal.

Inexplicably, Montreal failed to record a shot on goal on a 3-on-0. It was that kind of night.

The Canadiens first line of Nick Suzuki, Tyler Toffoli and Cole Caufield looked out of sync until Toffoli broke the shutout with less than two minutes to go. Jeff Petry‘s throttle was set to ‘going through the motions’ speed all game.

Pre-season games matter

The reaction on social media from many Habs fans was: ‘Chill! It doesn’t matter. Pre-season games are meaningless.’

From a team perspective over a long season, maybe that sentiment has a kernel of truth. But on an individual level, pre-season games can be extremely important for players who are fighting for a spot. And given their performances, they may have wasted one of their limited opportunities to impress the coaching staff and management.

Coach Ducharme has already expressed that they will use the first four exhibition games to evaluate players. And given the number of bodies in camp and the groupings, most players will play just two of those four games.

Newcomer Cedric Paquette understood this when he spoke at the Saturday morning media availability. “I think I have to make a good impression and keep it simple at the start,” said Paquette. “We will see what will happen, but I will give my 110 percent every day to have my place.”

Paquette did not succeed in making a good impression as he had a very tough first outing at centre in a CH sweater including a team low 22 percent at the faceoff dot. But Paquette was not alone. On defence, Xavier Ouellet and Arber Xhekaj had an exceptionally bad night. In goal, it was a shaky start for Cayden Primeau who had difficulty tracking the puck and being square to the shooter.

Focus on the positive

Amidst the dull effort, there were a few standout performances. Credit to Brett Kulak and Gianni Fairbrother who were the Canadiens best defence pairing. Fairbrother carried over his fearless, physical play from rookie camp (leading the team in hits) while Kulak carried the puck smoothly and was tied for the team high in shots on goal.

Artturi Lehkonen knows only one way to play. Lehkonen was physical, was hard on the forecheck and was effective on the penalty-kill.

Michael McNiven was solid in relief of Primeau stopping 10 of 11 shots but made one error in judgement turning over the puck for the final Leafs goal.

Ryan Poehling was not blessed with dynamic line-mates but played a mostly mistake free game, had a scoring chance on a breakaway and was superb on faceoffs at 64 percent.