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There’s no point in doing a rundown of this horror show, but there is one is pointing out, as Marc Denis did on RDS that the Canadiens only had 5 players in the line-up who had 100+ games of experience in the NHL; David Savard (643), Brendan Gallagher (606), Cedric Paquette (441), Brett Kulak (288) and Nick Suzuki (159). In fact, that kind of line-up wouldn’t even have met the requirements to be an acceptable squad for a preseason game, that says it all.
If that’s not bad enough for you, La Presse’s Guillaume Lefrançois actually tweeted the Canadiens’ payroll for this game, and it came up to a whooping 25.403 million. 15.398 million up front (Gallagher being the only one earning over a million, since Suzuki’s contract extension doesn’t kick in until next season), 8.505 millions on the blue line and 1.5 million in net. To make things even worst, Brendan Gallagher didn’t even finish the game, he left at about 12:50 in the 2nd and didn’t play in the 3rd period. Since he’s just come back from Covid, I’m guessing it’s an injury, but normally, it takes a lot to make him sit out.
As for the game itself, it’s hard not to mention how good the Hurricanes are down the middle, so good in fact that they won about 70% of the faceoffs. Pretty darn hard to compete when you’re spending so much time chasing the puck. All in all, it was an easy night for Carolina back-up turned starter Antti Raanta who’s the man since Frederik Andersen is currently on the Covid list.
Much like last game, the Canadiens’ special units were ineffective, but that’s to be expected when you’re so far from your regular line-up, the coaches are asked to make up special teams with players they barely know and who, let’s face it, don’t necessarily have the talent level to be in the NHL. As for the Canes’, they scored 3 power play goals and a shorthanded one.
Before the game, it was announced that 2 more Habs had joined the Covid list: Louie Belpedio and Gianni Fairbrother. Both were on the Canadiens’ taxi squad and to be fair, this is just getting near ridiculous. Worst still, Jonathan Drouin also skipped the game, apparently suffering from a non-Covid related virus.
This severely depleted line-up will now limp its way to Florida to take on the Panthers and after that, they won’t play until January 12th in Boston. The league had already announced that the games scheduled in Montreal next week would be postponed since the Habs couldn’t play in front of a crowd but today, the Quebec government tighten the screw a bit more, bringing back a curfew, shutting down restaurants and places of worship, prohibiting private gatherings and keeping the schools shut until at least January 17th. If you want to see the silver lining, the Canadiens will have no choice but to rest up at home and hopefully, it does them some good.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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