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There were some changes to the line-up tonight mainly because of injuries as Arturri Lehkonen came back in while both Ryan Poehling and Josh Anderson came out. Poehling will be out indefinitely with an upper-body injury while Anderson is apparently nursing a lower-body ailment. As expected, Ben Chiarot was a healthy scratch and Joel Edmundson was back. Since Poehling has been put on IR, Jesse Ylonen was called-up from Laval, but he was not dressed.
In his media availability this morning, St-Louis said that Montembeault had done enough to deserve to be in net tonight once again, but the youngster had a rough outing giving up 4 goals on 7 shots in the first frame and handing the net over to Cayden Primeau in the 2nd. The Canadiens were only able to find the back of the net once in the first, a proper pinball goal which bounced on pretty much everyone before fooling the Coyotes’ goalie. Fittingly, it was Flipper (as his teammates call Laurent Dauphin) who was credited with the goal. Mounty wasn’t the only one who had a rough night, Jeff Petry looked like early season Petry and made me cringe a few times, he was on the ice for the Coyotes first 2 goals which were scored within 4 minutes of the initial face-off.
The Coyotes made it 5-1 in the 2nd before Cole Caufield put some life back in the Bell Centre with 2 goals in 8 seconds (the Habs’ record belongs to Pete Mahovlich who had 2 in 5 seconds) which brought the Canadiens back to within 2 and at least gave them a fighting chance for the final frame. It’s amazing to see how everything Caufield touches turns to gold since St-Louis’ arrival, he’s got 10 goals and 9 assists in 14 games…Really makes you wonder what could have been if the change had been made earlier. I think it’s safe to assume that he would have had a better rookie season. His recent surge sees him 9th in rookie scoring with 25 points, right behind his teammate Rem Pitlick who’s 8th with 27 points (still qualifies as a rookie since he’s younger than 26 and had less than 25 games played in his previous seasons). They’re both far away from Michael Bunting who’s top of the class with 47 points in 59 games, but still, things are looking up.
Cole marque son 11e de la saison... huit secondes après son 10e!
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) March 16, 2022
Cole scores his 11th of the season... eight seconds after his 10th!#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/NCOlulx1uI
I know that the Canadiens have a lot of injuries, but still, it really tells you something when you are battling with the 31st place team in the standing and you cannot win the game, even if you are outrageously dominating shots wise. And it’s not like the Coyotes had George Vezina in net either, skills coach Adam Nicholas will have his work cut out for him trying to get this group to get a better finishing touch. Of course, Mounty’s bad night didn’t help either, but you get what I’m saying.
The Canadiens are still dead last in the league with 40 points in 60 games and 2 points behind the Kraken who has however played 61 games. Montreal will be back in action on Thursday night against the Stars and until then, the Chiarot trade watch will be in full effect.