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In Hainsight: Limping to the Finish Line |
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Follow me @KarineHains for all updates about the Montreal Canadiens and women's hockey
The one and only positive thing about last night’s game is that it’s mercifully over, even the most optimistic people would be hard pressed to find anything good to write about that sorry excuse of a hockey game. To be fair though, the Canadiens now have 15 injured players and their line-up looks like what they would use in the first of 8 preseason match-ups and that’s understandable. Not only are the games meaningless at this point, but even head coach Martin St-Louis has said that his evaluation of the players is pretty much done.
After this 5-0 defeat the Canadiens have now lost four games in a row, and in two of them, they were unable to score a single goal. Most Habs fans have been very patient this season, probably because they all knew that there would be no playoffs this year and that a rebuild takes time, but if the team had deployed this kind of effort (or lack thereof) from the get go, the reaction would have been much different. That being said, it’s hard to crucify a team that’s running on fumes and is missing so many of its chore pieces, but still, the Canadiens’ brass must take notice of what’s happened this year and after overhauling the hockey ops, communications and analytics departments last season, the medical department should be in their crosshairs for the upcoming offseason.
The Canadiens, or what’s left of them, practiced this morning in Brossard and for a third day in a row, Jake Allen was nowhere to be seen. As for Rafael Harvey-Pinard, he skated for half an hour on his own prior to the team’s practice and afterwards, he joined his teammates in a no-contact jersey. The Habs will be holding their pride night tomorrow night as they’ll face the recently eliminated Washington Capitals.
Standings wise, Montreal still sits in 28th place a single point behind the Coyotes and both teams have got 4 games to go. After the Caps, the Tricolore will have dates with the Leafs, Islanders and Bruins to finish off the season. With the current state of the team, it’s hard to imagine they’ll be picking up many points. The Islanders are still engaged in a dog fight to qualify for the playoffs, the Leafs will be polishing their play for their first-round match-up with the Lightning, but the Bruins may decide to mercifully rest some players on April 13, just like the Panthers did last season when Montreal won its last game 10-2, you never know.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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