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Julien Has Had Enough

November 9, 2019, 1:25 PM ET [23 Comments]
Karine Hains
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
The Habs did not have a good game in Phily and quite a few things went wrong. Amongst those things, the fact that the team took 6 penalties, 2 were bench minors, 2 were given to Tomas Tatar and the other 2 were dished out to Artturi Lehkonen. Right now, Tomas Tatar is 17th in the league in penalty minutes with 20. In fact, he leads the league in minor penalties with 10...that just shouldn't be and evidently, Claude Julien has had enough. Clearly, he believes that making Tatar serve the last bench minor on Thursday wasn't enough of a message and that it's time to cut down on his ice-time and remove him from the first line. When the Canadiens jumped on the ice in Brossard this morning, these were the lines:



So not only is it time to send Tuna a message for all those fishy penalties, but it's also time to split up Drouin and Domi who haven't been all that efficient as a duo this season so far. Meanwhile, Suzuki gets to centre a line with Tatar and Lehkonen and say what you will about the penalties, but Tatar can score, with 13 points in 16 games, he's not a bad linemate to have and who knows, perhaps some magic can happen between the young centre and the vet. As for Poehling, he remains in the line-up but is moved to the 4th line left wing, a position he says he has played a bit in his freshman year at St. Cloud's and with Team USA junior. This leaves Max Domi to play with Byron and Armia... Byron finally had his first goal of the season against Boston and Armia has fell somewhat silent lately, hopefully, Julien strikes gold with this mix. As for the defence, it looks like Kulak is back and Reilly is back on the press gallery while the Mete-Weber and Chiarot-Petry pairings remain intact.

As for Jesperi Kotkaniemi, he remains on the injured list and the Habs coach confirms that it's important to take all the necessary time to heal a groin injury to avoid it lingering around. He will be reevaluated on a day to day basis.

The Canadiens currently sit 9th in the conference with 19 points and could really use a win tonight. The Kings are 30th in the league with 11 points in 16 games and if ever there was a time to put out a commanding performance against a weaker team, this is it. The Tricolore leads the head to head meetings with 10 wins and 8 losses and have won the last game between the two rivals. The puck drop at 19:00 tonight and we can only hope that the entire team shows up this time, unlike in Philadelphia were Carey Price was the only one to turn up.
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