The Montreal Canadiens followed up their sleepy performance against the Philadelphia Flyers by looking just as somnolent the next night against the league’s worst team, the San Jose Sharks.
Although Montreal pushed in the final five minutes of the game, San Jose outplayed Montreal for the vast majority of the first 55-minutes and held on for a 3-2 win.
The Sharks aren’t just bad, they have a great chance of going down as one of the worst teams in NHL history. This win marked just the fourth time they’ve won on the road this season and they rank last in just about every statistical category.
Sorry if you spent another two hours watching this game.
Pluses:
- Brendan Gallagher scores for the second time in the last three games. It’s tiering hearing fans complain about his play, when generally the lines he’s on drive play in the offensive zone. But it’s just a coincidence, it’s certainly not because of him… Right?!
- Despite the fact that the Canadiens didn’t play well, they still only lost by one and came close to equalizing the game in the third period.
Minuses:
- Jayden Struble made as egregious an error you’ll ever see on the first goal against. For a young player he’s been as steady as one could have hoped, but this one was bad.
- The offense was non-existent…
- Cole Caufield is going through one of the most difficult stretches of his time in the NHL. He can’t beat goalies clean on his shot, they are reading him with ease and he’s become predictable.
- Defensive zone coverage was questionable at best for every Sharks’ goal. Mike Matheson and Jake Evans exposed on multiple occasions.
- Martin St Louis has to wear some of this loss, he didn’t have his team prepared to play. He let them off the hook after Wednesday’s loss to Philadelphia and they followed it up by playing even worse at home against the NHL’s worst team. Brutal.
Montreal’s next opponent will be the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday night at the Bell Centre at 7pm.
thehabsblog.com 
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