It turns out that Saturday’s originally scheduled game against the Bruins isn’t the only one the Habs will have to make up. On Sunday, the NHL and NHLPA announced that all cross-border games before the holiday break have been postponed, meaning the Canadiens have had all three of their upcoming games taken off the schedule.
While quite a few Habs have been thought to be dealing with the hangover of a shortened offseason as at least part of the reason for their struggles, that hasn’t been the case for some of the players who left for other organizations over the offseason.
Saturday became an off-day for the Habs following the postponement of their game against Boston but there was still plenty of news. The team announced that Artturi Lehkonen has been placed in COVID protocol while Joel Armia and Mathieu Perreault have been put on injured reserve.
A day after not being able to play in front of fans in their victory over the Flyers, the Habs won’t be playing their next game at all as the league announced that Saturday’s contest against the Bruins has been postponed.
Thursday’s game came with many surprises as Cayden Primeau got the start, fans were excluded from the building, and the power play looked dangerous again. In the end, the new line of Drouin, Dauphin, and Ylonen came up big in both the third and the shootout as the Habs finally snapped their seven-game losing skid, beating the Flyers 3-2.
The Habs have decided to let Mattias Norlinder continue his development at home as they announced on Thursday that he has been assigned back to Frolunda of the SHL while they’ve also recalled Cayden Primeau to start tonight against Philadelphia.
Despite a depleted lineup due to injuries and plenty of recalls to Montreal, Laval still had a strong week, picking up a pair of victories in three games to hang around the playoff picture.
The Habs played a high effort game on Tuesday, and it was far more entertaining than some recent games. In the end, they couldn’t execute offensively and hit the post when they did create scoring chances. The outcome was the usual as they once again lost, this time 5-2 to the Penguins.
November was another rough month for the Habs as they weren’t able to shake their early-season funk. Nevertheless, a handful of players stood out amongst the rest, earning the most votes from our readers for our monthly three stars.
It’s hard to win in any hockey league when you’re only averaging a goal scored per game. That’s all the Habs could muster up this past week and unsurprisingly, their losing streak continued with some more bad luck and bad lineup decisions along the way.