The Montreal Canadiens gave Christian Folin an opportunity to play and looked steady in his debut proving he should get a run of games.
Claude Julien made two lineup changes ahead of the game. Dale Weise and Christian Folin drew in Matthew Peca and Mike Reilly respectively allowing Folin to make his debut with the Montreal Canadiens. The defence pairs were shaken up a bit as well with Jordie Benn getting the bump up to the top pair with Shea Weber, Victor Mete lining up with Jeff Petry, while Folin was paired with Brett Kulak.
The story of the night is obviously the offensive power of the Montreal Canadiens where Max Domi, Andrew Shaw, and Jonathan Drouin were all over the scoreboard on the way to an 8-1 victory. What hasn’t been talked about as much was how steady Folin was for the Habs.
The 25-year-old played his first game in 25 days, his last being a win against the Boston Bruins (great way to finish this off). Claude Julien didn’t hold Folin back playing him a total of 17:30 which lead all defencemen in 5v5 ice time. Most of this was at even strength while he saw only 48 seconds on the penalty kill.
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Perhaps it was because the Montreal Canadiens were dominating and Julien thought it was an opportunity to give Folin a platform.
Folin did a good job protecting the crease during the game limiting chances when he was on the ice to the point and the slot. Not perfect but a good start. Another aspect of Folin’s game that stood out was his ability to quickly move the puck out of the defensive zone.
There isn’t much if any panic with Folin and he looked very comfortable in his first as a Hab. There was a clear physical element from the defenceman as well as he had three hits, two of which were in the neutral zone with the last in the offensive zone. Folin wasn’t scared to block a shot either and had a decent takeaway in the second period.
Folin did his part offensively getting four shots on net. Three of them where would you expect high near the point but Folin had a nice backhand opportunity in the slot.
He also found his way on the scoreboard earning a secondary assist on Domi’s second goal of the game. Drouin did most of the work to get the puck up to Domi but it’s still nice to get rewarded.
Reilly is known for more offence than defence so it’ll be Folin’s play away from the puck that keeps him in the lineup. It’s easy to look good against a team like Detroit but he definitely earned another chance to play and will likely be on the ice against the New York Rangers.