Montreal Canadiens Tomas Tatar Falls To Canada At World Championship

The Montreal Canadiens may not have qualified for the NHL playoffs, but they still have a few players competing in the World Championships this spring. Tomas Tatar is off to a solid start for Slovakia.

The Montreal Canadiens had several players asked to suit up for their country at the World Championships. Most of them kindly declined the offer, but left winger Tomas Tatar jumped at the chance to continue his hockey season.

Tatar was acquired by the Habs a year ago in the Max Pacioretty trade. Things hadn’t exactly worked out for Tatar in his short stint with the Vegas Golden Knights. He scored just six points in 20 games after being acquired from the Detroit Red Wings. He did finish the season with exactly 20 goals, which was the fourth straight year he reached the mark.

Lining up alongside Phillip Danault and Brendan Gallagher most of the season, Tatar was on one of the league’s most effective trios. He completed his first campaign with the Habs with 25 goals and 58 points in 80 games. He certainly re-established the value that he built up in Detroit and saw him dealt to Vegas for first, second and third round picks.

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Vegas was happy to move on from him and packaged him with Nick Suzuki and a second round pick for Pacioretty. Most Habs fans are glad the Canadiens pulled the trigger on that deal.

Tatar now joins his fellow countrymen in his home country to play in the annual spring tournament. Slovakia got off to a strong start, beating a stacked USA squad 4-1 in the opening game. Tatar scored early in the second period to extend their lead to 3-1.

Slovakia’s tough schedule continued for the next two games. They fell 4-2 to Finland, before losing a heartbreaker to Canada on Monday. Slovakia was leading 4-2 in the second period but saw their lead quickly evaporate and then fell behind 5-4 in the third. They tied it again, but Mark Stone scored for Canada with less than two seconds remaining in regulation to win it.

Slovakia now sits at 1-2 in the standings, but have a great chance to go on a winning streak. The tough part of their schedule is certainly over, and they have four straight winnable games coming up.

It starts against Germany on Wednesday, followed by a contest with France on Friday. Slovakia plays back to back days but will take on Great Britain on Saturday. Slovakia does not have a long list of NHLers on their team, but they’ll be heavily favoured against France and Great Britain.

They finish up their regulation round schedule against Denmark on Tuesday, May 20th. That schedule should see Tatar pile up some points throughout the rest of this tournament. If they can run the table against the weak opposition, Slovakia will certainly advance to the quarterfinal.

The only other Canadiens involved in the World Championships this spring are Laval Rocket defender David Sklenicka and goaltender Cayden Primeau. Sklenicka’s Czech Republic team is 2-1, and Primeau’s American squad has a regulation and overtime win and a loss to Tomas Tatar.

Primeau is the third-string goaltender for USA and is unlikely to see game action in the tournament.