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Canadiens’ Player Report Cards: Play-In Series Against the Pittsburgh Penguins

By Sebastian High

TORONTO, ONTARIO - AUGUST 07: Jake Guentzel #59 of the Pittsburgh Penguins congratulates Carey Price #31 of the Montreal Canadiens on the game and series win after Game Four of the Eastern Conference Qualification Round prior to the 2020 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at Scotiabank Arena on August 07, 2020 in Toronto, Ontario. (Photo by Andre Ringuette/Freestyle Photo/Getty Images)
TORONTO, ONTARIO - AUGUST 07: Jake Guentzel #59 of the Pittsburgh Penguins congratulates Carey Price #31 of the Montreal Canadiens on the game and series win after Game Four of the Eastern Conference Qualification Round prior to the 2020 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at Scotiabank Arena on August 07, 2020 in Toronto, Ontario. (Photo by Andre Ringuette/Freestyle Photo/Getty Images) /
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TORONTO, ONTARIO – AUGUST 05: Montreal Canadiens Carey Price (Photo by Andre Ringuette/Freestyle Photo/Getty Images)
TORONTO, ONTARIO – AUGUST 05: Montreal Canadiens Carey Price (Photo by Andre Ringuette/Freestyle Photo/Getty Images) /

The Montreal Canadiens upset the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Play-in round, led by Carey Price. Here’s how every individual player performed in those four games.

Quite a few days have passed since the Carey Price and the Montreal Canadiens put an abrupt end to Sidney Crosby‘s season (on his birthday, no less), and I am still riding the high… we’re getting playoff hockey in La Belle Province! To make matters better, the first overall pick in the 2020 NHL Entry draft did not land in Pittsburgh or, far more importantly for me, Toronto; though the Maple Leafs’ lottery ball came within millimetres of ruining the next 3 to 20 years of Habs fans; enjoyment of the game of hockey.

With the lottery behind us, Habs fans now have a clear conscience that their current spot in the playoffs has not cost them Alexis Lafreniere, but rather the demotion from the ninth overall pick to, at the very least, sixteenth. This being said, the draft is no longer all that prominent in my mind, I am now fully invested in an underdog playoff run.

This being said, the road won’t be easy, far from it, in truth; Philadelphia has an excellent team. In all honesty, I hadn’t really been aware of just how good they’ve been since they caught steam back in November until I was conducting the research for my “Philly vs Montreal Series Matchups” article. This team is scarily good and Montreal’s big players who failed to be overly prominent offensively against Pittsburgh will need to step up to give the Habs a chance, I’m looking at you, Gallagher and Tatar.

With puck drop of Game 1 against Philadelphia nearly upon us let us take a look back at how every Montreal Canadiens player to make an appearance against Pittsburgh performed.

One little note: these grades are a lot more extreme, be it extraordinarily good or bad compared to those given in the Season Report Cards since the sample size is of 4 games rather than 71, and the players on hot or cold streaks thus had less of a chance to revert to their average play.

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