Canadiens: Season Opener A Mixed Bag

Not-so Special Teams

A big part of the excitement of this up coming season was the powerplay. It looked like Montreal would finally have a potent powerplay for the first time in years. And while the group is lacking powerplay specialist Mike Hoffman, one man does not make a powerplay great.

And the special teams were far from great in this game.

The first powerplay failed to enter the zone until 1:30 into the extra man advantage, and only managed one shot. But that’s only one powerplay, you won’t score on all of them. Well, how about over 1:30 of 5-on-3 in the third period while down by one? Well, there wasn’t a whole lot to be excited about.

Mitch Marner partook in his favourite pastime of taking a terrible penalty while already down a man, and it was the perfect opportunity to tie the game. And there wasn’t a great chance to be had there. It was simply not good enough for an extended two man advantage, down one late in the game. Hopefully Hoffman can come back and help out this group.