It was a solid effort but the outcome was all too familiar as the Habs lost 5-4 in overtime on Tuesday night despite playing with an inexperienced roster that still worked hard enough to push around the defending Stanley Cup Champions.

The extended holiday break didn’t do much to prevent the spread of COVID throughout Montreal’s players as the Habs announced that five players have been added to COVID protocol.

With Laval in an extended break following the postponement of their final game before the holiday break and their first game after, it’s a good time to assess how things are going about a third of the way through the season. We begin, at always, with the goalies and defencemen.

The Habs were finally able to put one in the win column this past week as they split a pair of games before an early extended holiday break due to COVID. Jeff Petry returned from injury and made some interesting comments following a loss that certainly didn’t help anyone’s cause.

While it was an off day for the Habs, one of many in the near future, there was still some news of note on Monday, highlighted by another player being placed in COVID protocol.

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.