It’s been Jekyll and Hyde with Jonathan Drouin this season. Fortunately we’re seeing signs that the good version is showing up more often than the one we saw in Ottawa Saturday night. The good version is creative and avoids his tendency to try to do to much on his own. He was all of those things in a two-point night including his third goal of the season.

The Canadiens played their style game for maybe ten minutes. After that it got away from them and it cost them an overtime point.

Admittedly it could have been worse. And a road point is nothing to sneeze at in today’s NHL. Still, the result could have been better.

Never discount Brendan Gallagher who is one of the league’s best whistle-to-whistle competitors. Julien had him on the ice for in the final 30 seconds of regulation time. Gallagher’s forecheck forced Colton Parayko to throw the puck blindly out from the corner. Gallagher hustled to the side of the net in time to chip Tomas Tatar’s intercepted shot over Jake Allen for the game winner with 9.7 seconds left. Goals in three straight games for Gallagher. Tatar now has seven points.

What a night. One thousand games. Pro athletes will tell you it’s only a number to consider after a career is over. Plekanec didn’t play like it was “only a number”. He scored a goal. If he still had a shot he might have scored another one.

All four lines chipped in, but Danault/Gallagher/Tatar were outstanding.

Age old question; was there anyone thing you could point to that suddenly turned that line from the ineffective trio we saw against LA into tigers against the Penguins. It was clear Danault was on a mission starting with his first shift. Gallagher quickly got on board along with Tatar. Together Gallagher and Tatar produced 12 shots on goal; 6 apiece. Tatar scored two goals and added an assist, Gallagher a goal and assist.

In his postgame news conference Claude Julien said “We were not on top of our game and it showed.”

After that long pre-game ceremony, the Canadiens never got into the game, certainly not in the first five minutes where they found themselves down 2-0 against a veteran team that knows how to protect a lead.

The Canadiens have always been noted for their speed. This version of the team has made teams that have their own speed look slow.

Team speed accounted for four of the five goals, two of them by the original speedster Paul Byron. But the early success is not only based on speed but quickness. Pittsburgh could find no solution for the way the Canadiens’ puck movement from their own end and through the neutral zone.

The Canadiens did everything they had to do to beat the Leafs in Toronto in the season opener but one thing. They didn’t score enough goals. It’s not an unfamiliar problem.

Still, the game showed a vast departure from the disinterested and ill-prepared Canadiens team that started last season with a backbreaking eight losses in it’s first ten games and bottomed out from there.

Ultimately, it became a 3-2 overtime loss because Toronto has the scoring talent to overcome the reality of being outplayed for most of the night.

For the veterans in the lineup what happened against the Senators meant little or nothing. They’re going to be part of the 23 man roster that will be announced on Monday come rain or come shine. But there were six players in Julien’s lineup Saturday night who were fighting for  one or two available jobs.   Not one of them asserted himself enough to break free of the mediocre pack.   

This was the game where we going to find out the level of Kotkaniemi’s play. After being protected and hothoused for four games, against the Leafs he was faced top NHL opposition.

Five-on-five Kotaniemi went up against Leafs centre Austin Matthews and he more than held his own. Once again it was his sixth-sense that stood out – his ability to make the right accurate pass at the right time. The nicest goal of the night was a three-way that went from Kotkaniemi to Mete to Gallagher.