Petry, Gallagher, Ducharme get brutally honest after Habs fourth straight loss to start the season

It's only four games into the 2021-22 season for the Montreal Canadiens, but so far very little has gone right for the team. The Habs were trounced 5-0 by the San Jose Sharks Tuesday night for the team's fourth straight loss. It isn't even that the team is losing, it's that there seems to be very little effort from anyone while they're doing it. That's certainly what defenceman Jeff Petry is seeing.

"I think we need to put in the effort and make sure that we're supporting each other. There's so many times where we're skating away from the puck, we're leaving guys out to dry, we're not playing as a unit of five, and we're going to go nowhere playing like that," said Petry.

"We need everybody to have a better effort and to play a simple game, play a hard game. Right now, we haven't, and we're on the outside, we're not supporting each other. There's a lot of things we need to improve on..."

"The game is honest, and it was honest with us tonight," said Canadiens coach Dominique Ducharme, a clear indication that be believes the Canadiens got exactly what they deserved in the loss.

Brendan Gallagher, who's been here before in his nine seasons with Montreal, says every single player needs to be better.

"You can probably, to a man in our locker room, do more," he said.

"How you handle these (problems) are kind of what defines your character," he continued. "We're going through a tough time right now—you want to be a team that you can count on your character in that locker room. Well, now's the time, but it's not going to be easy. A lot of people are going to turn on us and it's going to be important in that locker room that we don't. You work to find solutions, it's never easy to get out of these things. It's very disappointing that it's happening at the very beginning of the year, but this is when you're challenged. So, you want to test yourself? Test yourself in the toughest situations, and that's what we've got right now."

Montreal next game is Thursday against the Carolina Hurricanes, which will mark the return of Jesperi Kotkaniemi after he joined the Canes through an offer sheet during the offseason.

Source: Sportsnet

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