MONTREAL - When Tomas Plekanec was whistled for slashing with 6:29 to play in regulation time of a game the Canadiens had battled back from two goals down to tie up 3-3, Lars Eller hadn't seen the ice for over 10 minutes of game action.

In real time, that's probably about 20 minutes of sitting on the bench and watching as your team mounts an impressive comeback.

There's no problem with going with your veterans late in a game you're trying to win. In fact, Jacques Martin should be patted on the back for doing so.

The problem lies when you have a penalty to kill in a tie game with just over five minutes to play and you turn to a cold rookie to get the job done for you.

When Plekanec took that penalty, Jeff Halpern was the first centre sent out to kill it. Then, instead of asking Scott Gomez, or even Maxim Lapierre to go out in relief, Martin had Eller on the ice with Travis Moen, who is Plekanec's regular penalty killing partner.

It was a situation where Eller was almost guaranteed to fail on a night where he was already not having his strongest game, perhaps a result of wanting to impress his dad Olaf who was in the stands to watch him play for the first time as an NHLer.

As the Canadiens jumped on a turnover at their own blue line and began skating up ice, Jaroslav Spacek inexplicably joined the rush in an effort to get the go-ahead goal. Not a very savvy move for a veteran defenceman.

Once the shot didn't go it, Eller had an opportunity to hold it in the zone at the side boards but lost his battle for the puck, sending the Flyers the other way on an odd man rush. Then, in his haste to get back, Eller was caught watching the puck with his back to the front of the net in no-man's land as James Van Riemsdyk snuck in behind him to score the winner.

"It's an error," Jacques Martin said when asked about Spacek's decision to join the rush. "The score in the game is 3-3, then we had a chance to recover and we didn't recover."

That last part, in my eyes, was a reference to the puck battle Eller lost in the Flyers end. But Martin deserves the bulk of the blame there, because Eller shouldn't have been in that situation to begin with.

Subban's maturation process continues

Eller wasn't the only rookie to be exposed in this one as P.K. Subban had about as polarizing a night as you can have.

He began the game with a great hit on Daniel Carcillo and wisely refused his invitation to fight afterwards.

Except that wisdom was short lived as Subban's turnover at the Flyers blue line led directly to the opening goal of the game with only 17.6 seconds left in the first period, and that's without mentioning his brutal dive earlier in the first that referee Bill McCreary ignored.

If I were McCreary, I might have sent Subban to the box.

He appeared to make up for it with his goal, he had an electrifying rush up ice at one point that showed all of his talents in all their glory, and he made a sound decision to give the puck to Scott Gomez instead of rushing it himself on what turned into Brian Gionta's tying goal in the third.

But overall, Subban hurt his team more than he helped it.

And he knows it.

"It it weren't for my goal and assist," he said, "that would be a very bad game for me."

That would make three games in a row where Subban has been less than effective ever since coming back from his three-game benching from Martin.

And while he feels pressure to get out of it, it's interesting to note where Subban feels that pressure coming from.

"I'm just a young guy, a rookie," Subban said. "All the guys in this dressing room are looking at me. Things aren't going well for me right now, and they want to see how I respond."

A rookie bright spot

Though Eller and Subban represented lowlights, one rookie who was a deserved highlight was Max Pacioretty.

He did appear to inspire Gomez into one of his better games in recent memory, only his second multi-point game of the season with two assists. One play that made it perfectly clear to me was early in the second when he won a race to the puck in the Flyers corner and got it to Gomez behind the net, who quickly sent it out front to Brian Gionta only for his one-timer to hit the post.

"I liked Pacioretty," Martin said. "He used his speed well, his intelligence. He set-up a nice 2-on-1 for Gomez and Gionta in the first, he used his body well and went to the net. He gave us a good game."

Pacioretty was the spark Gomez said he was, and that line's play was actually one of several bright spots for the Canadiens on a night where I would estimate they spent two thirds of their time in the Flyers end.

"Montreal pressed all game," Flyers coach Peter Laviolette said. "They skated really well, they pressed the puck really well, and in the third period they caught up to us. I don't think they changed their game. I don't think we were at our best, but we kept at it, kept working, didn't give in and we were able to get a win."

That's largely because of some momentary lapses from the Canadiens where they diverted from their system, one that has largely eliminated the careless turnovers and occasional sloppy plays that led to four of the five Flyers goals.

"I expect players to play within the system," Martin said. "When we have good support, when we work, when we have five in the picture, we're very effective. When we don't, we're not."

Agreed. But while his players were prone to random decision-making gaffes on this night, the coach was not exactly totally immune from them either.