from Jack Todd at the Montreal Gazette,

The Canadiens’ quiet preseason, one that offered little in the way of controversy, exploded on Twitter early Sunday morning following a pre-dawn crash that saw a truck drive into a tree on Clanranald Ave., near the corner of Côte-St-Luc Rd.

An unidentified 20-year-old woman was driving the truck and an 18-year-old woman and a 24-year-old man were passengers in the vehicle in the crash that occurred around 6 a.m., according to Montreal police. A relatively minor accident, with the male passenger taken to the Montreal General with injuries that are apparently minor.

It’s the kind of thing happens every day and doesn’t rate even a paragraph in the newspaper, except the man was one Zack Adam Kassian, winger for the Montreal Canadiens, the one who arrived in Montreal from the Vancouver Canucks with a couple of heavy pieces of baggage, one labelled “party animal” and the other marked “lazy underachiever.”

We can now put a check next to box No. 1. Box No. 2 remains to be seen, although Kassian’s work ethic didn’t wow anyone during camp.

The general good news is no one was seriously hurt. The good news for Kassian is he wasn’t driving and he isn’t facing DUI charges. But when you come to town with a reputation, your behaviour is going to be scrutinized. And when you’re involved in something like this before the season starts, the level of scrutiny will be off the charts.

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