Former Canadiens forward roasts Jonathan Drouin.

The Montreal Canadiens announced on Saturday that forward Jonathan Drouin would once again be away for a prolonged absence, this time due to a season ending injury that will keep him out of the lineup at least until the 2022 - 2023 National Hockey League regular season.

Drouin's absences have become a sore point for a segment of the Canadiens fan base and quite frankly it's hard to blame the fans that are feeling frustrated. Over the course of the past 3 seasons Drouin has appeared in a total of just 105 NHL Games, a tough pill to swallow when you consider the fact that he currently carries a salary cap hit of $5.5 million per season. Of course Drouin has had his reasons for missing time but that hasn't prevented parts of the fan base from expressing their displeasure at his perceived lack of toughness.

Up until now however Drouin had largely avoided being criticized by his peers, that was at least until Saturday. On Saturday former Montreal Canadiens forward Chris "Knuckles" Nilan published a video to his social media feed that can only be described as a roast of Drouin, one that left no doubt about the fact that Nilan believes that Drouin has been too soft throughout his time with the Canadiens.

"My God Jonathan Drouin is not playing tonight, go figure" said Nilan with a sarcastic tone to his voice. "Oh my god, poor Jonathan. What's gone wrong now Jonathan? Oh My god. Watch the game, it's a lot safer watching from home."

The words alone indicate that his comments were pretty harsh criticism of Drouin as a player, but you have to hear the tone that Nilan used to really understand just how harsh he was truly being. You can check out his comments, in his own words, in the video below.

Nilan of course was known as a particularly tough competitor during his time in the NHL, and that is important context to add to understand where his perspective might be coming from.

Here's a classic fight from Nilan in his heyday with the Montreal Canadiens.