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First impressions are important and Christian Folin made a good one Tuesday night as he made his first appearance in a Canadiens uniform.

“I thought he was good tonight,” coach Claude Julien said after the Canadiens crushed the Detroit Red Wings 8-1. “He actually surprised me how good he was. He has a good first pass, he defended well. He seemed poised. I really liked his game and so it was nice to see.”

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When the Canadiens obtained Folin from the Philadelphia Flyers on Feb. 9, it was assumed that he was brought in merely as insurance. The Canadiens were winning and Julien was content with the play of his top six defenceman. But after starting the current road trip with two losses, Julien decided a change was in order. He juggled all three of his defence pairs and inserted Folin into the lineup in place of Mike Reilly.

Playing on the third pair with Brett Kulak, Folin turned in a strong performance. He played 17:30, picked up an assist, blocked two shots and was a plus-3 for the game. He took five shots and four of them were on the net; the fifth was blocked.