MONTREAL — You can’t really blame the Maple Leafs for behaving like a bunch of yahoos while they were winning Saturday night.

After all, they haven’t had much practice.

So Mikhail Grabovski decides to make like Marv Albert without the pink negligee and Colton Orr tries to splatter the knee of Tomas Plekanec, all this with Kelly Hrudey making like Max Pacioretty’s arm provoked Grabovski’s teeth and Orr was justified in trying to kneecap a player because someone had grabbed his stick.

Human bites can lead to horrible, intractable infections and there should be no place for that in any sport — but it was just another night at the office for Hockey Night in Canada, which has become more and more an adjunct of the Leafs public-relations office.

With or without HNIC and the Leafs display for poor sportsmanship, this game was uglier than a mud fence. Whining about the extracurricular stuff won’t do the Canadiens a whit of good.

The effort Michel Therrien got out of his team Saturday night was a farce in every way. You can blame Tim Peel, you can point to the dirty plays at the end — but the Canadiens lost because they stank the joint out, period.

There were absolutely no excuses. This team is disgustingly healthy. They were playing one of their two biggest rivals on home ice, in front of a national television audience on Hockey Day in Canada.

And they flat stank. How bad was it? So bad that somewhere out in the wilds of Côte St. Luc on Monday morning, the immortal Red Fisher is thanking the hockey gods that he chose to retire rather that sit through that debacle.

Blame? There’s more than enough to go around. This was a team effort all the way — but there are still a few characters who stand out:

Erik Cole: Early contender for the Scott Gomez Innocent Bystander Award. Yes, Erik, we know you’re a slow starter — but you’ve already burned a quarter of the season while playing like a guy who forgot to file his retirement papers.

Max Pacioretty: Sometimes, playing tough guy does your team a disservice. Pacioretty might have been better off taking a three weeks or a month to recover from that appendectomy.

Andrei Markov: One of the league’s steadiest defencemen has a brain cramp a minute into the game that hands an Estonian forward his first NHL goal. One of the few times on record when Estonia has whupped Russia.

P.K. Subban: Fanned on the puck at his own blue line, leading a goal for all-namer Korbinian Holzer.

Carey Price: Yes, he had precious little support. But the early stages Saturday night were the point when the Habs needed Price to keep them in it. He failed miserably, trashing the theory that he’s the kind of goalie who never has a bad game.

In one horrendous evening as he was stopping 22 of 28 shots on goal, Price’s goals-against average ballooned from 1.74 to 2.21 and his save percentage dropped from .936 to .919. He’ll bounce back, but on a night when the Canadiens needed him to be Ken Dryden, Price was more like poor André (Red Light) Racicot.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the rice, the likeable James Reimer was showing the world that when Brian Gionta conked him on the noggin last season, it left Leaf Nation with the impression they had a goalie problem. They didn’t.

Finally, there’s Therrien. After a handful of tactical errors against Buffalo, the coach looked like a deer in the headlights as the Canadiens collapsed against the Leafs. His team needed an answer, a spark from somewhere, and Therrien didn’t provide it.

Let’s hope this was simply a case of the Canadiens taking an extra-large bucket, filling it with a season’s worth of ugly, and dumping it in the garbage. We still believe that this is a far better team than the aggregation of the dazed and confused we saw on the ice Saturday night — but our faith has been sorely tested.

Speaking of Sochi: IIHF boss René Fasel raised some eyebrows on this side of the pond when he said that some North American “egos” stood in the way of a deal to bring the NHL to the Olympics.

Perhaps Fasel could have been a little more diplomatic — but he’s right. Gary Bettman is at it again, but it’s hard to see how he could possibly win. As Paul Romanuk pointed out Sunday, everyone (including the sponsors and the TV networks) wants to see the NHL in Sochi.

If Bettman decides to dig in his heels, he’s going to face a massive revolt on the part of Russian NHL players, perhaps backed by Czechs, Slovaks, Swedes, Canadians, Americans, Finns and at least one Slovene.

The feeling here? The NHL needs the Olympics more than the Olympic movement needs the NHL.

About those Olympic lists: No sooner were we within a year of the opening ceremony in Sochi than hockey media types all over the continent were presenting their team lists as though they already had it figured out.

Trouble is, most of those lists had more potholes than Montreal’s streets. Like the lists that had only Carey Price in goal, with no mention of Roberto Luongo or Martin Brodeur.

Or Drew Doughty, considered an Olympic lock, who was minus-8 going into Sunday’s game at Detroit — and minus-9 before the end of the first period. We’re also seeing the names of Tyler Myers and Jay Bouwmeester on various lists — but if that’s the punchline, what’s the joke?

Or how about Rick Nash, the most overrated forward in the NHL? Why would he be on anyone’s list?

Handing Olympic spots to players before the NHL has even agreed to participate would seem a tad premature. Even if the NHL had signed, it’s still premature. Once you get past Sidney Crosby, Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Toews, there should be no locks.

Everyone else should have to earn a spot. Including Price.

Heroes: Slovenia’s hockey team, Brendan Gallagher, Josh Gorges, Tomas Plekanec, Saku Koivu, Teemu Selanne, Jaromir Jagr, Martin Brodeur, Mike Ribeiro, Thomas Vanek, Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg, Craig Anderson, Roberto Luongo &&&& last but not least, James Reimer, because it’s nice to see the kid healthy again.

Zeros: Mikhail Grabovski, Colton Orr, Dion Phaneuf, Phil Kessel, Don Cherry, P.J. Stock, Kelly Hrudey, Erik Cole, Rick Nash, Sean Avery, Ray Lewis, Jim Harbaugh, Joe Paterno, Rob Ryan, Gary Bettman, Jeremy Jacobs, Pierre Gauthier &&&& last but not least, Jeffrey Loria and David Samson — because we haven’t forgotten you, boys.

jacktodd46@yahoo.com

Twitter: @JackTodd46