MONTREAL— There was John Parker-Jones — all six-foot-seven of him — holding court in the middle of the Montreal Canadiens dressing room, the centre of attention following a standout performance at the Bell Centre.

He didn’t score, didn’t register an assist, nor was he named a star in this pre-season game against a Toronto Maple Leafs side that didn’t dress a single one of its best players outside of goaltender Ilya Samsonov. But this 23-year-old giant, born and raised in the same town that produced the most prolific hockey player of all time, was Montreal’s best on Friday night.

Great for Parker-Jones, the kid from the streets Wayne Gretzky popularized in Brantford, Ont. Not so great for at least some of the Canadiens.

We’re not talking about the guys who are locked into jobs, like Brendan Gallagher, Jake Evans, Tanner Pearson, Josh Anderson, Sean Monahan, Jordan Harris and Arber Xhekaj. We’re not referring to the kids, either, like Owen Beck and Joshua Roy, who still flashed well in a game that was more drab than a live reading of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.

This is about Justin Barron and Gustav Lindstrom, who are supposed to be fighting for spots on the right side of the Canadiens’ blue line. It’s about Jesse Ylonen, who’s fighting for a job over Emil Heineman, and Joel Armia, who should be battling to keep either one of them from stealing his chair up front. It’s about Cayden Primeau, who played reasonably well and managed to keep the Canadiens in this 2-1 loss but still has to do more to win his grapple for a full-time job in the NHL.

It doesn’t bode well for any of them that a 23-year-old undrafted forward, who split his first professional season between the ECHL and AHL, managed to make more of an impression in his 15 shifts than most of them have since Canadiens camp started nine days ago.

This was Parker-Jones’ first-ever NHL pre-season game, played in front of 10 family members who trekked to Montreal just to watch him, and you’d never convince him it was meaningless.

Talking with the 230-pound winger afterward, it felt tangible that it meant more to him than it did to the guys who are supposed to be much closer to knocking on the NHL’s door.

“This is something I haven’t done before, and that was definitely the highest level of hockey I’ve ever played in my life,” Parker-Jones said.

“I can take the lessons I learned from that and contribute that into my game…,” he added, acknowledging that process is more likely to continue with the Laval Rocket in short order.

Parker-Jones will be joined there soon by almost all the players mentioned above if none of them step up and seize the opportunity in front of them.

Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis acknowledged the level needs to rise.

“I think so,” he said. “At this point, for me, I’m not in the business of motivating players. I’m evaluating to see who’s grabbing stuff, so it’s up to them. Every rep counts. It’s not just the stuff you get in a game; it’s how you perform in practice. So, for those guys, every rep matters.”

Heineman, who started camp on a line with Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield, hasn’t made the most of his yet. Ylonen, who executed some successful zone entries both on Friday and in Monday’s game against the New Jersey Devils, forced too many plays once he was over the line and turned the puck over. Armia’s level of urgency isn’t where it should be.

On the blue line, Barron showed towards the end of the previous Canadiens season he was taking a step forward, that his defence was becoming more reliable and enabling his offence to shine through, that he could be a threat to unseat Johnathan Kovacevic if he could at least maintain that level.

But the 21-year-old looks like he has more to lose than he does to gain at this camp — he appears more hesitant than he does confident, and the best thing he currently has going for him is that Chris Wideman (back injury) is out of the competition, Logan Mailloux’s a bit too green to overtake him in it, and Lindstrom has yet to emerge.

St. Louis said neither Barron nor Lindstrom spoiled an opportunity with the way they played the Leafs, but he wasn’t effusively praising them either.

The coach said Primeau was good, but he also knows the goaltender will have to be much better than good to change his situation.

Everyone still fighting for a spot with the Canadiens does, too.

Time isn’t running out, but it is pressing. Nine days of camp have passed and three games have been played, but there are 11 days left and three more games to go jump right through the open door.

No one on Friday looked ready to even walk through, though it was nice to see Parker-Jones step towards the frame.

Time pressing for Canadiens' bubble players to emerge in race for lineup spots

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