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Seventeen seconds.

That’s how much time Cayden Primeau gave his team Thursday night. Seventeen seconds separated Brendan Gallagher’s goal, which brought the Canadiens to within 5-4, and the deflection of Primeau’s stick into his own net, effectively putting the game out of reach with four minutes to play.

It wasn’t nearly enough. Not on the road in Boston. From the early tripping penalty through the bitter end, Primeau was not the goaltender who earned the backup job last season with a .910 save percentage and a 2.99 goals-against average in 23 games.

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Primeau gave up six goals on 29 shots in a 6-4 loss to the Bruins. He was nervous with the puck, he was huddled in his net on that crucial play and he smelled of what should have been a glove save with a clean look from six yards out. Either he has to be better than that, or Samuel Montembeault has to do it like Carey Price and start 70 games.

This was not all at Primeau. Not remotely. But if a goalkeeper’s job is to give his team a chance to win, Primeau failed. He gave up two goals to Mark Kastelic, who scored five times in 63 games with Ottawa last season.

After winning an episode of Survival in the form of a 48-shot barrage of the mighty Leafs in their opener, the Canadiens unsurprisingly looked for a long time Thursday as if they’d left their legs at the checked baggage counter in Dorval.

But other than that, the Bruins looked bigger, stronger and tougher. If the Canadiens appear to have done a good job with their rebuild, the Bruins are masters of the redesign. As players age and retire or can’t be kept under the salary cap, Boston finds a way to stay at or near the top.

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They haven’t been able to parlay their strong regular-season play into another Stanley Cup, but as long as they knock out Toronto every spring, the Bruins have done their job.

Meanwhile, with a rebuilding team like the Canadiens, the focus tends to be on the youngsters, especially the sensational Lane Hutson. The rangy youngster from Boston University is next level, period.

If you thought Hutson would be timid or hesitant during his first extended stint with the Canadiens, you were wrong. He has the guts of a burglar. He wants the puck and he knows what to do with it. He makes small mistakes (and he was the victim of a cheap holding call against the Bruins), but Hutson’s vision and movement will break down defenses, especially on the power play.

If one of his mistakes lands in his own zone, Hutson has the speed and skill to come back and cover up. Martin St. Louis will make him comfortable come game time, but he has passed every test so far.

However, Thursday night’s story belonged to three much-maligned veterans on the roster: Joel Armia, Josh Anderson and (especially) Brendan Gallagher, who appears to have been scratched from the calendar for five years.

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If Gallagher can be that effective, it will radically change the calculus. He is, or can be, what Brad Marchand is to the Bruins: that pesky pest you can’t shake, a fire hydrant who can plant himself in front of the net, but also all the power forwards in the league.

Armia, meanwhile, has admirably filled a significantly expanded role and shown brilliant passing skills, with Gallagher the beneficiary. But perhaps the most encouraging sight was Anderson almost scoring a short-handed goal early on, before deflecting a Guhle shot for his first goal of the season.

If these three can play like they have in the first two games, it will make it much easier for the Canadiens to stay in range until Patrik Laine is back in the lineup to add some offensive punch.

Everyone loves the youngsters on any roster because they are the new toy and you don’t know how high their ceiling can be – but in the brutal ultramarathon that is an 82-game NHL season, you need experience and strength. and cleverness of the veterans.

Right now, speaking of veterans, you have to like this team more with Michael Pezzetta than with any young forward. Pezzetta brings the fire and physical play that was desperately needed against Boston.

The same goes for Jayden Struble, when he’s healthy. Struble isn’t a veteran, but he plays like one. This is a better team with Pezzetta and Struble in the lineup — and it will have to be better, starting Saturday night with Ottawa in town for the Canadiens’ third straight divisional upset to start the season.

Despite the strange appointment of Travis Green as head coach, the Senators should automatically improve with former Bruins Linus Ullmark in goal. After Primeau’s performance in Boston, the Canadiens will have to select Montembeault for at least two-thirds of their games, which would mean 54 or 55 starts.

Ullmark stopped 30 of 31 shots Thursday night as the Senators upset the Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers. Montembeault stoned the Leafs with 48 saves on Wednesday.

Game on.

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