The Montreal Impact announced that three players from its NASL roster won’t be part of the team’s pre-MLS evaluation camp. And none of the six new players the Impact have invited to the camp carry Canadian passports.

In the end, the new graphic was well-received but the evening ended on a down note for Montreal, who dropped a 3-1 decision to the third-place Minnesota Stars, a game in which it did not challenge seriously for victory.

Impact coach and technical director Nick De Santis said after practice yesterday that he wanted to see more initiative on the part of his men, particularly in the visiting Atlanta Silverbacks’ third of the field. He got what he wanted from Eduardo Sebrango who scored two on the afternoon with the second allowing the Impact to snatch a tie from the jaws of defeat and taking him to the century mark for his career.

The revolving door has been spinning as released players yield their spots to incoming men in an effort to stimulate scoring on a team that had not put one into the mesh since June and has not posted a victory since the fourth of last month. The first of these situations was rectified this evening but the second remained unchanged as the Impact played to a 1-1 tie, avoiding victory for the seventh straight game.

At the start of the 2011 NASL season, the Montreal Impact had six French players on its roster, Now, that number is down to three. The Impact announced Wednesday what has been speculated about for the last week; that French attacker Idriss Ech Chergui and defender Richard Pelletier wouldn’t be back with the team.

A change is as good as a rest. For the Montreal Impact, that old adage certainly held true as they provided fans with their best effort in some time, coming away from their match with the Puerto Rico Islanders with a scoreless tie in front of a crowd announced at just over 10,000 at Stade Saputo.

Marc Dos Santos quit before he was pushed. The Montreal Impact announced Tuesday that Dos Santos has resigned his post as the team’s head coach. Sunday’s 1-0 defeat at FC Edmonton marked left the Impact with a shocking 2-7-3 record, good for second-last in the NASL.

FC Edmonton will try and break its jinx against the Montreal Impact this Sunday. The largest crowd to ever see FC Edmonton play at Foote Field is expected for the weekend match-up, and they’ll want to see the home side, currently sitting second in the NASL table, reverse its recent run of form against the other Canadian team in the league.

It was announced as a sell-out crowd of 13,034 in Montreal this afternoon, but more than a few ticketholders found something else to do on a sunny Saturday afternoon. Those who did make their way to Saputo Stadium were treated to one of the Impact’s better outings as the home club played a scoreless tie against a visiting Fort Lauderdale team that had gone undefeated in their last four games.

But the Impact looked nothing like the team that beat FC Edmonton Saturday, gifting two first-half goals to the worst offence in the league. Atlanta’s 2-1 win at home allowed the club to earn its first NASL win of 2011, and asked many more questions of an Impact team that has looked unstoppable in its two wins over FC Edmonton this season, and awful against the rest of the league.