On Monday, the Impact confirmed what had been rumoured all weekend — announcing that the English midfielder had been waived.

English veteran Ian Westlake is returning to Montreal. The Impact announced that the midfielder, who joined the club during the 2011 NASL season, is the 19th player be signed to the side’s roster for the 2012 MLS season. Westlake was named the team’s newcomer of the year at the end of the NASL campaign.

Undistracted from the task at hand in tonight’s match against the visiting FC Edmonton, getting the three points needed to close the gap between them and Minny, the Impact came through in the clutch with a 2-0 win and has almost climbed out of the hole that it has dug for itself with its dismal play in the first half of the season. Montreal is now just a single point behind Minnesota with each team having a game left on the schedule. Montreal owns the tiebreaker between the two teams.

As it turned out, things went a lot better for the Strikers than they did for the Impact. The teams avoided a third sister-kissing result with the home side coming away with their desired result in a 1-0 contest.

While it’s still improbable that the Impact will overhaul FC Edmonton for the last playoff spot, FCE’s recent struggles have made the race a lot more interesting than it needed to be.

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.

By the time the whistle blew ending the hostilities, both streaks had come to an end as the hosts took the game by a 1-0 score with 38-year-old Eddy Sebrango giving his team the win and taking the team scoring lead with three goals and six points despite having played in only six of the Impact’s 18 games thus far.

And maybe it’s best that the Impact looks forward. Because, after a 1-0 loss to the NSC Minnesota Stars Friday night, it looks more and more like the current season is a write-off

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 Montreal Impact brought in a slew of trialists over the last two weeks in an effort to remake its roster. The first of those trialists, English midfielder Ian Westlake, has now put pen to paper — and could be available for the match Sunday between the two cellar-dwellers in the NASL, the Impact the Atlanta Silverbacks.