It’ll almost be a full line-up for the Montreal Canadiens as they take on the Toronto Maple Leafs, but Jonathan Drouin will be out with an injury.
Only one more week left in the preseason. The games themselves are probably going to get a little bit more interesting. Teams are going to start dressing line-ups that will resemble the ones we’ll see in the regular season. The Montreal Canadiens are starting that Monday night.
Claude Julien and Leafs head coach Mike Babcock talked about dressing more of an NHL roster against each other. Tonight, Habs fans will be seeing three legitimate lines and three pairings with two maybes.
Brendan Gallagher on the top line will be an interesting change. He can work the boards well and be able to get the puck to the Jonathan Drouin and Max Pacioretty. Ales Hemsky on the Alex Galchenyuk line could be for the same purpose but in a different way. We’ve seen that he can set up his line mates fairly well, so perhaps this is a tactic to generate more offence.
The Victor Mete experiment will be continuing with Shea Weber on the top pairing. Additionally, it looks like Julien will be giving Brandon Davidson another shot at redeeming himself after a disappointing game on Saturday. If he doesn’t step up, that spot with Jordie Benn could very well go to Mark Streit (who hasn’t looked spectacular either).
Jacob de La Rose will be centering the fourth line in between Paul Byron and Byron Froese. He hasn’t had the best training camp considering how long he’s been with the organization. However, seeing as how he would require waivers to be sent down to the AHL again, the Habs may want to see if there’s anyway they can keep him up.
But Drouin’s Injured…
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We were all excited to see a full team play Monday, but the Montreal Canadiens will be without Drouin. The team announced that he is day-to-day with an upper-body injury. It may not be that bad seeing as how he was skating with the team at morning skate. For all we know it could just be a precaution to keep it from getting worse.
Torrey Mitchell will be replacing Drouin on the top line Pacioretty and Gallagher. Not the most attractive option by any means, but Julien probably doesn’t want to mess with the other chemistry building experiments on the team by bumping someone up.
Hopefully whatever is ailing Drouin wont last longer than this week. The Habs have serious hockey to play starting October 5th
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What do you think of Monday’s line-up? Are you concerned about the Drouin injury? Let us know what you think down below.