The Montreal Canadiens have played four of their six preseason games so far and will wrap up their exhibition schedule this week.
Tonight, they face the Toronto Maple Leafs for the third time, after splitting their first two preseason games with their division rivals. The Habs also split a pair of games with the Ottawa Senators over the weekend.
Of course, it is not wins and losses that really matter in the preseason, but the battle for the final few spots on the NHL roster to begin the regular season.
Tonight’s game will feature Mathieu Perreault playing centre and we could see him steal that fourth line centre position away from Ryan Poehling if he outplays the youngster. There are some interesting defenders to watch as well as Kaiden Guhle could just sneak into an opening night lineup spot which was not expected at this stage of the 19 year old’s career.
The lines for tonight’s game are as follows:
Toffoli – Suzuki – Drouin
Armia – Evans – Gallagher
Harvey-Pinard – Poehling – Lehkonen
Bourque – Perreault – Belzile
Chiarot – Wideman
Guhle – Savard
Romanov – Fairbrother
Montembeault
It was interesting to see Jonathan Drouin skating on the top line with Tyler Toffoli and Nick Suzuki. Drouin has been playing on an effective line with Christian Dvorak and Josh Anderson, but with Cole Caufield still nursing a minor injury, Drouin gets a chance to show off his skills on the first line.
Harvey-Pinard and Poehling formed a dynamic combination with the Laval Rocket last season so it will be interesting to see if they can continue that chemistry and maybe, possibly, both start the year at the NHL level on the fourth line.
Guhle remains on the pairing with Savard as Joel Edmundson is still dealing with an injury as well. If Edmundson isn’t back soon, we could definitely see Guhle make his NHL debut next week.
The biggest thing to keep an eye on tonight will be Samuel Montembeault in net. He was claimed off waivers earlier this week and has a chance to start the year at the NHL level if Carey Price is not ready to go.
It will be Montembeault’s only chance to impress Canadiens staff in the preseason, so he needs to have a good performance.
Game time is at 7:00 PM EST and the game can be seen on RDS, TSN2 and TSN4.