Canadiens Game 39: Slafkovsky Promotion, Hoffman & Barron Out

The struggling Montreal Canadiens (15-20-3) finally return home from a long road trip to face the surging New York Rangers (21-12-6) on Thursday night. The puck drop is scheduled for 7 PM ET.

The Canadiens are coming off a six-game losing streak where they’ve outshot and outscored by a wide margin.

Cole Caufield, on of the only bright spots in the lineup, has three goals for the Canadiens in his last two games and looks consistently dangerous on each play; showing that the intense losing isn’t going to keep the Canadiens’ sniper from growing his game.

The more concerning issue seems to be on defence, where the Canadiens were forced to ice five rookie defencemen at once during this trip, a franchise record that has never been done before. After losing Kaiden Guhle to a knee injury that has yet to be fully disclosed, the Canadiens are missing some big pieces everywhere in their lineup and will need veterans to step up.

Most notably Christan Dvorak, Brendan Gallagher and Jonathan Drouin will have to do more if the weight of this season is not to fall squarely on the shoulders of Caufield and Nick Suzuki.

On a positive note, it seems Juraj Slafkovsky has gotten himself a promotion to the Canadiens’ top-six, with Mike Hoffman coming out of the lineup.

For the New York Rangers, they’re simply continuing to roll in the dogfight that has become the Metropolitan Division; as five teams are currently trending toward a playoff berth halfway through the season.

After a shaky couple of weeks this late fall, the Rangers have picked up their game and their recent run has made it virtually impossible for the ailing Florida Panthers to hope to catch up.

The question on everyone’s lips is: what is going on with Alexis Lafrenière? It seems these are continued growing pains, and that Lafrenière will be given a chance up the lineup playing on New York’s 3rd line.

Due to these two teams going in totally opposite directions, it should come as no surprise that NHL Betting Odds have the New York Rangers as a -220 favourite for this game tonight.

Montreal Canadiens Injuries

• Kaiden Guhle (N/A)
• Mike Matheson (indefinitely)
• Sean Monahan (2 weeks)
• Carey Price (LTIR)
• Paul Byron (LTIR)

New York Rangers Injuries 

• N/A

Montreal Canadiens Projected Lineup

New York Rangers Projected Lineup

Kreider-Zibanejad-Kakko

Panarin-Trochek-Kravtsov

Lafrenière-Chytil-Vesey

Blais-Goodrow-Gauthier

Defence:

Lindgren-Fox

Miller-Trouba

Harpur-Schneider

Goalies:

Halak

Shesterkin

Special Teams

Game Notes:

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