Canadiens Pre Game

Canadiens Game 40: Allen Starts, Slafkovsky In Top 6, Barron Out

Published

2 years ago

January 7, 2023

The slumping Montreal Canadiens (15-21-3) look to break their seven-game losing streak when they host the St. Louis Blues (21-12-6) on Saturday night. The puck drop is scheduled for 7 PM ET.

Two teams that have been decimated by injuries as of late will lock horns on Saturday night, but the two clubs have reacted to their adversity in very different ways.

The Canadiens have seemingly fallen apart over the last month after injuries to Sean Monahan, Micheal Matheson and Kaiden Guhle; to name a few. In their last 10 games, they have a 1-8-1 record, with their only win coming against the Arizona Coyotes; a game which we can all say was won by incredible goaltending.

As for the Blues, they have lost Ryan O’Reilly, Torey Krug and Vladimir Tarasenko to injuries and are seemingly turning the corner on their season. The resilient Blues have a 6-2-2 record over their last 10 games and have gotten some clutch performances from their emerging core of Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou.

If the Canadiens are going to have any luck at all against the punishing and relentless Blues, it’s going to take a full, 60-minute effort. That’s a normal hockey cliché, but it’s a fact that the Habs are coming out to different identities on a per-period basis and need to become more consistent.

It will be interesting to see how this goes, as an eight-game losing streak going into the halfway point of the season would likely be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for this club, en route to an interesting lottery pick for the 2023 NHL Draft:

Montreal Canadiens Injuries

Kaiden Guhle (8 weeks)
Brendan Gallagher (2 weeks)
Mike Matheson (2 weeks)
Sean Monahan (2 weeks)
Carey Price (LTIR)
Paul Byron (LTIR)

St. Louis Blues Injuries

Scott Perunovich (IR)
Marco Scandella (IR)
Torey Krug (IR)
Ryan O’Reilly (IR)
Vladimir Tarasenko (IR)

Montreal Canadiens Projected Lineup


Cole Caufield	Nick Suzuki	Juraj Slafkovsky*
Alex Newhook*	Kirby Dach	Patrick Laine*
Josh Anderson	Christian Dvorak	Brendan Gallagher
Emil Heineman	Jake Evans	Joel Armia


Lane Hutson	Mike Matheson
Kaiden Guhle	Justin Barron
Arber Xhekaj	David Savard*


Samuel Montembeault
Cayden Primeau

St. Louis Blues Projected Lineup

Buchnevich-Thomas-Kyrou

Saad-Schenn-Barbashev

Neighbours-Acciari-Leivo

Torpochenko-Alexandrov-Pitlick

Defence:

Mikkola-Parayko

Rosen-Faulk

Santini-Bortuzzo

Goalies:

Binnington

Greiss

Special Teams

Team	PP %	PK %
Montreal Canadiens	16.3% (28th)	72.1% (29th)
Boston Bruins	22.7% (11th)	87.1% (1st)

Game Notes:

Joel Armia finally scored his first goal of the season during his 27th game, will he turn it around?
Robert Thomas comes into this game red-hot, posting 12 points in his last nine games.
Out of the four goaltenders available for this game, only Thomas Greiss has a save percentage over .900.