Canadiens Lineup

Cole Caufield – Nick Suzuki – Kirby Dach

Josh Anderson – Christian Dvorak – Brendan Gallagher

Jonathan Drouin – Sean Monahan – Joel Armia

Rem Pitlick – Jake Evans – Juraj Slafkovsky

Kaiden Guhle – David Savard

Jordan Harris – Johnathan Kovacevic

Arber Xhekaj – Joel Edmundson

Jake Allen – Sam Montembeault

Mike Hoffman, Michael Pezzetta, Chris Wideman

Carey Price (knee), Paul Byron (hip), Logan Mailloux (shoulder), Emil Heineman (finger), Mike Matheson (abdominal strain), Evgenii Dadonov (undisclosed)

Game Report

There was something so familiar about this game. Row after row of fans in red jerseys were seated throughout the building. Our old friends were in charge of the broadcast: Dan Robertson in the booth doing play-by-play and John Lu as the pre-game and intermission host.

But this game was in Winnipeg. And oddly, the power centre from the home team was from Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts and the 6-foot-5-inch defenceman playing for the visitors was from Brandon, Manitoba. In fact, Joel Edmundson made his season debut for the Canadiens after sitting out ten games with a back injury.

It was the first game for Johnathon Kovacevic to play against his former teammates after Montreal plucked him off waivers from the Jets. And it was a homecoming of sorts for Joel Armia who played in a Winnipeg jersey for three seasons before coming to Montreal.

This was a game of missed chances for the Jets in the first two periods allowing the Canadiens to keep pace and ensuring that the score was knotted at two after 40 minutes.

But in the third period, the Jets wore down the visitors outshooting them 11-to-4. That momentum carried into overtime where Kyle Connor sent Winnipeg fans home happy with a wrist shot that beat Sam Montembeault. The Canadiens had just one high-danger scoring chance in the third period and overtime.

The Canadiens defenceman from Brandon was matched with Arber Xhekaj to create a rugged pairing. Once situated on the felt side Xhekaj settled down and Edmundson, the two looked comfortable in their first game together.

The Canadiens top line was the only one who proved to be a consistent offensive threat.

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