Canadiens Lineup

Cole Caufield – Nick Suzuki – Kirby Dach

Jonathan Drouin – Sean Monahan – Evgenii Dadonov

Mike Hoffman – Christian Dvorak – Brendan Gallagher

Michael Pezzetta – Jake Evans – Joel Armia 

Kaiden Guhle – David Savard

Joel Edmundson – Arber Xhekaj

Jordan Harris – Johnathan Kovacevic

Sam Montembeault – Jake Allen

Chris Wideman, Josh Anderson (suspension), Juraj Slafkovsky (suspension)

Carey Price (knee), Paul Byron (hip), Emil Heineman (finger), Mike Matheson (abdominal strain)

Game Report

Taking a penalty and giving up a goal while shorthanded all within the first minute of the game was not an ideal start for the Canucks, and it went downhill from there. Vancouver is a team in disarray right now.

For the Canadiens, it was important to take advantage. Montreal feasted on Canucks mistakes in the first period taking a 3-0 lead after 20 minutes.

The Habs top line scored three of the five goals tonight with Nick Suzuki notching a goal in his sixth straight game. Kirby Dach will get back to developing as a second line centre someday but for now he is enjoying patrolling the wing. Dach had two goals tonight, giving him nine points in his last six games.

Rookie Arber Xhekaj chipped in with his second of the season. Xhekaj logged 19:19 minutes of ice-time, a high in his short career. Then there was Mike Hoffman who scored his third goal in the past two games.

And let’s not forget Johnathan Kovacevic who picked up the first point of his NHL career.

The Canucks didn’t mount much of an attack until the third period but the Canadiens defence was there when Sam Montembeault was having difficulty managing his rebounds.

Missing from this game were two Canadiens serving suspensions, Josh Anderson and Juraj Slafkovsky. It was announced earlier in the day that Slafkovsky was suspended two games for boarding Red Wings forward Matt Luff during Tuesday night’s game. Luff will have surgery on Thursday and is expected to be out 10-12 weeks.

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