Canadiens Lineup

Cole Caufield – Nick Suzuki – Kirby Dach

Mike Hoffman – Christian Dvorak – Brendan Gallagher

Evgenii Dadonov – Sean Monahan – Josh Anderson

Michael Pezzetta – Jake Evans – Juraj Slafkovsky

Kaiden Guhle – David Savard

Joel Edmundson – Arber Xhekaj

Jordan Harris – Johnathan Kovacevic

Jake Allen – Sam Montembeault

Chris Wideman

Carey Price (knee), Paul Byron (hip), Emil Heineman (finger), Mike Matheson (abdominal strain), Joel Armia (upper-body), Jonathan Drouin (upper-body)

Game Report

With some modest success this season, some fans have been ready to declare that the Canadiens rebuild is complete. Not so fast. It takes more than one year of selecting near the top of the NHL Draft to stockpile the kind of talent required to be a contender. Exhibit A: The New Jersey Devils.

Nico Hischier, Jack Hughes are both first overall picks. Dawson Mercer is a first rounder. 

Jesper Bratt, Miles Wood, Yegor Sharangovich, Michael McLeod, Jesper Boquist, Fabian Zetterlund were each drafted by the Devils. And that’s just a list of the forwards.

This is a team that spent multiple years at the bottom of the standings and was built through the draft. Alexander Holtz, Luke Hughes and Simon Nemec, Shakir Mukhamadullin and Chase Stillman are recent first round picks not yet in this lineup.

There’s a reason that Habs fans can look past the fact that their team was crushed at the Bell Centre on Tuesday night as the Devils won their tenth straight game to put themselves second overall in the NHL. With patience and a commitment to rebuild right, the Canadiens can add to their growing stable of talent to follow a similar path. The Devils are a beautiful hockey machine to watch right now.

But it won’t happen right away and it will require additional pain. 

Last April when these two teams met, they were competing for the basement of the East Division. Early this season, the Devils have made their leap. Hopefully the Habs can do the same in a couple of years; and when it happens, let’s leave the powder blues behind.

Up Next

Following the match, the Montreal Canadiens announced that Jonathan Drouin, who missed tonight’s game, will be out four to six weeks. According to the team, Drouin was injured on November 5th in a game against the Vegas Golden Knights.

It’s a quick one-game road trip for the Canadiens as they travel to Columbus to meet the Blue Jackets for a match on Thursday night.

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