CANADIENS
Montreal

RED WINGS
Detroit

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings 

[one_half]Byron – Drouin – Gallagher
Galchenyuk – De La Rose – Lehkonen
Rychel – L. Shaw – Hudon
Deslauriers – McCarron – Carr
[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Schlemko – Petry
Alzner – Juulsen
Reilly – Lernout

[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders

Niemi
Price

Scratches

Jordie Benn, Byron Froese

Injuries

Nikita Scherbak – concussion, Ales Hemsky – concussion, Shea Weber – lower-body, Victor Mete – hand, Max Pacioretty – lower-body, Phillip Danault – upper body, Andrew Shaw – upper-body

Game Report 

Habs ‘tanknation’ is not a fan of Nicolas Deslauriers right now or Jared Coreau. The Red Wings goaltender has lost two games to the Canadiens in the past few weeks hurting their chances to secure a top three draft pick.

Coreau is now 0-5-0 with a 4.35 goals-against average and .859 save percentage. In other words, Jared is the Antti Niemi from the start of the season. Coreau didn’t have a good night in the Detroit crease and was particularly suspect on Deslauriers second marker allowing a five-hole goal on a weak shot.

As far as Deslauriers, he picked a fine time to show up, scoring twice tonight. Prior to this game, Nicolas had been a no show for two months, recording just a goal and an assist in the past 28 games.

Having started the game third from the bottom of the league, the win moves Montreal one point ahead of the Arizona Coyotes. Each team has one game remaining. The Canadiens chances of picking first overall dropped by two percent and their probability of picking in the top three dropped by more than five percent.

The Red Wings were not helpful for the Canadiens draft chances with Montreal holding a season record of 4-0-0 against Detroit. And for the first time ever, the Canadiens and the Red Wings will miss the playoffs in the same season.

With just one more game remaining in the 2017-18 season, a date on Saturday night with the Toronto Maple Leafs, just one chance remains for the Canadiens to improve their pre-lottery placement.

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▲  Artturi Lehkonen, Noah Juulsen, Nicolas Deslauriers

▼  Karl Alzner, Logan Shaw, Kerby Rychel, Charles Hudon, Mike Reilly

1. Nicolas Deslauriers  MTL
2. Tyler Bertuzzi  DET
3. Jeff Petry  MTL

• “We didn’t see anything special about Detroit, we always try to focus on moving the puck quickly when we get into transition. When you use speed in those situations, you don’t give the other team a chance to recover from their mistakes, and we did a good job of that tonight.”

Artturi Lehkonen

• “We all know what kind of shot Frk has. That was a huge penalty kill, especially down one, and [Noah Juulsen] got in front of those two slap shots. That gave the whole team a boost.”
• “We’re always trying to force mistakes in the neutral zone. We’re always better when we can get into a fast-break game.”

Noah Juulsen

• “I was in a decent amount of pain. I didn’t really see the first one coming. It just hit me. Then, the second one I was just in the lane and just blocked it. It’s a part of my game, so I think I have to do it… The boys were supporting me there. You probably heard it from the bench. It’s a bit of a booster for the guys on the PK, for sure.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com