CANADIENS
Montreal

PANTHERS
Florida

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings 

[one_half]Hudon – Plekanec – Lehkonen
Byron – Danault – Shaw
Galchenyuk – Holland – Scherbak
Martinsen – Froese – McCarron
[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Alzner – Petry
Mete – Benn
Davidson – Jerabek
[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders

Lindgren
Fucale

Scratches

Al Montoya (neck), David Schlemko (hand), Max Pacioretty, Jonathan Drouin, Brendan  Gallagher, Jacob De La Rose, Torrey Mitchell, Ales Hemsky, Daniel Carr, Shea Weber, Mark  Streit, Joe Morrow, Eric Gelinas

Injuries – prospects

Jeremiah Addison (shoulder), Josh Brook (wrist), Noah Juulsen (foot)

Game Report

It would be silly to label this a must-win game for the Canadiens, but the victory helped calm the waters for now. Yet another loss would have ignited full-out panic by Habs fans.

It was an important win coming against a Panthers team icing their best in their final game before the regular season.

The line led by Tomas Plekanec that has displayed good chemistry during the pre-season was rather quiet in this one. Instead, the Paul Byron and Andrew Shaw show. The line centred by Phillip Danault looks like it has the potential of remaining together.

This was Alex Galchenyuk’s best game of the exhibition schedule. But the puzzle remains: where will he play? Galchenyuk needs to play with skilled, offensive players which limits him to playing with Max Pacioretty and Jonathan Drouin. But given his mental mistakes Claude Julien has had Galchenyuk playing further down the roster in the pre-season.

The defense was better in this game. It appears that Karl Alzner and Jeff Petry will be fine for now. Victor Mete made just a few mistakes but overall had a solid game while it was Jordie Benn that had his fair share of struggles.

The best player in this game, by far, was Charlie Lindgren. The young goaltender was calm, poised and, on several occasions, bailed out his teammates when they committed a turnover.

The Canadiens have one more pre-season tune-up that Julien promises will feature a lineup very close to what we will see opening night. The Canadiens meet the Senators on Saturday night at 7:00 pm. at the Bell Centre.

~~~

▲     Charlie Lindgren, Alex Galchenyuk, Andrew Shaw, Victor Mete, Jakub Jerabek

▼     Jordie Benn

1. Paul Byron  MTL
2. Andrew Shaw  MTL
3. Charlie Lindgren  MTL

• “If you look at the intensity of our team tonight, how we battled… in the scrums, we were all in there and we stuck up for each other. On the forecheck we were a lot more aggressive and because of that we were turning pucks over. A lot of good things were happening, which I think was a step in the right direction.”
• “There were still some mistakes made, and still some parts of our game that we’d like to fix, but I don’t think any team in the league right now feels like they’re at 100 percent yet, so we’re okay. Hopefully tomorrow we minimize some more mistakes and keep getting better, but I definitely liked the effort tonight.”

Andrew Shaw

• “You look at our record, and I know it’s only preseason, but we didn’t have a win yet. So to go out there and battle and compete like that, with passion — and to show character — it’s good to see.”

Paul Byron

• “We needed to show intensity. We couldn’t have a preseason mentality anymore, with only one exhibition game left to play. We needed to play intense hockey and show that we’re ready for the regular season.”
•  “Everyone played well, and the team fought hard. It was the kind of effort we needed, and it’s because of that effort we won.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com