CANADIENS
Montreal

SENATORS
Ottawa

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings 

[one_half]Pacioretty – Galchenyuk – Gallagher
Lehkonen – Plekanec – Andrighetto
Carr – Desharnais – Hudon
Farnham – McCarron – Terry[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Beaulieu – Pateryn
Sergachev – Barberio
Hanley – Redmond
[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders

Condon
Lindgren

Scratches

Jeremiah Addison, Yury Alexandrov, Guillaume Asselin, Daniel Audette, William Bitten, Simon Bourque, Tim Bozon, Matthew Bradley, Paul Byron, Connor Crisp, Phillip Danault, Jacob De La Rose, Josiah Didier, Alexei Emelin, Jake Evans, Giovanni Fiore, Brian Flynn, Max Friberg, Zachary Fucale, Jeremy Grégoire, Hayden Hawkey, Arvid Henrikson, Ryan Johnston, Noah Juulsen, Nikolas Koberstein, Konstantin Korneev, Andrei Kruchinin, Brett Lernout, Mark MacMillan, Andrei Markov, Stefan Matteau, Michael McNiven, Victor Mete, Torrey Mitchell, Al Montoya, Tom Parisi, Jeff Petry, Michael Pezzetta, Carey Price, Alexander Radulov, Martin Reway, Philip Samuelsson, Nikita Scherbak, Andrew Shaw, Andrei Sidyakin, Casey Staum, Colin Sullivan, Dalton Thrower, Maxim Trunev, Lukas Vejdemo, Shea Weber

Game Report

The preseason is a time to help answer questions. So what have we learned so far?

Artturi Lehkonen is a legitimate NHL’er. While he wasn’t as impactful as he was against the Devils, Lehkonen had an assist on Mike McCarron’s goal. Lehkonen fit more naturally with Alex Galchenyuk on Monday, but as the game went on looked comfortable with Tomas Plekanec tonight. Lehkonen ripped a shot off the crossbar in the third period that could have had us talking differently about the game if it had found the back of the net.

Mike Condon is losing his grip on a role with the Montreal Canadiens. Condon gave up two goals in three shots and three goals in eight shots. While most expected Charlie Lindgren to take over after 30 minutes, the Canadiens coaching staff gave Condon a chance to battle through a tough outing.

Greg Pateryn has nailed down a spot in the lineup. Pateryn had another strong game playing 26 minutes including 3:44 on the power-play.

David Desharnais has no business playing on the power-play (nor anywhere else for the Canadiens.) It should be painfully obvious that even though Kirk Muller is in charge of tactics, Michel Therrien is still pulling the strings with respect to personnel. Desharnais was the only Canadiens player not to register a shot on goal despite 15:45 ice time and almost two minutes with the man advantage.

Zach Redmond is making a case that he should be the Canadiens seventh defenseman when the season starts. Redmond had a goal (his second of the preseason) on five shots and added a team-leading eight hits. Redmond’s main competitor for that spot is Mark Barberio who looked completely lost at times in this game.

Mikhail Sergachev will go back to junior hockey at the end of training camp, or will he? It is almost certain that the Canadiens will return Sergachev to the Windsor Spitfires but the mature brand of hockey played by the 18-year-old-defenceman ensures that the question remains open. In 20 minutes of icetime, Sergachev had an assist on three shots and added five hits.

Mike McCarron looks ready to take on the role of third line centre in Montreal. He is quicker, gets involved at both ends of the ice and showed what happens when a big man drives to the net on his goal tonight. That said, the spot will likely go to Desharnais. At this point, there is no credible hockey reason to keep Desharnais on this team. He is simply in the way.

Carey Price and Shea Weber are on their way back to the Montreal Canadiens after winning the World Cup of Hockey. We will soon know whether Andrei Markov or Jeff Petry will line up alongside Weber on the top pairing.

~~~

▲     Artturi Lehkonen, Zach Redmond, Greg Pateryn, Mikhail Sergachev

▼     David Desharnais, Mark Barberio

1. Mike Hoffman  OTT
2. Zach Redmond MTL
3. Bobby Ryan  OTT

• On Mike McCarron’s goal: “He went hard to the net and made a good play. He has a better pace than last year.“

Mike Condon

• “It was a frustrating game in general. I thought that I kept my composure after two early goals.”

Mikhail Sergachev

• “I was kinda tired in the third period because of the pace. Everyone was flying.”
• “For the first 10 minutes my hands were shaking. Then I settled down and played my game.”

Artturi Lehkonen

• On playing with Tomas Plekanec: “The longer the game went we were able to find each other better.”

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com