Canadiens Lineup

Harvey-Pinard – Nick Suzuki – Josh Anderson

Rem Pitlick – Christian Dvorak – Evgenii Dadonov

Mike Hoffman – Jonathan Drouin – Joel Armia

Michael Pezzetta – Alex Belzile – Jesse Ylonen

Corey Schueneman – David Savard

Mike Matheson – Justin Barron

Jordan Harris – Johnathan Kovacevic

Sam Montembeault – Jake Allen

Carey Price (knee), Paul Byron (hip), Sean Monahan (lower-body), Kaiden Guhle (lower-body), Brendan Gallagher (lower-body), Jake Evans (lower-body), Juraj Slafkovsky (lower-body), Cole Caufield (shoulder), Joel Edmundson (upper-body), Arber Xhekaj (upper-body), Kirby Dach (illness), Chris Wideman (undisclosed)

Game Report

It appears that the Canadiens are not the only team cursed by their reverse retro jerseys. With the Devils sporting their black alternate sweaters emblazoned simply with “Jersey” they looked a little sleepy at times, not like the powerhouse team who started day third overall in NHL standings.

New Jersey certainly flipped the switch showing their skill for stretches in this game, completely dominating possession. But sloppiness in their own zone was their undoing in this game. The Canadiens were the opportunistic bunch scoring four times on Vitek Vanecek on just 17 shots.

For Sam Montembeault, it was a game of redemption. His last strong start came exactly one month ago, January 21st against the Maple Leafs. Since then, Montembeault had struggled, losing three of his last four starts coming into tonight, sporting just an .881 save percentage. He had given up six goals last week against Carolina.

It has been a wildly inconsistent season for Montembeault, but tonight he was on his game, making first saves and relying on his teammates to clear rebounds. Sam was deserving of his first star selection.

Montreal opened the scoring for their sixth straight contest. It was the Canadiens young defencemen who got the ball rolling for the offence. Justin Barron scored his third goal of the season in the opening frame and Johnathan Kovacevic tallied his second marker early in the second period. Nick Suzuki’s 18th of the campaign was the game winner.

Joel Armia exited the game in the first period after just 2:30 of ice-time and did not return to this game. Marty St. Louis did not provide an update on his condition during his post-game presser.

Up Next

The Canadiens return to Montreal for two days of preparation before heading to Philadelphia to meet the Flyers on Friday night.

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