Today, the Canadian is in Winnipeg to face the Jets in the evening. After Thursday night’s crushing defeat against the Penguins, the club will want to try to get back on the right path.
And above all, to avoid imploding in the third period as he did on Thursday.
On the sidelines of the meeting, the CH did not hold a morning session strictly speaking… but we knew that the extras were going to skate this morning.
And among the guys who skated, there was David Savard, who missed his team’s last game due to an upper body injury.
This therefore left doubt about his participation in this evening’s match.
That said, after the session, the Canadian announced that Savard could indeed face the Jets this evening.
A decision will be made at the last minute.
On the images captured by Renaud Lavoie (TVA Sports), we see the defender being in discussion with a man who appears to be Stéphane Robidas, the team’s assistant. We can think that he was on the ice with Savard to be able to see how #58 is doing.
We probably don’t want to play him if he’s still affected by the boo-boo he’s got, after all.
That said, we clearly saw it Thursday night: the team’s defensive brigade really needs a guy like Savard. We know that he is capable of playing big minutes and taking on important defensive missions, but above all, he is capable of helping to put out the fire when it is necessary to do so.
He wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the game against the Penguins, but he would at least have brought a stabilizing presence to his zone. Justin Barron has qualities, but he is not Savard at that level, we agree.
So we’ll see what happens tonight, but the good news is that Savard seems to have a chance to play. Let’s see what happens during the warm-up session this evening.
Prolongation
Since the regular guys didn’t practice today, we don’t know if Martin St-Louis will make any line changes.
Yesterday, that said, it looked like this:
It is also Samuel Montembeault who will be in front of the Canadian’s net this evening.
He will face Connor Hellebuyck.
