No more comforts of home for Canadiens players. After a five-game home stretch, Martin St-Louis’ squad will be in Winnipeg on Saturday night to face the powerful Winnipeg Jets, first in the NHL with 43 points.
The home streak was fruitful for the CH, but ended abruptly on Thursday, with a bitter 9-2 loss against the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Canadians had won three times in the previous four games.
Absent from training on Friday after being removed from the match on Thursday, Samuel Montembeault should be at his post to defend the Habs cage. Removed from the lineup just before Thursday’s match, David Savard remains an uncertain case. It was Jayden Struble who took his place at the last moment.
Among the attackers, Martin St-Louis kept his composed trios during the game on Thursday, which means that Alex Newhook was sent to the second unit along with Kirby Dach and Patrik Laine, in favor of Juraj Slafkovsky who finds Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki.
On the other hand, the Jets will want to restart their reactors. After a phenomenal start to the season with 15 wins in 16 outings, the Manitobans have slowed down recently with only 3 wins in 9 duels.
It’s Connor Hellebuyck who will be in front of the Jets cage, he who presents statistics of a possible winner of the Vezina Trophy this season. He ranks first in the NHL with 18 wins and a goals-against average of 2.12, in addition to ranking 2e rank with an efficiency rate of .926, a measly thousandth behind Anthony Stolarz.
At the other end, Samuel Montembeault will have his work cut out for him with the duo of Mark Scheifele and Kyle Connor. The two have respectively 34 and 36 points in 31 games, and form with Jake Guentzel and Brayden Point, the only scoring duos with 16 goals or more this season, without forgetting defenseman Josh Morrissey, 4e scorer among the guards with a harvest of 28 points.
Canada
