On TVA Sports: Canadian v. Blue Jackets

The Canadian will try to get back to winning ways this evening, while the Columbus Blue Jackets are visiting Montreal.

It will be a second game in two nights for Columbus, who beat the poor Pittsburgh Penguins 6-2 yesterday, which ended a six-game losing streak. The Habs, for their part, were defeated 3-0 by the Minnesota Wild in the last match of a rather complicated trip abroad.

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The score is 0 to 0 in the first period.

SUMMARY

First period

(0:00) Start of period

A few minutes before the match, CH revealed that defender David Savard was injured in his upper body and that he would have to give way to Jayden Struble. At the morning training at the Bell Centre, nothing suggested that the veteran was going to have to sit out.

Here is the Canadian’s lineup:

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The Montreal team has won its last five games against Columbus. This evening will be the first of three clashes between the two teams this season.

“It’s going to be a good test for us, it’s a team that works a lot, which will never give up,” Savard underlined in the morning. We’re going to have to match that and even take it to another level.”

Like his coach, Martin St-Louis, Savard believes that his team will have to be more daring in attack.

“We are playing better and better defensively, but we have to concentrate on creating a little more chances,” he explained. We spend time in the offensive zone but we take more or less risks.

“We are hard to play against defensively, but not offensively,” St-Louis then commented. We have a lot of time of possession, but that doesn’t mean offensive (…) we’re not connected enough, we don’t play fast enough together to become an attack.

“We continue to work on this,” he added.

Justin Barron will be back in the lineup for the Habs while Jayden Struble gives way to him. Samuel Montembeault will be in front of the net.

Two Jackets players could experience a reunion with their former team: this will certainly be the case for veteran Sean Monahan, while defenseman Jordan Harris, obtained last summer in return for Patrik Laine, is a more uncertain case for tonight , not being used in every game by coach Dean Evason.

Newly inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, former CH captain Shea Weber will be honored before tonight’s game.