If the Montreal Canadiens have any hope of qualifying for the playoffs, they’ll need to tame the Stanley Cup Champions Florida Panthers since they are playing three of their remaining 17 games against the Sunshine State team. Saturday night will be the second duel between the two sides this season. The first one occurred on December 28 and was Jakub Dobes’ first career game. Against all odds, the rookie posted a 33-save shutout, and the Habs took the two points in a 4-0 win.
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Don’t expect a repeat performance, however. Martin St-Louis has already confirmed that Samuel Montembeault will be in net Saturday night. The 28-year-old doesn’t have a great record against the team that drafted him 77th overall in the 2015 draft. In seven duels, he’s 1-4-1 with a 4.72 goals-against average and a .880 save percentage.
There’s no word yet on who will be in the Panthers' net. It won’t be the man who lost the last game since the Panthers sent Spencer Knight to the Chicago Blackhawks in the Seth Jones trade. The Cats had drafted Knight 13th overall at the 2019 draft, passing on Cole Caufield. Sergei Bobrovsky has taken on the Canadiens 25 times, and he has a 16-7-1 record with a 2.42 GAA and a .922 SP. Meanwhile, backup Vitek Vanecek is 3-1-0 with a 2.76 GAA and a .894 SP.
Up front, expect some changes for the Canadiens. After missing the last game, Joel Armia was back at practice and should be good to go. The biggest change at practice was yet another iteration of the second line, this time featuring Joshua Roy, Alex Newhook, and Patrik Laine. In other words, Roy’s audition for the second unit isn’t over, but Laine is out of the doghouse and back in the top six.
During his post-practice press availability, the coach spoke about Laine at length when Martin McGuire mentioned how tricky it is to put the Finn on a line for five-on-five play:
I speak to Patty a lot about this. I know what he can do offensively, but he also must be predictable defensively. I need to know that he will buy in our defensive game, not just in our zone. And it can’t be just one period; it’s every day, it’s in the practices, it’s all the time he must show that he means to do the defensive work. I know what he can do offensively, it’s a big part of why we were able to get a point from the last game, I know he can do that, but he must be responsible so that I can trust him and give him more ice in tight games in the third when points are so important.
We’ll see on Saturday night if Laine understood his coach. He usually likes to play against Florida. He has 21 points against them in 19 games, just behind Brendan Gallagher, who has 23 in 37 meetings. Captain Nick Suzuki rounds up the top three with 15 points in 16 games. Interestingly, none got a single point in the December game against Florida. Kirby Dach, whose season is now over, had two goals, while Newhook had two assists.
As for the Panthers, captain Aleksander Barkov leads the pack against Montreal with a whopping 47 points in 36 games, followed by Sam Reinhart with 22 points in 30 games and Sam Bennet with 20 points in 25 games. Matthew Tkachuk has 28 points in 26 games but hasn’t played since sustaining an injury at the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament. Newly acquired Brad Marchand has 48 points against the Habs, but he’s still nursing an injury.
Florida will also be without their top defenseman, Aaron Ekblad, who’s serving a 20-game suspension for violating the league’s performance-enhancing substances program. The blueliner explained he made a mistake by taking something to help him recover from an injury without checking with the proper medical personnel. However, he still has to serve the suspension.
The game is set for 7:00 PM, and the Canadiens must show up from the start for this pivotal game. They will be playing for their playoff lives every night now. Montreal has only won three of the last 10 games between the two teams.
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