After a never-ending off-season, the Montreal Canadiens will finally be taking on the Philadelphia Flyers in their first pre-season game.
No offense to the prospects who played a couple of games at the Bell Centre earlier this month, but they weren’t the real Montreal Canadiens. Tonight, the real team, or at least part of it, will be taking on the Philadelphia Flyers at the Bell Centre.
There are a few storylines to follow this preseason in Montreal; the blueline battle, the arrival of Patrik Laine and the Xhekaj brothers possibly playing a game together, wearing the Sainte-Flanelle for which they cheered for growing up.
In the end, tonight will be the first chapter of the Laine story in Montreal as only Arber Xhekaj is scheduled to play. There will however be plenty of new blood on defense, Lane Hutson, Laine Mailloux and Adam Engstrom will be making their pre-season debut.
Asked about his expectations from Laine today, Martin St-Louis said:
The lines we've seen at camp appear to be intact for now with Kirby Dach centering Alex Newhook and Laine, Christian Dvorak centering Joshua Roy and Josh Anderson, Oliver Kapanen centering Alex Barre-Boulet and Emil Heineman, and Lucas Condotta centering Jared Davidson and Luke Tuch.
On the backend, Hutson is paired with David Savard, Xhekaj with Justin Barron and Mailloux with Engstrom. While it's not surprising to see Savard paired with Hutson, the fact that Mailloux and Engstrom are together may be a hint that they are heading to Laval as a pairing, even though it's way too early to say for sure.
The visitors are coming to town with a big Quebec contingent as Nicolas Deslauriers, Elliott Desnoyers, Jacob Gaucher and Anthony Richard will all be playing. Former members of the Canadiens' organization Ryan Poehling and Louis Belpedio are also part of the roster. The biggest name Habs fans will see at the Bell Centre tonight is Sean Couturier.
Could Deslauriers be tempted to try and start things up with Arber Xhekaj? Maybe, but he might remember his pre-season tilt against Brandon Baddock back in 2018 which cost him the start of the season.
The puck drop is schedule for 7:00 PM but the team is encouraging fans to be early in order to take part in the moment of silence honouring the Gaudreau brothers following their tragic death last month.
