The Montreal Canadiens continue their road trip as they will be facing the New York Rangers tonight at 7:00 PM ET. The Habs will try to bounce back, coming off a difficult game in Boston where they lost to the Bruins 5-2. The two teams met earlier this season in Montreal and the Rangers won by the score of 3-1, behind a strong performance by Igor Shesterkin, who stopped 31 of the 32 shots he faced.
Jonathan Drouin, who received a puck to the head back on November 2nd and has been out since, will be back in the line-up. He will be reunited with Christian Dvorak and Josh Anderson. That line was the Canadiens’ best line early on this season. In fact, Drouin was leading the team with seven points (2G-5A) in 10 games, while Anderson was second with five points (2G-3A), tied with Nick Suzuki (0G-5A) at the time of his injury.
Dominique Ducharme confirmed that Cayden Primeau will get the start in New York tonight. In nine games for the Laval Rocket this season, Primeau is 4-4-0 with a 2.41 goals against average and a .916 saves percentage with two shutouts. This will be the seventh game in the NHL in his young career. He his 2-3-1 with a 3.55 goals against average and a .885 saves percentage at the NHL level.
Ducharme also announced that Mike Hoffman has been placed on the Injury Reserve effective last week and he will be missing at least a week with an upper-body injury. The coach confirmed that Jake Allen has, indeed, suffered a concussion.
The Canadiens have also announced that they have placed centre Adam Brooks on waivers. The Habs preferred keeping Ryan Poehling in Montreal, he who has looked good in the three games he’s played since being called up.
The Rangers received some bad news as they announced that Sammy Blais will be out for the remainder of the season with a torn ACL. Blais went in the corner with former Habs’ P.K. Subban and twisted his knee after both men locked skates.
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