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Pregame: Canadiens vs Sabres |
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Follow me @KarineHains for all updates about the Montreal Canadiens and women's hockey
Montreal has scored 3 goals in its last two games and their only really productive line has been the first line made out of Caufield, Suzuki and Monahan. Unfortunately, you need more than one productive line to win hockey games and St-Louis decided that it was time to shuffle the deck. The only problem is that you have to shuffle with the cards you’ve been dealt. Meaning that tonight, the lines will be as follows:
Caufield-Suzuki-Hoffman
Monahan-Dach-Drouin
Anderson-Dvorak-Gallagher
Pitlick-Evans-Dadonov
The defensive pairings remain unchanged, and Samuel Montembeault will be in net. I get it, we need to showcase Hoffman in the hope of trading him, but far that to work, he needs to show positive signs and I’m not seeing those. He’s been given plenty of prime power play time and the amount of play that just go to die on his stick and the number of unprovoked turnovers is astonishing (and not in a good way). St-Louis justified giving him first line minutes by saying that he has played with grit lately, I’m not sure I agree to be honest, but I would love to be proved wrong.
Tonight, Sean Monahan will be back with Kirby Dach, which is good considering that there was definitely some chemistry there earlier this season and Jonathan Drouin will join them. On Dach still being used as center, St-Louis says that he knows he will fail in his face-off missions at times, but it’s all about taking baby-steps and improving. Clearly, the Canadiens see Dach as their long-term 2nd center and they are willing to put in the effort to get him there.
Meanwhile, Josh Anderson will find himself alongside Christian Dvorak and Brendan Gallagher, we’ll see if this change can bring some more offense to the third line. Gallagher has looked better this season, but he’s only got one goal to his name and ideally, he would be able to deliver more. Same goes for Anderson who’s only found the back of the net twice.
Finally, Dadonov falls to the fourth line alongside Pitlick and Evans. If Mike Hoffman wasn’t your typical 4th liner, Dadonov isn’t either. The way I see it, the Canadiens could do with an infusion or energy, someone who’ll be happy to play wherever you plug him and that is Michael Pezzetta. If your 4th line isn’t scoring, what have you go to lose anyways? Besides, if you remember correctly, the gritty forward played in 51 games last season and did get 11 points which was pretty good considering his ice-time. Before Armia is back and healthy, now would be the time to both give him a look and send a message to the over-paid unproductive forwards that they are not untouchable.
In any case, we’ll see what this remixed line-up can muster attack wise against the Sabres who have a 4-2 record so far, even though they were destroyed 5-1 by Seattle in their last game. I expect them to bounce back in a big way.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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