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Tonight’s game will be yet another challenging affair for the Canadiens, the Devils have won their last 2 games and they’ve got a 7-2-1 record in their last 10. Not so long ago, the Devils were the laughing stock of the league but now, they’ve got a stacked line-up with a threatening top-6: Tatar, Hischier and Mercer form their top line while Sharangovich, Hughes and Bratt skating on the second. Hughes is leading their scorer with 69 points followed by Bratt and defenseman Dougie Hamilton who each have 54. Former Hab Tomas Tatar has got 31 points to his name along with a +32 rating second only to defenseman Ryan Graves who sits at +33.

Meanwhile, in Montreal, captain Nick Suzuki is unsurprisingly the team leader in points with 42 with Caufield and Dach occupying positions two and three with 36 and 35 points respectively. With Caufield being done for the season and Dach having not made the trip to Jersey because of an illness/injury, the next most productive forward is Christian Dvorak with a whooping 23 points.

Martin St-Louis has decided to shake things up and bit and changed all of his line aside from the top unit who still features Harvey-Pinard, Suzuki and Anderson. The second line is now formed of Pitlick, Dvorak and Dadonov, the third consists of Hoofman, Drouin and Armia while Belzile centers the 4th line flanked by Pezzetta and Ylonen. Given the lack of results of late, it’s not surprising to see the coach try to mix and match his forwards, but there is a clear lack of talent in this depleted team, and it would be surprising if the tweaks made much of a difference.

On the blue line, Matheson finds himself back with Savard on the top pairing, Jordan Harris and Justin Barron form the second and Schueneman and Kovacevic are the bottom one. In net, Samuel Montembeault will be tasked with holding the fort, he should see another game at the end of the week as well given the fact that the Canadiens are playing a back-to-back Friday and Saturday. As for New Jersey, MacKenzie Blackwood got hurt at the morning skate which means that Vitek Vanecek should be in net tonight.

Suivez les points de presse d’avant-match en direct du New Jersey.

Tune in now to pregame media ops live from New Jersey.#GoHabsGo https://t.co/93MTicOH45

— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) February 21, 2023

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