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The Canadiens have lost a lot of games lately and these defeats haven’t been close contests either, they’ve been blown out of the water at every turn. Tonight, the blue line will get some much-needed reinforcement as David Savard will be back in the line-up. Judging by the pairings at practice yesterday, the vet should be making his return alongside Jordan Harris while Edmundson will skate with Barron and Xhekaj with Wideman. According to the coach, he’s had a conversation with Kovacevic and there are somethings he needs to work on, St-Louis wouldn’t say what those things were, but clearly, he believes that watching a game from the press gallery will help.

Up front, there didn’t appear to be any changes to the lines used in the loss against the Capitals on New Year’s Eve, meaning that Dach stays put with Caufield and Suzuki, Drouin gets the default 2nd C assignment flanked with Hoffman and Anderson, Dvorak pivots Slafkovsky and Gallagher while Pezzetta, Evans and Armia form the 4th line. This morning though, St-Louis announced that Richard would be back in the line-up at the expense of Armia, a decision that doesn’t come a minute too soon for most people, the big Finn looked like he had more lives than a cat there for a while.

If the Canadiens do not manage to get themselves out of their current funk, they’ll keep dropping in the standings and after seeing the Connor Bedard show in Halifax, plenty of fans wouldn’t have a problem with that. Of course, the Canadiens’ good start to the season means they probably won’t finish bottom 3 in the league, but still their current rhythm could see them land good odds in the draft lottery. Right now, Montreal has got 7.5% odds with its own pick and 6% with the pick they’ve obtained from Florida in return for Ben Chiarot nearly a year ago.

Tonight’s game is set for 8:00 PM and tonight’s opponent the Predators are not having a great season either, they are currently 6th in the Central division with 36 points, in front of league bottom-feeders Arizona and Chicago.

David Savard s'adresse aux médias après l'entraînement matinal facultatif à Nashville.

David Savard is addressing the media following the optional morning skate in Nashville.#GoHabsGo https://t.co/27uD5Hp56U

— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) January 3, 2023

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