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Pregame: Canadiens vs. Senators |
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Follow me @KarineHains for all updates about the Montreal Canadiens and women's hockey
The infirmary is pretty much working at full capacity in Montreal, so much so that the Canadiens are struggling to ice a complete formation. For the first time in over 20 years, the Habs have decided to recall a player from the CHL. This is a rare occurrence and some strict conditions have got to be met: the recalled player cannot stay for more than five games, he cannot miss more than one of his junior team games and the NHL team must have used at least 2 emergency recalls before going down this road.
Since the Canadiens only have two games left before their break which starts on February 1st and the Peterborough Petes are only playing a single game until then against Hamilton on January 29th, Montreal has elected to recall center Owen Beck. The first selection of the second round at the last draft, Beck impressed so much at training camp that the Canadiens’ brass decided to immediately sign him to a contract even though there was no rush to do so. In 37 games in the OHL split between the Mississauga Steelheads (30 games) and the Petes (7 games) he has gathered 44 points. As you might recall, Beck is a talented center and he can more than hold his own at the faceoff circle, which won’t go amiss in Montreal.
Yesterday, Nick Suzuki, Kirby Dach and Christian Dvorak were all absent from practice receiving treatments and while they did all travel with the team, having 3 semi-healthy centers is just not good enough for a pro hockey team. Meanwhile, the Laval Rocket is also battling a lot of injuries and are currently out of town so recalling someone from the farm team would have caused some logistics problems, the chosen player might not have been able to join the Habs in time. In other words the stars aligned for Owen Beck who will be playing his first career game in the NHL tonight.
The Senators were in Toronto last night to take on the Leafs and DJ Smith’s men won in dominant fashion, crushing the locals 6-2. Captain Brady Tkachuk lead the charge with 2 goals as Anderson and Nylander were the sole scorers for the Toronto outfit who will be without its captain Auston Matthews for 3 weeks because of a knee sprain. Just like the Canadiens, the Sens are struggling this season, they’ve got 47 points and are second to last in the Atlantic division. Unlike Montreal though, they’ve got plenty of firepower, Tkatchuk, Stutzle, Giroux and Batherson all have over 40 points and DeBrincat is only a point short. It will be up to Samuel Montembeault to stop them all tonight as he’ll be back in net after having a well-deserved night off Thursday.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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