Game 32: Winnipeg Jets vs Montreal Canadiens pre-game report

Both the Jets and Canadiens come into tonight’s game not happy with their level of play. For Winnipeg they weren’t crisp in a 3-2 loss to a very good Vegas team on Thursday while that same night in Montreal the Habs were pounded by the Penguins by a final score of 9-2.

It appears the only change for the Jets will be Colin Miller coming back into the lineup for Ville Heinola who sat for the second half of the 3rd period. As we detailed yesterday in the Practice Report it seems unlikely, despite how well he was moving, that Nikolaj Ehlers is ready to return to the lineup as that was his first team skate and he wore a yellow, non-contact jersey. Head coach Scott Arniel also seemed to signal that this option will be one for the two-game road trip to California.

The Canadiens have been a much better home team (8-7-2) than they have been on the road (3-8-1) sitting with an 11-15-3 record that has them last in the Atlantic Division. They come to town with the 16th ranked power play (likely aided by the return of Patrik Laine) and the 11th ranked penalty kill. Similar to when the Jets played the Hawks a team that sits low in the standings but has decent special teams.

Skate news:

Starts at 9:30 AM CST.

Jets projected lines & D pairs:

Connor – Scheifele – Vilardi
Perfetti – Namestnikov – Chibrikov
Niederreiter – Lowry – Appleton
Barron – Kupari – Iafallo

Morrissey – DeMelo
Fleury – Pionk
Stanley – Miller

Hellebuyck

Canadiens projected lines & D pairs:

Caufield – Suzuki – Slafkovsky
Laine – Dach – Newhook
Anderson – Dvorak – Gallagher
Heineman – Evans – Armia

Guhle – Barron
Hutson – Struble
Xhekaj – Savard

Montembeault

The lines were as per the Habs practice notes although they said the D pairs (based on last game) rotated.

Up Next:

Puck drop is at 6 PM CST. Be sure to head over to illegalcurve.com following the game for a recap of the action. You can join us on our YouTube channel for the Illegal Curve Post-Game Show around 8:40 PM CST as we discuss and analyze the results of the game.