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Habs Happenings: 1st Preseason Game Preview vs. Devils & World Cup Notes |
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The Montreal Canadiens will face the New Jersey Devils tonight in their 1st exhibition game of the 2016-2017 NHL season. In some ways, it will be the biggest test of young Artturi Lehkonen’s hockey career. While Max Pacioretty was away at the World Cup of Hockey with Team USA, Lehkonen was given the golden ticket of practicing on the top line with Alex Galchenyuk and Brendan Gallagher for the first few days of training camp. Against the Devils this evening, he will have the opportunity to prove that he deserves to stick around by finally playing against (some) NHL players in a somewhat meaningful game. Having just returned from the World Cup, Pacioretty will not play in the first exhibition games of the season. The ball is firmly in Lehkonen’s court. Play well and he will continue his attempt at making the Canadiens roster this season. He has played well thus far through the rookie and main camp. However if the scrimmages have shown anything, it is that the Canadiens are still desperate for offence. If Lehkonen can contribute on the scoresheet tonight, it will go along way in continuing his journey this Fall in Montreal.
The Canadiens lineup for tonight will be:
Mike Condon and Charlie Lindgren will split the duties in goal tonight. Condon looked sharp in the Reds vs Whites scrimmage yesterday as did not let in a goal through two periods of play. He knows that he is in tough competition with veteran goaltender Al Montoya for the privilege of playing behind Carey Price and hopes to repeat his success from last year’s preseason,
The actual lines should be:
Lehkonen-Galchenyuk-Gallagher
Carr-Desharnais-Andrighetto
Eisenschmid-Audette-Scherbak
Terry-De La Rose-Farnham
Barberio-Petry
Alexandrov-Redmond
Hanley-Juulsen
There has been very little talk of Jacob De La Rose this preseason and one wonders how far he has fallen down the depth chart. Perhaps bringing him to the AHL as a 19 year old was not the best strategy in terms of his development. On the other hand, it speaks of the Canadiens lack of depth at the time that he was able to eventually make the team by the midway point of the 2014-2015 season. As this is the final year of his entry level contract, it is important that he proves that he has what it takes to be an NHL player and deserving of a second contract next Summer.
As for the Devils, they will likely have this as their top line:
The Devante Smith-Pelly for Stefan Matteau trade is certainly looking like a win for the Devils. This is an incredible opportunity for Smith-Pelly to play on the top line with Henrique and Hall. Whether or not he can compete at that level on a consistent basis is up to him. Matteau on the other hand seems destined to start the 2016-2017 on the top line in St. John’s with the Ice Caps.
Not only will the Canadiens get back Pacioretty and Tomas Plekanec this week, Andrei Markov and Alexei Emelin will make their appearance training camp by the end of the week. It was certainly a disappointing performance by Markov and Emelin in Russia’s semi-final game against Canada this past Saturday. They combined for a minus 6 and were on the ice for the last three Canadian goals. The duo also played the least of all Russian defencemen. Markov and Emelin could not contain the speed of the Canadian forwards and while Markov may have the inside track at playing on the left side of Shea Weber, it certainly does not appear that he will have the ability to play top minutes night in and night out.
On the other hand, Canadiens fans are getting very excited to see their very own Man Mountain protecting Price’s crease night in and night out. The semi-final game was Weber’s best of the tournament as he made defending against Alex Ovechkin look easy and Price continued to display that he will be more than ready for the Canadiens regular season.
Puck drops at 7:30pm (RDS)
Cheers & follow along!
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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