The Montreal Canadiens will look to continue their positive start to the season as they conclude their opening road trip and take on the Ottawa Senators Saturday night. Both teams are coming off of opening night wins as the Canadiens handily beat the depleted Buffalo Sabres 4-1 and the Senators needed overtime to win against Auston Matthews and the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Al Montoya will once again get the start in net as Carey Price continues to battle a nasty bout with the flu. Teammates and fans will have full confidence in him after his strong performance in the season opener. Price was put on the short term injured reserve retroactive to Monday so as to make room for callup Charlie Lindgren who was originally recalled from St. John’s on an emergency basis. Defenseman Jeff Petry has been cleared to play and will be in the lineup tonight. The odd man out looks to be rookie Mikhaïl Sergachev who did not have the smoothest NHL debut whereas Greg Pateryn shined in his opportunity as he replaced Petry against the Sabres, demonstrating poise and excellent hockey sense playing with Andrei Markov in the top four. Pateryn deserves to stay in the lineup against the Senators and it will be interesting to see if he can keep up that high level of play alongside Alexei Emelin on the third defensive unit.

Surprisingly, Andrew Shaw will not face additional discipline for his slew foot in the last few seconds of the game against the Sabres.

No suspension for Andrew Shaw but Senior VP of Player Safety Stephane Quintal wants to meet with him. An 'educational' meeting, says Shaw.

— Dan Robertson (@DRTSN690) October 14, 2016

It seems that general manager went to bat for his player and that they are attempting to go the educational route with Shaw rather than further discipline him. While I commend the attempt to try to make players better understand the fine line of playing hard and playing dirty, I believe Shaw should have received a one game suspension or a fine as a result of his actions. His slew foot happened in the last seconds of the game against the Sabres. The match penalty that he was given was in name only. In truth, he suffered zero consequences for his dirty play. I am all for education but in light of Shaw’s suspension from last postseason, his preseason suspension and now the slew foot, he must also be held accountable all while educating him as well.

In other news, Sven Andrighetto was placed on waivers Friday afternoon and it was just announced that he has cleared them:

L'attaquant Sven Andrighetto est cédé aux IceCaps dans la AHL \ Canadiens assign forward Sven Andrighetto to St. John's today.

— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) October 15, 2016

This is essentially the final cut from the preseason as the Canadiens do not have room to carry two extra forwards as they have decided to keep two extra defencemen instead. There is simply no place for Andrighetto on the team, especially since he did not have a strong training camp. He had to come into camp and earn his roster spot. Andrighetto was given a chance at the start of training camp playing on a line with Daniel Carr and David Desharnais but did very little with that opportunity. He is not a fourth line type of player and must be on the second or third line of a team to succeed. Unfortunately for him, there was simply no one that he outplayed to earn a spot.

Fortunately, Torrey Mitchell’s injury was not serious against the Sabres and he should be good to play tonight. The Canadiens fourth line of him centering Phillip Danault and Paul Byron were excellent on Thursday night and their speed created havoc for their opponents. The ability to roll four lines will be crucial to the Canadiens success the season and so far they are clicking extremely well.

As for Senators, they were able to give new head coach Guy Boucher a win in his Senator’s debut but they will be hoping for a stronger and more consistent outing against the Canadiens. Their lineup remains the same with Craig Anderson getting the start:

Sens practice lines ahead of Mtl
Hoffman-turris-stone
Smith-brassard-ryan
Varone-pageau-pyatt
Dzingel-kelly-neil
7pm 2morrow TSN1200

— gord wilson (@gordwilson) October 14, 2016

5 Questions for tonight’s game:

1) Will Nathan Beaulieu play over 20 minutes against the Senators, more typical of a 1st defensive unit? I say yes, Petry should help stabilize the defensive time distribution.

2) Will the Canadiens score a powerplay goal tonight? If yes, by whom? Yes and I’ll go with Alexander Radulov.

3) What will be the final score? 4-3 Canadiens win.

4) Will Andrew Shaw cross the line tonight or will he be on his best behavior? No doubt in my mind he will be on his best behavior but that the Senators will try to antagonize him.

5) Which Canadiens forward will get the most ice time tonight? I’ll say Max Pacioretty leads the Canadiens forwards in ice time.

Puck drops at 7pm.

Cheers & follow along!
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