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Pregame: Canadiens vs Senators and Tank Tops

January 31, 2023, 5:49 PM ET [199 Comments]
Karine Hains
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Follow me @KarineHains for all updates about the Montreal Canadiens and women's hockey

After falling to the Sens in Ottawa 5-0 on Saturday night, the Canadiens have a chance for revanche tonight as they’ll be welcoming those same Sens in Montreal. The odds are stacked against them though as they are still without key pieces of their line-up and to make matters even worse, Montreal will be wearing its supposedly cursed retro reverse jersey. In 6 games in blue so far this season, the Canadiens are 0-5-1 and they’ve been outscored 26-10.

Jake Allen will be manning the net for the Habs tonight as confirmed by head coach Martin St-Louis yesterday. Seems that no matter how well Montembeault did while Allen was injured, the latter is still going to get more than the lion’s share of the work.

Yesterday, Kirby Dach, Christian Dvorak and Evgenii Dadonov all missed practice to receive treatments, but they were all present and accounted for at the morning skate and should therefore be playing tonight. Since Owen Beck was sent back to the OHL after Saturday night’s game, the Canadiens only have 11 healthy forwards on hand, so it’s safe to bet that once more, 7 defensemen will be dressed.

After tonight, the Canadiens will only be back in action on February 11th when they take on the Islanders to kick off family weekend at the Bell Centre (as is tradition, the Habs will play two afternoon games on Super Bowl weekend). Coach St-Louis refused to tall the press what he would be up to during his time off, saying that he’s asking his players to respect the game and only think about that for now and not their upcoming vacation, and he wouldn’t be setting the right example if he didn’t do it himself.

I hope both players and coach make the most of their time off since the road ahead won’t be easy, they’ll be 31 games left and each and every one of them will be a challenge. Speaking of making the most of their time off, yesterday, I heard that Habs nation had lost a huge Habs fan as Jack Pelletier died from a heart attack at just 45 years-old. I wasn’t close to him, but I’ve often met him at various Canadiens or collectors events and it really made me think that life is way too short, way too often and we should all make the most of it while we can, nobody knows how much time they have left, rest in peace Jack.

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