Habs @ Bruins: Game thread

Mar 23, 2023 - 10:00 PM

Montreal Canadiens @ Boston Bruins

How to watch

Start time: 7:00 PM EDT / 4:00 PM PDT
In the Canadiens region: TSN2 (English), RDS (French)
In the Bruins region: NESN
Streaming: ESPN+, RDS Direct, TSN+

Josh Anderson goes down, Jake Evans returns to action in the latest shuffle of players between the injured list and the active roster. With Kirby Dach also shifting down to centre the second line, the Canadiens have three of their top centres available to take on the Bruins.

That will give them a better shot at defeating a superior team than we would have said just a few games ago when the Habs were struggling to play competitive matches. Martin St-Louis will be more comfortable sending out his lines versus the best team in the league with a number of his regulars back in, and he will expect another composed effort from his defencemen to back them up.

The first task is surviving the opening minutes of the game, which has been a challenge for tonight’s starter, Jake Allen, for much of the season. He’s been struggling with the first few shots of a match before settling into the play, so if he can lock down the league’s second-best offensive team in the first half of the opening period, the Canadiens’ will at least have a fighting chance of pulling of an upset win.

Montreal Canadiens projected lineup

Scratched: Jesse Ylönen
Injured/Ill: Josh Anderson, Joel Armia, Paul Byron, Cole Caufield, Christian Dvorak, Kaiden Guhle, Jordan Harris, Sean Monahan, Juraj Slafkovský, Arber Xhekaj

Boston Bruins projected lineup