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Martin St-Louis makes a big change to his formation and reinforcements arrive in the lineup

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Jim Sullivan
November 18, 2024  (3:56 PM)
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In the last few minutes, the Montreal Canadiens head coach confirmed some very interesting information regarding the team that will face the Edmonton Oilers at the Bell Centre tonight.

Martin St-Louis officially announced that Quebec goaltender Samuel Montembeault will get a third consecutive start.

After an excellent performance against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday night, the 27-year-old goaltender, who stopped 25 of the 26 shots he faced, will certainly want to repeat that performance against Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.

Since the start of the season, the Habs number 35 has a record of five wins, eight losses and one overtime setback. He also recorded a goals-against average of 3.09 and an efficiency rate of 0.898.

In addition, the Habs head coach also announced that David Savard, who missed the last game with an upper-body injury, will return to Montreal for the duel against the powerful Oilers.

This means that Justin Barron, who has only played in nine games so far this season, will once again be left out, as he will watch the game from the top of the Bell Centre gateway.

Martin St-Louis did not make changes for the attack considering the fact that the Montreal Canadiens have scored five goals or more twice in their last three games.

Moreover, despite the punishment given to Juraj Slafkovsky on Saturday, who was nailed to the bench in the second period, we can expect the first overall pick in 2022 to be back alongside Nick Suzuki and Kirby Dach on the first unit.

After all, since the creation of this new trio, the Habs captain has accumulated three goals and two assists (5 points) in three games, while Juraj Slafkovsky and Kirby Dach have both collected three assists.

Cole Caufield should normally play alongside Jake Evans and Alex Newhook on the second line, he who has been doing rather well since his downgrading, with two goals and two assists (4 points) in three games.

Here is the lineup that should face the Oilers tonight:

Juraj Slafkovsky -- Nick Suzuki -- Kirby Dach
Alex Newhook -- Jake Evans -- Cole Caufield
Josh Anderson -- Christian Dvorak -- Brendan Gallagher
Emil Heineman -- Lucas Condotta -- Joel Armia

Mike Matheson -- Kaiden Guhle
Lane Hutson -- David Savard
Arber Xhekaj -- Justin Barron

Samuel Montembeault

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Canadiens victory13081.8 %
Oilers victory2918.2 %
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