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The new captain of the Montreal Canadiens will take to the ice tonight for the first time since he had the "C" sewn into his jersey. After recovering more quickly than expected, Max Pacioretty will play alongside Tomas Plekanec and Brendan Gallagher. The Habs are going with a strong lineup, with the SEGa line also to dress for tonight's preseason match-up, as well 5/6ths of what will likely be the regular defense corps when the puck drops on the regular season next Wednesday. The 6th opening in the defensive alignment will go to Habs' 2015 1st round draft choice Noah Juulsen, who makes his debut as a Montreal Canadien tonight.
The Sens packed their bags and hit the road up the Autoroute 50E to Montreal earlier this afternoon. On the bus was a good group of players, however, with the notable absence of Erik Karlsson who will not play tonight. A fully recovered Mark Stone is listed to play alongside Curtis Lazar and Clarke MacArthur. All signs point to Craig Anderson playing a full game tonight, with the Hamburgler nursing a tweaked groin. It could end up being a goalie duel tonight, as Carey Price will get the net for an entire 60 minutes again, allowing for Dustin Tokarski to take the full 60 in Ottawa on Saturday night.
With 2 preseason games left, both teams will be playing at near-to-full capacity. The bad blood between these teams could easily spill over into this exhibition affair, as there is plenty of material from last season's playoff series to fuel the fires of this growing rivalry.
Mark Stone after taking that slash from P.K. Subban pic.twitter.com/X4IktgODO3
— Stephen Demone (@s_demone10) April 16, 2015
The puck drops at 7:30 PM EDT.
How to Watch/Listen:
In the Canadiens Region (French): RDS2
RDSRadio: TSN 690 and 1200
Montreal Canadiens Projected Lineup
#Habs lines vs #Sens: Pacioretty - Plekanec - Gallagher Eller - Galchenyuk - Semin Flynn - Mitchell - Kassian Andrighetto - Hudon - DSP
— John Lu (@JohnLuTSNMtl) October 1, 2015
#Habs D & G vs #Sens: Markov - Subban Beaulieu - Gilbert Emelin - Juulsen Price will play the full game Tokarski
— John Lu (@JohnLuTSNMtl) October 1, 2015
Ottawa Senators Projected Lineup
Michalek-Turris-Prince, MacArthur-Lazar-Stone, Hoffman-Zibanejad-Ryan and Chiasson-Smith-Neil and Greening-Pageau-Puempel. #Sens
— Bruce Garrioch (@SunGarrioch) October 1, 2015
Methot-Karlsson, Wiercioch-Ceci, Cowen-Wideman and Fraser-Borowiecki. #Sens
— Bruce Garrioch (@SunGarrioch) October 1, 2015
Anderson will start tonight. Hammond won't go. He tweaked a groin. O'Connor will come back. #Sens
— Bruce Garrioch (@SunGarrioch) October 1, 2015
*Note there will be some absences from the lineup shown for the Sens as the following players did not make the trip to Montreal:
Turris, Prince, Michalek, Fraser and Karlsson are the scratches tonight. #Sens
— Bruce Garrioch (@SunGarrioch) October 1, 2015
Check out the enemy over at SilverSeven.