Canadiens vs. Rangers: Game thread, rosters, lines, and how to watch

Montreal Canadiens vs. New York Rangers

How to watch

Start time: 7:00 PM EST / 4:00 PM PST
In Canada: TSN2 (English), RDS (French)
In the Rangers region: MSG
Streaming: ESPN+, RDS Direct, TSN+

Kaiden Guhle will be back in the lineup tonight after a couple of games out with what looked like a shoulder injury. Now it’s Jordan Harris who leaves with an issue. hopefully a minor one that he just needs a few days to let recuperate. With the way the injury situation has gone so far this year, you never really know what the extent of an injury is.

Montreal has also seen Christian Dvorak join the injured list (another player who left a game and then returned to action), so Anthony Richard will take his place in the formation, leaving the other lines that have been working well together intact. On Tuesday it was the fourth line of Michael Pezzetta,, Chris Tierney, and Alex Belzile that had the greatest impact, and it’s nice to know that there are multiple trios that can step up on any given night, especially considering how difficult it was for the team to find any secondary help at all in the opening half of the season.

The motivation for the Habs tonight is facing a Rangers team that made some big additions ahead of the deadline to go on a charge toward the playoffs, and now has grown desperate to turn things around after a rough stretch. New York’s circumstances will create a bit more urgency in this contest than you’d otherwise expect between two teams so far apart in the standings, and that’s another chance for everyone to make an impression on management as focus shifts toward crafting next season’s roster.

Montreal Canadiens projected lineup

Scratched:
Injured/Ill: Joel Armia, Justin Barron, Paul Byron, Cole Caufield, Kirby Dach, Christian Dvorak, Jake Evans, Brendan Gallagher, Jordan Harris, Sean Monahan, Juraj Slafkovský, Arber Xhekaj

New York Rangers projected lineup