Game 38: Montreal Canadiens @ Chicago Blackhawks
Start time: **8:00 PM EST / 5:00 PM PST**
In Canada: TSN2 (English), RDS (French)
In the Blackhawks region: CHSN
Streaming: ESPN+, RDS, TSN+
This season for the annual post-Christmas road trip, the NHL schedule-maker had stops for the Montreal Canadiens in Sunrise and Tampa, Florida on back-to-back days, Las Vegas two days later, and a final stop in Denver, Colorado before the Canadiens were allowed to return home. Those cities have hosted the last five Stanley Cup parades, making this a properly challenging test.
Three games in, the Canadiens have already ensured a winning record, beating the first three opponents in regulation, by a combined score of 12-4. Those wins, along with three in four games they had before Christmas and some losses by the teams around them, have shot them up the standings to have a playoff spot within reach.
There is one more stop for the Habs in the middle of this trip, and that is Chicago. Those streets saw their share of championship revelry in recent history, but the current Blackhawks roster is far from contending for an NHL title. Now that the Canadiens are playing well versus the good teams and have their eyes squarely on teams above them, it would be easy for them to look past a lowly opponent and leave two points on the board.
Perhaps anticipating a letdown, Martin St-Louis is opting to start Samuel Montembeault in this game and leaving the Avalanche for Jakub Dobes for his second NHL start. It seems backward to the way you’d want to approach this set of games, but maybe the coach wants his starter as fresh as possible for the home return on Monday, or maybe he wants the team inspired to defend in front of Dobes on Saturday night the way they did a week ago versus the Florida Panthers.
| Canadiens | Statistics | Blackhawks |
|---|---|---|
| 17-17-3 | Record | 12-24-2 |
| 48.0% (26th) | Scoring-chances-for % | 45.0% (30th) |
| 3.03 (18th) | Goals per game | 2.50 (30th) |
| 3.41 (28th) | Goals against per game | 3.39 (27th) |
| 21.4% (16th) | PP% | 23.5% (12th) |
| 82.7% (8th) | PK% | 84.1% (4th) |
| 2-0-0 | Head-to-Head Record (23-24) | 0-2-0 |
In truth, it shouldn’t take anything more than an average effort versus a Blackhawks team sitting in 32nd place and continually dropping back from the pack with a current five-game losing streak, the last being in New Year’s Eve’s Winter Classic. The plan should be to score some goals early — all four lines are going well so that shouldn’t be much of a concern — and conserve some energy for the game the next night.
Montreal and Chicago have actually been similar in terms of defensive play this season. They both allow about 10 goals every three games, and have much better penalty kills than five-on-five tactics. But Montreal’s offence has taken off as the season has progressed, while Chicago has one of the lowest rates of production in the league. When you allow almost a goal more than you score every night, you’re not going to win many games — something Montreal experienced in the first quarter of the year.
Connor Bedard has been good offensively this season, but not as immediately great as the team was expecting after drafting him in 2023 and adding some free agents around him in the summer. He has 33 points in 38 games to lead the team, but that’s a bit less than Cole Caufield has managed in Montreal, and not so much more than rookie defenceman Lane Hutson. Bedard has a five-game point streak, tied for the longest of his career, coinciding with his team’s run of losses. He also ranks 20th of the 23 Blackhawks players to skate in at least nine games this year in expected-goal share at 42.9% (since we’ve done a Hutson comparison, he’s sixth on Montreal’s roster at 47.5%)
It’s clear that there’s a lot more rebuilding through adding assets and waiting for the likes of Frank Nazar and Artyom Levshunov to develop into NHL-calibre players before they can take the next step. One of those prospects, Colton Dach, is going to make his NHL debut tonight. As brother Kirby shared at Canadiens practice on Thursday morning, it will be the first time the two face off in game action, so you can be sure the Habs centreman will want to be at his best tonight, in case a game versus the club that gave up on him wasn’t enough motivation.
