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

Credit: Eric Bolte-USA TODAY Sports

Game 8: Montreal Canadiens vs. St. Louis Blues

Start time: 7:00 PM EDT / 4:00 PM PDT
In Canada: CityTV, Sportsnet East (English), TVA Sports (French)
In the Blues region: Bally Sports Midwest
Streaming: ESPN+, Sportsnet+

Martin St-Louis said before the season to expect him to be tougher on the players in this year of elevated expectations, and we got our first real look at that this week as he called them out for not being able to execute the defensive plan. With the team now holding a 2-4-1 record, there is starting to be an element of urgency to figuring out how to defend properly, and role and deployment changes are on the table if that doesn’t happen.

There weren’t just comments this week however, but more work put into the team’s play over a couple of days of practice. Everyone on the club knows that there’s plenty of room to improve on how they played the opening seven games, and we should quickly find out what the differences are tonight.

The lineup remains largely the same from the 7-2 loss to the New York Rangers, with the exception of Arber Xhekaj coming back in to replace an injured Justin Barron. Xhekaj will have to walk a tight rope between wanting to make a physical impression after a week of sitting in the press box and heeding his coach’s warnings about playing within the limits of what they want on defence. His position is the most precarious on the team right now, but others could join him if we don’t see a major leap in overall performance.

Montreal Canadiens projected lineup

Left Wing Centre Right Wing
#13 Cole Caufield #14 Nick Suzuki #77 Kirby Dach
#17 Josh Anderson #71 Jake Evans #11 Brendan Gallagher
#40 Joel Armia #35 Alex Newhook #91 Oliver Kapanen
#55 Michael Pezzetta #28 Christian Dvorak #51 Emil Heineman
Left Defence Right Defence
#48 Lane Hutson #58 David Savard
#8 Mike Matheson #94 Logan Mailloux
#72 Arber Xhekaj #47 Jayden Struble
Starter Backup
#35 Samuel Montembeault #30 Cayden Primeau

Scratched:
Injured: Justin Barron, Kaiden Guhle. Rafaël Harvey-Pinard, Patrik Laine, Juraj Slafkovský

St. Louis Blues projected lineup

Left Wing Centre Right Wing
Alexandre Texier Pavel Buchnevich Jordan Kyrou
Brandon Saad Brayden Schenn Jake Neighbours
Zack Bolduc Dylan Holloway Mathieu Joseph
Alexey Toropchenko Radek Faksa Oskar Sundqvist
Left Defence Right Defence
Ryan Suter Colton Parayko
Philip Broberg Justin Faulk
Pierre-Olivier Joseph Scott Perunovich
Starter Backup
Jordan Binnington Joel Hofer

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