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

Montreal Canadiens vs. Washington Capitals

How to watch

Start time: 7:00 PM EST / 4:00 PM PST
In the Canadiens region: TSN2 (English), RDS (French)
In the Capitals region: NBC Sports Washington
Streaming: ESPN+, NHL Live, RDS Direct, TSN Direct

A day after being hired, Martin St. Louis will step behind the bench for the first time as the head coach of the Montreal Canadiens, aiming to get better performances out of his new players. The Habs have been outscored 20-6 in their past three games, and at the very least he will be attempting to keep the gap much smaller this evening.

By the looks of the lines at today’s practice, St. Louis has opted to leave things intact from the final game of Dominique Ducharme’s tenure, but it probably won’t be long before he’s mixing things up. We will pay particularly close attention to how Cole Caufield gets deployed, currently in a fourth-line spot and not seeing a great deal of minutes in Ducharme’s final days.

The Canadiens won’t have to face Alexander Ovechkin tonight as his positive COVID test before the All-Star Game has prevented him from traveling to Montreal, so his quest to finish atop the NHL’s goals leaderboard will have to wait. The Washington Capitals have had to make up a person to play in his spot on the top line, but it’s still a dangerous offensive team that the Canadiens face, with decent depth on the roster. Similar defensive indifference to what we’ve been watching recently  would result in another lopsided loss for the home team, so the “concepts” will have to be sharp from the drop of the puck.

Montreal Canadiens projected lineup

Forwards

Defencemen

Goaltenders

Washington Capitals projected lineup

Forwards

Defencemen

Goaltenders