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

Montreal Canadiens vs. Dallas Stars

How to watch

Start time: 7:00 PM EST / 4:00 PM PST
In Canada: CityTV, Sportsnet East, Sportsnet Now (English), TVA Sports (French)
In the Stars region: Fox Sports Southwest
Streaming: NHL.tv/NHL Live

The losing streak has hit three now, and as much as the defence, which has plagued the Canadiens all season long, has been an issue, it’s also true that the offence has gone cold. The team hasn’t scored three goals in any of the past four games, and that’s definitely not what we all expected to happen when the team’s forward corps got back to nearly 100% with the return of Jonathan Drouin.

There have been some good chances. Max Domi hit iron twice against the Boston Bruins and Ilya Kovalchuk rang one of the post as the Habs made a late bid to get back into last night’s game versus the Penguins, but the results haven’t been there. It’s frustrating for us to watch them play without scoring, and probable even moreso for them as they fail to produce.

In trying to kickstart the offence, the coaching staff has tried several defenceman to serve as Shea Weber’s replacement on the power-play units. They’ve even tried no defencemen at all; a five-forward unit that had the right idea, but still couldn’t get the puck into the net.

With nothing to lose, there’s no reason not to try more wild experiments in tonight’s game. The Habs aren’t going to win games by scoring two goals or fewer, so they may as well get creative in trying to get that number to at least three.

Montreal Canadiens projected lineup

Forwards

Defencemen

Goaltenders

Dallas Stars projected lineup

Forwards

Defencemen

Goaltenders