Game 51: Montreal Canadiens vs. Minnesota Wild
Start time: 7:00 PM EST / 4:00 PM PST
In the Canadiens region: TSN2 (English), RDS (French)
In the Wild region: FanDuel Sports Network North/Wisconsin
Streaming: ESPN+, RDS, TSN+
The Montreal Canadiens had just altered their defence pairings ahead of the last game looking for more balance, breaking up the top two pairings to have an offensive and defensive player on each duo. Now, Martin St-Louis and his assistants need to rethink their defensive alignment once more because Kaiden Guhle was injured in an awkward fall that led to him cutting his own quad muscle, and he’s out indefinitely following surgery.
It’s a significant loss for the Canadiens who are currently in a bit of a slide after a couple of months of strong play and a full month of winning performances. Guhle was one of the few players whose defensive game had stood up through some recent struggles, and why the staff decided to place him alongside Lane Hutson for Tuesday’s match versus the Winnipeg Jets.
The turnaround that has the Canadiens in the Eastern Conference playoff race began around the time they played the Minnesota Wild the first time, on November 14. That was one of the first games of the season that they played a solid defensive game for 60 minutes and looked much better than the 3-0 scoreline indicated. It’s no surprise that Guhle had the best expected-goal share among Montreal’s defencemen that night at 58.1% despite getting just three starts in the offensive zone. He had been doing that all season long, and not having his ability to turn defence into offence will be felt heavily.
| Canadiens | Statistics | Wild |
|---|---|---|
| 24-21-5 | Record | 30-17-4 |
| 48.5% (25th) | Scoring-chances-for % | 49.2% (22nd) |
| 2.98 (14th | Goals per game | 2.92 (18th) |
| 3.34 (27th) | Goals against per game | 2.86 (11th) |
| 20.3% (19th) | PP% | 19.4% (22nd) |
| 82.0% (6th) | PK% | 70.2% (30th) |
| 0-1-0 | Head-to-Head Record | 1-0-0 |
Montreal faces the Wild for the second and final time this season in the last game of their current homestand before embarking on the annual trip to California. At least in the short term, Guhle’s absence may help the rest of the players recommit to the defensive play, as they did 11 weeks ago, at a time when they may have seen a sequence versus non-conference opponents as a chance to relax. That isn’t going to work now if they want to avoid the type of embarrassing losses that were sprinkled throughout their early-season results.
Minnesota is also missing one of its top defencemen, Jonas Brodin, and top scorer Kirill Kaprizov as well. With those two players out of the lineup, their current stretch filled with more losses than wins is understandable, but they haven’t been able to even hold their games close. Minnesota has lost six of its previous nine games, and four of those losses have been by three goals or more. For context for Montreal’s play since the first game versus the Wild, the Habs have just five such losses since that game on November 14, one coming on Tuesday night.
Bill Guerin has publicly called out the Wild for their current form, stating “there’s no excuse whatsoever” for their recent play despite their injuries. The team has since responded with a 3-1 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs last night, and now we’ll find out if that inspiration lasts for more than just the one game.
Since Filip Gustavsson, the Wild’s number-one goalie and among the best in the league with a .914 save percentage, got the start at Scotiabank Arena on Wednesday, tonight the crease will belong to Marc-André Fleury. That’s always a popular decision with the Montreal crowd — even if will be about the third season he’ll be playing what’s billed as his final NHL game in the city. It should be a popular goalie duel in general because Jakub Dobes has gotten the call for the homestand finale, having the chance to extend his career-opening streak of earning at least a point to seven games. As expected, he hasn’t been as unsolvable as he was in his first few games recently, allowing four goals in each of his last two. But he has shown the uncanny ability to inspire his teammates to score one more goal than he allows, and that’s all the Canadiens will be aiming to do in these final six games before the pause for the 4 Nations Face-Off.
