Montreal Canadiens at Washington Capitals
Verizon Center, 7:30 pm EST
Coverage: TV RDS, TSN Radio: CJAD
Carey Price and P.K Subban are back from the All-Star Game festivities to face Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals. Despite missing Tuesday’s skate, due to his gear being lost in transit, Price will get the call in goal for the Habs tonight.
Semyon Varlamov will be between the pipes for the Capitals.
On the Caps injury front, newly signed Alexander Semin (groin) , Eric Fehr (shoulder), goaltender Michal Neuvirth (lower body) and defenseman Tom Poti (lower body) all practiced Monday. Fehr, Poti and Semin are all out for tonight’s game.
Habs forwards (via Pat Hickey of HabsInsideOut) at Monday’s practice:
Pacioretty-Plekanec-Gionta | Kostitsyn-Gomez-Eller | Pouliot-Desharnais-Darche | Moen-Halpern-Pyatt
Daily links
Sabres Sold: A deal for the sale of the Buffalo Sabres to Tommy Pegula has been reached per TSN. There was an excellent look at Mr. Pegula over the weekend in The Buffalo News.
While the All-Stars played: This undrafted player continues on with his minor league career. Louis Dumont did have a tryout with the Habs and Hartford Whalers.
If Auld or Price go down, there’s always Ray Emery: The goaltender is making a comeback after recovery from a hip disease that cut short Bo Jackson’s career. His maturity may seem genuine to TSN, but from a close source his off ice antics, while toned down, are apparently still there.
He’s baaack: Steve Kouleas, the former broadcaster with The Score, and a self professed hockey trivia expert, returns to the tube on TSN with “That’s Hockey 2Nite.” Matthew Barnaby and Kerry Fraser will join him as analysts.
McKenzie says Habs are a buying team: TSN’s uberinsider says the Habs are a buying team, and the Ottawa Senators are sellers. He note the Toronto Maple Leafs are doing a bit of both
“The Canadiens, though, have a limited budget in terms of cap room.
They have two needs and it will be interesting to see which ends up being the priority. With Josh Gorges and Andrei Markov out, they certainly need another defenceman, especially with Hal Gill and Roman Hamrlik slated to go to unrestricted free agency this summer. But they could also use a top-six forward to punch up the offence, perhaps an improvement on Andrei Kostitsyn.”
