Following a very busy Trade Deadline, the Montreal Canadiens skated out their new lines ahead of the game versus the Nashville Predators tonight.
#Habs
Pacioretty-Danault-Radulov
Lehkonen-Galchenyuk-Gallagher
Byron-Plekanec-Shaw
King-McCarron-Mitchell
Extras : Martinsen-Ott-Flynn— Guillaume Lefrançois (@glefrancoisLP) March 2, 2017
The first line is unchanged, whereas Artturi Lehkonen remained on the second line alongside Alex Galchenyuk and Brendan Gallagher. The third line remained the same as well, and the newcomers, as expected, shook up the fourth line.
Dwight King draws in for Brian Flynn, while Andreas Martinsen and Steve Ott will be extra forwards for their first game with the Canadiens organization.
As for defence, the only change were the extra bodies. Brandon Davidson and Nikita Nesterov are expected to sit out today’s game, with Nathan Beaulieu and Jordie Benn making up the third pairing.
#Habs Défenseurs
Markov-Weber
Emelin-Petry
Beaulieu-Benn
Extras : Davidson-Nesterov— Guillaume Lefrançois (@glefrancoisLP) March 2, 2017
This is probably the ideal set up for the Canadiens right now. People were worried that the extra bodies would be bad news for players like Michael McCarron and Nathan Beaulieu, but it appears that Claude Julien is using the additions by Marc Bergevin to tinker as opposed to make whole sale changes, which was probably the intent.
