Montreal Canadiens lines at morning skate: Five players poised for debut

The Montreal Canadiens held their first morning skate of the regular season in Toronto on Wednesday, and we appear to have a good look at how the team will look when they start the season.

After Ryan Poehling was sent down this morning to the Laval Rocket, there was one less option for the fourth line. Artturi Lehkonen was there as expected, and it appears he will play with Mathieu Perreault and Cédric Paquette, which means that Alex Belzile and Adam Brooks will be on the outside looking in.

The top three lines are what we had been seeing in pre-season with Nick Suzuki with Tyler Toffoli and Cole Caufield. Jonathan Drouin was with Christian Dvorak and Josh Anderson. Jake Evans skated with Brendan Gallagher and Joel Armia.

On defence, we got the pairings we had been used to seeing with Brett Kulak and Jeff Petry, Ben Chiarot and David Savard, followed by Alex Romanov and Chris Wideman.

Jake Allen will get the start in the first game of the season. Samuel Montembeault will likely get tomorrow’s game against the Buffalo Sabres.