Game 82: Montreal Canadiens vs. Detroit Red Wings
Start time: 7:00 PM EDT / 4:00 PM PDT
In the Canadiens region: TSN2 (English), RDS (French)
In the Red Wings region: Bally Sports Detroit
Streaming: ESPN+, RDS, TSN_
The final day of the regular season for both the Montreal Canadiens and Detroit Red Wings has the teams focused on very different goals. Detroit needs to win the game just as much as it needed to win last night’s contest to try to be the final team to claim a post-season spot. Montreal, meanwhile, is using this as a testing ground for next year, when the team hopes to at least be in a similar situation one year from now.
This final game is the first one of Logan Mailloux’s NHL career, and he’ll be part of a defence crops that has Lane Hutson playing just his second game, and Jayden Struble dressing for the 56th of his rookie season. It’s tough to ask these players to go out and get a win versus a desperate team, but that’s not really the point of the matches at this stage. The goal is for the players to show they can compete in such a high-pressure situation, even if some mistakes will be made along the way.
After years when it seemed like half the team was injured at any given time, when they hop on the ice for the first time, all of Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Juraj Slafkovský, Jake Evans, and Mike Matheson will have officially played in all 82 games. It’s been a year of managing minor ailments for all of them, obviously playing through some things and missing practices to help heal, but never seeing anything get so severe that they needed to miss games. In a season when a lot of talk has been about the growth of the players, the improvements to the medical and training staffs to allow so many everyday players to play the full complement of matches is something worth commending as well.
Montreal Canadiens projected lineup
| Left Wing |
Centre |
Right Wing |
| #22 Cole Caufield |
#14 Nick Suzuki |
#20 Juraj Slafkovský |
| #11 Brendan Gallagher |
#35 Alex Newhook |
#40 Joel Armia |
| #49 Rafaël Harvey-Pinard |
#71 Jake Evans |
#17 Josh Anderson |
| #55 Michael Pezzetta |
#28 Christian Dvorak |
#70 Tanner Pearson |
| Left Defence |
Right Defence |
| #8 Mike Matheson |
#94 Logan Mailloux |
| #48 Lane Hutson |
#58 David Savard |
| #47 Jayden Struble |
#52 Justin Barron |
| Starter |
Backup |
| #30 Cayden Primeau |
#35 Samuel Montembeault |
Injured: Kirby Dach, Kaiden Guhle, Joshua Roy, Chris Wideman, Arber Xhekaj
Scratched: Jordan Harris, Johnny Kovacevic, Colin White, Jesse Ylönen
Detroit Red Wings projected lineup
| Left Wing |
Centre |
Right Wing |
| Alex DeBrincat |
Dylan Larkin |
Lucas Raymond |
| David Perron |
J.T. Compher |
Patrick Kane |
| Robby Fabbro |
Joe Veleno |
Christian Fishcer |
| Zack Aston-Reese |
Austin Czarnik |
Daniel Sprong |
| Left Defence |
Right Defence |
| Ben Chiarot |
Moritz Seider |
| Simon Edvinsson |
Jeff Petry |
| Olli Maatta |
Shayne Gostisbehere |
| Starter |
Backup |
| Alex Lyon |
James Reimer |
