Defenceman Brett Kulak gets back in Habs' lineup after being a healthy scratch for six games and will take Erik Gustafsson's spot
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Cayden Primeau will be in goal for the Canadiens when they play the Ottawa Senators Saturday night at the Bell Centre (7 p.m., SNE, CITY, TVA Sports, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM).
Coach Dominique Ducharme will make one other change to his lineup following Friday night’s 5-3 win over the Winnipeg Jets, with defenceman Brett Kulak replacing Erik Gustafsson.
Goalie Jake Allen played in 12 of the last 14 games for the Canadiens and made 19 saves in Friday night’s victory. This will be Primeau’s second start of the season. He allowed four goals on 33 shots in a 5-2 loss to the Calgary Flames on April 24 (the fifth goal was an empty-netter).
Kulak has been a healthy scratch for the last six games. In 39 games this season, Kulak has 1-6-7 and is plus-7 while averaging 15:47 of ice time. In four games with the Canadiens since being acquired from the Philadelphia Flyers before the NHL trade deadline, Gustafsson has 0-2-2 totals and is plus-1 while averaging 12:08 of ice time. The Canadiens also acquired defenceman Jon Merrill from the Detroit Red Wings before the trade deadline.
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“I just kind of took it day by day and just keep preparing myself the same and make sure I’m ready for when the team calls on me to contribute what I do,” Kulak said about being taken out of the lineup while Gustafsson and Merrill played. “When we brought them in — I know about the players, I’ve played against them before and watched them quite a bit and they’re both really good players. They’ve been really good acquisitions for us to have and that depth and experience is always nice. I’m looking forward to getting back in the lineup, though, and I’ll be ready to go.
“I think it’s getting my first shift, getting my feet moving and just know my strengths of the game,” Kulak added about the keys for him getting back into action. “It’s kill plays quick, shut teams down, get the puck, make the first quick play and get it in the forwards’ hands going up the ice. For sure for the first bit it won’t be over-complicating things. It’s that time of the year where it’s just about quick, hard, smart plays and playing stingy and hard defensively.”
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Ottawa’s No. 1 goalie Matt Murray is sidelined with a lower-body injury, so Filip Gustavsson will start against the Canadiens. Gustavsson has a 2-1-1 record with a 1.81 goals-against average and a .946 save percentage.
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Injury updates
Canadiens captain Shea Weber is expected to miss his second straight game with an upper-body injury.
After Friday night’s game, Ducharme said Weber suffered the injury at the start of the team’s five-game Western Canada road trip that ended last Monday and that he had been playing through it. Weber joins Tomas Tatar (lower body), Paul Byron (lower body), Jonathan Drouin (personal reasons), Brendan Gallagher (fractured thumb) and goalie Carey Price (concussion) on the injured list.
Joel Armia, who left Friday’s game late in the third period after being checked heavily into the boards, is expected to play against the Senators. Armia missed seven games earlier this season with a concussion.
“We’re confident with Army,” Ducharme said about Armia’s status for the game. “We’re still waiting for results and more details on Shea, so we’re not too confident for tonight for him.”
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The Canadiens’ Josh Anderson noted that the trainer’s room has seen “a little bit more traffic than usual.”
“But that’s with the schedule that we’ve been given this year,” Anderson said after the Canadiens completed a stretch of 17 games in 30 days in April. “How tight the games are. We’re basically playing hockey every other day or every single day. So guys are just trying to get fixed up by the trainers and get ready to go.”
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Where they stand
The Canadiens (22-18-9) are holding the fourth and final playoff spot in the North Division, six points ahead of the Calgary Flames (22-24-3). Both teams have seven games remaining in the regular season. The Flames visit the Edmonton Oilers Saturday night (10 p.m., CBC, SN, TVA Sports2).
The Senators (19-27-4) are in sixth place, one point ahead of last-place Vancouver (19-22-3) with the Canucks holding six games in hand.
This will be the ninth of 10 games this season between the Canadiens and Senators. The Canadiens have a 3-3-2 record in the first eight games against Ottawa and have lost the last two games by scores of 6-3 and 4-0.
“It’s a mental challenge and we talked about it,” Ducharme said about the Canadiens playing back-to-back games against a rested Ottawa team that hasn’t played since beating the Canucks 6-3 Wednesday night. “That’s our goal to come back and duplicate what we’ve done last night.”
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Anderson said Friday’s win was a “step in the right direction” for a Canadiens team that hasn’t won more than three consecutive games all season.
“We got to carry that over to tonight and make sure we start the right way and play a full 60-minute hockey game against Ottawa tonight because we know that they’re not going to let up,” Anderson said. “They got young guys really trying to make a spot for next year so they’re going to be coming out really hard and they’re going to give us a tough night tonight. So we want to be able to not only match that but play hard and compete and hopefully come out with the win tonight.
“We’ve struggled playing against them this year, but I think every team in our division have as well,” Anderson added. “They’re a young team that works extremely hard and it looks like they’re always in the right position and they feed off of turnovers. So I think if we limit our turnovers and try and play behind their D and cycle the puck behind the net and get it up to our point and crash their net to bang in some dirty goals, I think that we’ll be fine tonight. We know that they’re going to be coming out really hard and we got to be ready for that.”
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Belzile, Poehling join taxi squad
The Canadiens announced Saturday morning that forwards Ryan Poehling and Alex Belzile have been reassigned from the AHL’s Laval Rocket and will join the team’s taxi squad. Ducharme said Poehling will be receiving treatment while with the Canadiens.
Poehling is leading the Rocket in scoring this season with 11-14-25 totals in 28 games, while Belzile has 3-8-11 totals in 14 games.
What’s next?
The Canadiens will wrap up their four-game home stand Monday night against the Toronto Maple Leafs (7 p.m., TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM).
After that, the Canadiens hit the road for three games. They will visit the Senators on Wednesday (7 p.m., SN, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM), followed by back-to-back games against the Maple Leafs on Thursday (7 p.m., TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM) and next Saturday (7 p.m., CBC, CITY, SNE, TVA Sports, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM).
Following that road trip, the Canadiens will return home to play their final two regular-season games against the Oilers on Monday, May 10 (7 p.m., TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM) and Wednesday, May 12 (7 p.m., TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM).
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2021-05-01 18:09:02Z
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