Canadiens vs. Kings: Game thread, rosters, lines, and how to watch - Habs Eyes on the Prize

Montreal Canadiens vs. Los Angeles Kings

How to watch

Start time: 7:00 PM EST / 4:00 PM PST
In Canada: CityTV, Sportsnet East, Sportsnet Now (English), TVA Sports (French)
In the Kings region: Fox Sports West
Streaming: NHL.tv/ NHL Live

The Canadiens are back home at the Bell Centre, and Claude Julien seems to have spent the day on Friday thinking up different units for tonight’s game. He and his staff have brought changes throughout the lineup for tonight, with few combinations spared.

Apart from the defence pairings of Victor Mete and Shea Weber, and Ben Chiarot and Jeff Petry, no other duo or trio was left intact. Brett Kulak is back in to play with Cale Fleury on the third pair. Julien is beginning to trust Fleury more in defensive situations, even handing him penalty-killing duties on Thursday, so he hopes slotting Kulak in can lead to a complementary pairing.

The Jonathan-Drouin-as-first-line-winger experiment gets another trial. That’s one of the first things the coaching staff attempted once if was clear Drouin wasn’t working at centre, but he never clicked playing the style of game he initially brought to Montreal. His skill set is something the coach would like to gain more benefit from, and Drouin should be a good addition to the main trio, bringing a different element from what Brendan Gallagher and Phillip Danault can provide. It’s worth testing out once more now that Drouin is playing a more dependable, effective game.

Other moves see Ryan Poehling giving up his centre spot to Nick Suzuki, with Tomas Tatar getting bumped to that third line as well.

It could all be a bit messy to start tonight as players try to adjust to new linemates, but there are some interesting partnerships to be explored, and the shakeup could bring about some new chemistry for the team to call upon as the season goes on.

Montreal Canadiens projected lineup

Forwards

Left Wing	Centre	Right Wing
Left Wing	Centre	Right Wing
Jonathan Drouin	Phillip Danault	Brendan Gallagher
Paul Byron	Max Domi	Joel Armia
Tomas Tatar	Nick Suzuki	Artturi Lehkonen
Ryan Poehling	Nate Thompson	Nick Cousins

Defencemen

Left Defence	Right Defence
Left Defence	Right Defence
Victor Mete	Shea Weber
Ben Chiarot	Jeff Petry
Brett Kulak	Cale Fleury

Goaltenders

Goaltenders
Goaltenders
Carey Price
Keith Kinkaid

Injured: Jesperi Kotkaniemi
Scratched: Christian Folin, Mikey Reilly, Jordan Weal

Los Angeles Kings projected lineup

Forwards

Left Wing	Centre	Right Wing
Left Wing	Centre	Right Wing
Tyler Toffoli	Anze Kopitar	Jeff Carter
Alex Iafallo	Adrian Kempe	Dustin Brown
Carl Grundstrom	Blake Lizotte	Austin Wagner
Ilya Kovalchuk	Mike Amadio	Kyle Clifford

Defencemen

Left Defence	Right Defence
Left Defence	Right Defence
Alec Martinez	Drew Doughty
Ben Hutton	Sean Walker
Joakim Ryan	Matt Roy

Goaltenders

Goaltenders
Goaltenders
Jonathan Quick
Jack Campbell

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November 10, 2019 at 05:00AM