Canadiens Game Day: Carey Price in goal, Brett Kulak returns to lineup
Kulak #Kulak
Carey Price will be in goal and Brett Kulak will take Victor Mete’s spot on defence when the Canadiens face the Senators Tuesday night in Ottawa (7 p.m., TSN2, TSN5, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM).
Those are the only two lineup changes coach Claude Julien will make, which means Artturi Lehkonen will be a healthy scratch for the second straight game.
Price has a 5-3-2 record with a 2.87 goals-against average and a .893 save percentage. Backup Jake Allen, who made 36 saves in the Canadiens’ 3-2 overtime loss to the Senators Sunday night in Ottawa, has a 4-2-1 record with a 2.14 goals-against average and a .932 save percentage. The Canadiens were shut out in both of Allen’s regulation-time losses.
Lehkonen has 2-2-4 totals and is plus-3 in 16 games this season, but was pointless in the last seven games he played and has only one goal in his last 13.
This marks only the third time since joining the Canadiens for the 2016-17 season that Lehkonen will be a healthy scratch. The first time was for a game in Washington on Feb. 20, 2020.
Kulak had been a healthy scratch for the last three games. In 13 games this season, Kulak has 0-3-3 totals and is plus-3.
“It’s all a part of the decisions that I have to make,” Julien said during a video conference Tuesday morning. “If I had the chance to dress 21 players, Lehkonen would definitely be in the lineup. We have to make lineup decisions based on our needs. We put Corey Perry out there because he can help our power play. His experience helped us tie things up last game. Those kinds of decisions aren’t always easy to make when your team is healthy, but they’re choices that must be made.”
Senators coach D.J. Smith said defenceman Thomas Chabot, who has been nursing an upper-body injury and missed Sunday’s game, will be a game-time decision, but added “there’s a better chance he’ll play than not.” If Chabot does play, that will be the only change to the Senators’ lineup from Sunday.
That means Matt Murray will be in goal for Ottawa. He has a 3-9-1 record with a 3.66 goals-against average and a .883 save percentage. Murray has a 2-1-0 record against the Canadiens this season and has allowed only six goals in those three games.
This Game Day notebook will be updated after Tuesday night’s game.
Round 4
The Canadiens head into the game in fourth place in the North Division with a 9-5-3 record and are 2-4-1 in their last seven games while scoring only 13 goals. The Senators are in last place with a 5-14-1 record.
This will be the fourth of 10 games this season between the Canadiens and Senators. The Senators won two of the first three games, beating the Canadiens 3-2 on Feb. 4 at the Bell Centre, losing 2-1 on Feb. 6 in Ottawa, and winning 3-2 in overtime Sunday night in Ottawa.
The Senators have also beaten the first-place Maple Leafs twice this season and Julien said Ottawa is a team that works hard and, despite where they are in the standings, always gives their opponent a tough game.
When asked what he wants to see from his team to start Tuesday night’s game, Julien said: “Just understand that it’s a 60-minute game and we can’t panic.”
“We got to come out here strong and we got to bring the speed of our game to the forefront and get skating,” the coach added. “At the end of the day, I thought we did that fairly well against Toronto in our first game back (a 5-3 loss to the Leafs last Saturday after a six-day break in the schedule). Again, the goals that we gave up really hurt us. We just got to stabilize our back end. When I say our back end, it’s the defensive part of our game and just be patient, keep plugging away offensively. For the most part, there’s a lot of tight games nowadays in the league, so we got to be willing and able to win those kind of tight games.
“I think we got to make sure that we play the game the right way and that’s the main thing. It’s not going to be easy to get out of this. Sometimes you got to win some tight games and eventually the confidence comes back. But there’s times where I feel we’ve been pressing a little bit and because we’ve been pressing it’s ended up costing us some goals and some games at the same time.”
The mental game
Video: Week 5 roundup of the NHL’s North Division (cbc.ca)
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After Sunday night’s OT loss, Nick Suzuki said the Canadiens players were “up in our own heads right now” and over-thinking things while playing not to lose, which is never a good thing.
“One of the hardest things to go through in sports is the mental side,” Suzuki said Tuesday morning. “Even me, personally, just getting into your own heads. Over-thinking. The mental side of the game is very difficult … it’s kind of overthought. But at the end of the day, we’re here to win hockey games, we’re here to perform, so we have to find that within this group and I’m sure we’ll play a better game tonight.
“We all know the systems,” Suzuki added. “It should be in the back of our heads at every point. Everyone has the skill and the work ethic that we can play a good game tonight. Just a matter of having fun out there, getting back to what we were doing at the beginning of the season.”
Suzuki started the season with a seven-game point streak and had points in eight of the first 10 games. In the seven games since, Suzuki has one goal and one assist, giving him 4-9-13 totals for the season.
“I’m a big believer in controlling what I can,” he said. “I think as a hockey player you want to try to have control over everything in the game. But, at the end of the day, every player can only control what they can — work ethic and how they’re mentally preparing for the game. So that’s what I try to do prior to the games.”
Power-play problems
The Canadiens rank 19th in the NHL on the power play with a 19.2 per cent success rate and are 1-for-18 in the last eight games. They have only had seven power-play opportunities in the last five games — including three Sunday night against the Senators — and have failed to score on all of them.
“I think we just got to work a little bit harder in order to create those power plays,” Julien said. “Every coach is going to tell you the same thing. Nobody’s going to give you power plays and whether there’s a missed call here or there, it’s like that in every game on both sides. So at the end of the day, we just got to work a little harder to hopefully create those.”
Suzuki said the Canadiens have been generating some good chances and good looks on the power play.
“Just haven’t gone in the back of the net,” he added. “I think we have everything on both (power-play) units to be successful. When it’s struggling or not going in the net, it’s just about getting more pucks to the net, more bodies. It probably won’t be a pretty goal. Just get back into the flow of getting on the power play.”
The lines
Here’s how the Canadiens’ forward lines and defence pairing are expected to look against the Senators:
Drouin – Suzuki – Anderson
Toffoli – Danault – Gallagher
Tatar – Kotkaniemi – Armia
Byron – Evans – Perry
Chiarot – Weber
Edmundson – Petry
Kulak – Romanov
Lindgren sent to Laval
The Canadiens announced Tuesday that they have loaned goalie Charlie Lindgren to the AHL’s Laval Rocket and recalled Michael McNiven. Lindgren has not played a game this season.
McNiven will join the Canadiens’ taxi squad, meaning he can take part in practices, while Lindgren will be available to play for the Rocket this week. The Rocket, who are in first place in the Canadian Division with a 3-1-1 record, will play the Manitoba Moose Wednesday, Friday and Saturday at the Bell Centre.
The Rocket lost 3-2 to the Moose in overtime Monday night at the Bell Centre.
Related What’s next?
The Canadiens will fly to Winnipeg on Wednesday and play two games against the Jets on Thursday (8 p.m., TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM) and Saturday (10 p.m., CBC, SN, TVA Sports, TSN 690 Radio). The Jets are the only team in the North Division the Canadiens have yet to face this season.
Next week, the Canadiens will play three straight games at the Bell Centre. The Senators will be the visitors on Tuesday (7 p.m., TSN2, TSN5, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM), followed by two games against the Jets on Thursday (7 p.m., TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM) and Saturday (7 p.m., SNE, SNW, CITY, TVA Sports, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM).
The Canadiens have a 3-5-0 record at the Bell Centre this season.
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