Canadiens Game Day: Josh Anderson excited about first game at Bell Centre

Article content continued Solid fourth line

The Canadiens now have a pretty solid fourth line with centre Jake Evans between Paul Byron and Artturi Lehkonen.

Heading into Thursday night’s game, Evans had 2-0-2 totals, Byron had 0-2-2 and Lehkonen had 1-1-2 and they were all plus-2.

“Honestly, if you just draw up the lines, we have three really, really good hockey lines right now and we just happen to be the fourth line,” Byron said. “But I think if you took our three players and put them on a lot of hockey teams right now they’re probably playing third line somewhere else. So we know that. We know how good we are as a line. We know what we can do to impact the team, impact the game, and I think it gives us a lot of confidence.

“When our team comes off a power play, we get matched up against the top line and there’s no fear from us at all,” Byron added. “We embrace that. We embrace our role, embrace our identity, go out and have a great shift for the team. We generate some momentum, play the other team’s top line hard. The fact that the three of us can penalty-kill gives us the confidence to go out there and play well five-on-five. I think the offence of our line, we’re capable of bringing a lot. I think we can play a really good game defensively. Our identity, our team, is built on four lines just kind of being able to hit you one after another and not really slowing down or giving the other team a chance to regroup, break and get the pressure back on you. So I like our line a lot right now, I like what we can do and I think we’re going to continue to get better and grow as a line the more we play together.”