The Penguins will hope to celebrate Kris Letang’s 1,100th NHL game with a second straight victory.
Who: Montreal Canadiens (4-6-1, 9 points) @ Pittsburgh Penguins (4-7-1, 9 points)
When: 7:00 p.m. ET
How to Watch: NHL Network, SportsNet Pittsburgh, CITY, SNE, TVAS
Pens’ Path Ahead: The Pens have tough stretch ahead of them next week as they hit the road for three division games, starting with a Tuesday night contest against the New York Islanders and followed on Thursday by the first game in a back-to-back set against the Carolina Hurricanes and Washington Capitals.
Opponent Track: The Canadiens are coming out of two straight blowout losses to the Seattle Kraken and Washington Capitals in which they were outscored by a total of 14-5.
Season Series: In typical 2024-25 fashion, the Penguins lost a 2-0 lead to the Canadiens during these teams’ last matchup on Oct. 14. In not-so-typical 2024-25 fashion, the Pens came back to claim a 6-3 win in Montreal.
Hidden Stat: Heading into Friday the Penguins had allowed an NHL-high 48 goals against. The Canadiens tied with the Colorado Avalanche and San Jose Sharks for the honor of second place in the category with 46.
Projected lines
FORWARDS
Cole Caufield - Nick Suzuki - Emil Heineman
Alex Newhook - Kirby Dach - Juraj Slafkovsky
Josh Anderson - Jake Evans - Brendan Gallagher
Joel Armia - Christian Dvorak - Oliver Kapanen
DEFENSEMEN
Mike Matheson - Kaiden Guhle
Lane Hutson - David Savard
Jayden Struble - Justin Barron
Goalies: Samuel Montembeault and Cayden Primeau
IR: Rafael Harvey-Pinard, David Reinbacher, Patrik Laine
Cole Caufield cannot stop scoring.
— NHL (@NHL) November 1, 2024
That's now 10 goals in 11 games! pic.twitter.com/FgJ4KMrusK
Hutson has meanwhile gotten off to a strong start to his rookie season by continually providing the Canadiens with breakout opportunities:
This is the thing that, if Hutson can keep up anything close to it, would make him the unicorn that people keep talking about.
— JFresh (@JFreshHockey) October 31, 2024
Making high-danger passes across the slot is something that even elite offensive defencemen rarely do. So far (so far), Hutson can. https://t.co/ieLRhfsJog pic.twitter.com/WV7wzUC3R4
(via hockeydb)
Sam Montembeault made 48 saves in his season-opening shutout of the Toronto Maple Leafs. It’s all been downhill from there for the Canadiens defense and goaltending.
Canadiens own the NHL's worst save percentage (.852) & GAA (4.56) since Sam Montembeault's season-opening shutout
— Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) November 1, 2024
Montembeault, who now holds a .891 save percentage on the season, was pulled after allowing four goals in less under 11 minutes during Tuesday’s 8-2 loss to the Seattle Kraken.
His defense wasn’t doing much to help him out:
Cayden Primeau started and played behind a similar lack of defensive structure in Thursday’s 6-3 loss to the Capitals:
It’s safe to say head coach Martin St. Louis wasn’t thrilled with how his team looked in their last two losses.
End of Canadiens practice was not fun. pic.twitter.com/qVJ5j7FrRg
— Arpon Basu (@ArponBasu) November 1, 2024
St. Louis spoke about the Canadiens’ struggles to reporters after Friday’s practice, per The Athletic’s Arpon Basu:
“Defensively, we have habits and a mindset that lacks urgency. And what creates that urgency, to me, is always a deadline. You start a season, you have 80-something games, the deadline seems far away. We need to understand the deadline is close. The exam is our next game, so you have to do your homework. You can’t procrastinate and hope to succeed if you lack that urgency.”
From winger Josh Anderson:
“We’ve had a lot of conversations in the last week, and that’s to be expected. I hope everybody in here’s received the message and we see a different team in Pittsburgh.”
Infographic courtesy of Pittsburgh Penguins PR
Projected lines
FORWARDS
Evgeni Malkin - Sidney Crosby - Rickard Rakell
Drew O’Connor - Lars Eller - Valtteri Puustinen
Michael Bunting - Cody Glass - Noel Acciari
Kevin Hayes - Blake Lizotte - Anthony Beauvillier
DEFENSEMEN
Matt Grzelcyk / Kris Letang
Marcus Pettersson / Erik Karlsson
Ryan Graves / Jack St. Ivany
Goalies: Alex Nedeljkovic, Joel Blomqvist
Potential Scratches: Ryan Shea, Jesse Puljujarvi
IR: Matt Nieto (knee surgery), Blake Lizotte, Vasily Ponomarev, Bryan Rust (week-to-week lower body injury)
Letang, who has suffered two strokes and underwent neck surgery during his 19-season Penguins career, added:
“That’s the most important. I realize that you only have one health, you can’t really gamble that. The fact that I’m comfortable and I’m healthy now, that I can do the things I love but I can also be active and do all kinds of things with them on the ice, I think it’s pretty special.”
