The Canadian | A banged up defense against the Predators

(Nashville) Already without Joel Edmundson since the start of the season, the Canadian will have to compose without Jeff Petry against the Nashville Predators this Saturday night.

Simon-Olivier Lorange
Press

It is therefore a passable damaged defense that the Habs will deploy in the city of the country. Mattias Norlinder will be reinserted into the lineup to replace Petry, while Corey Schueneman, recalled from the Laval Rocket on Friday, will have to wait before making his NHL debut.

The use we will make of Swedish will be interesting to follow. It will be the first time that he will evolve in the same sextet as Chris Wideman, one of the only two right-handed people in good health. The three times the two were in uniform on the same night, it was in a seven-defender lineup.

In addition, the partner with whom he has played the majority of his five-on-five minutes, David Savard, will certainly be less available to watch over him. In the absence of Petry, we can imagine that the Quebecer will be asked to face the best local players, a mission from which Norlinder will logically be avoided.

As far as talking about the young man, we might as well mention that, this season, he has only played anecdotally with Alexander Romanov (1 min 12 s), Brett Kulak (1 min 51 s) and Chris Wideman (3 min 58 s).

The situation in defense will not change the approach of the attackers, however, assures Mike Hoffman, who will also return to the game after a back injury had made him miss the last nine games.

Head coach Dominique Ducharme had the same thought. Absentees “expose” healthy players, and it’s up to them to seize their chance. And in all cases, “in our way of playing, what we ask of attackers and defenders is the same thing”, regardless of the number of staff in place.

Knowing that Josh Anderson will miss four weeks with an “upper body” injury and that Brendan Gallagher has contracted COVID-19, the attack will also be weakened tonight, although Hoffman’s return will help ease the problems. losses. Tyler Toffoli, shaken in the last match, will be in uniform.

Laurent Dauphin, who was recalled preventively from the Rocket, will be left out, but he could play in the near future, warned Ducharme.

“The biggest reason he’s here is the way he plays at Laval,” said the coach.

Jake Allen will be the starting goalie for the Canadiens. The meeting will begin at 7:00 p.m. Montreal time.

Two is better

The mood is much more perky in the opposing camp.

Not that everything is rosy in the Predators camp, but at least we have some good news to build on. The good performance of center players Matt Duchene and Ryan Johansen should be classified in this category.

After two seasons below expectations, both have had excellent starts. Duchene already has 24 points, and Johansen, 18, in 23 games.

Their drop in production in recent years has not been taken lightly. Over the past summer, after the organization left them unprotected in the expansion draft, head coach John Hynes met them both.

“We had honest discussions about the things they need to do to be successful,” Hynes said on Saturday. It was very clear from both sides, they too spoke about the expectations for them. ”

Did these conversations bear fruit? “Compare clips from last year and this season,” Hynes challenged.

Johansen, he stressed, “is faster, more competitive”. “He wins his battles 50-50 for the puck, when he gets the chance to shoot he takes it. ”

As for Duchene, “he is faster, more tenacious with the puck”, and he “plays with a higher level of competition”, while being more responsible defensively.

“These are the things that give a player ice time. If he argues [19] minutes is because he’s playing the right way. ”

This change did not escape defenseman Alexander Carrier.

“They are leaders in our team,” he recalled. When you see guys who make the big salaries go to war every night, it makes a big difference. It shows that we’re all in the same boat. ”