The Canadian | A last tense game

(Bouctouche, New Brunswick) Memo to those responsible for the NHL’s preparatory schedule: planning four games in one week between two teams may not be the idea of ​​the century to avoid excesses.

Guillaume Lefrancois
The Press

The Canadiens and the Senators will indeed meet for the fourth time on Saturday evening, this time at the J. K. Irving Center, in the lands of La Sagouine.

After Thursday’s meeting between those same two teams, discontent was palpable among the Senators after Josh Anderson hit young forward Tim Stützle hard. Ottawa head coach D. J. Smith accused the Habs of targeting “our best players.”

Smith took every means to avoid such overflows on Saturday evening. He will indeed give up defender Thomas Chabot as well as all his forwards from the first two lines, except Drake Batherson. The robust Scott Sabourin, Austin Watson, Mark Kastelic will be training.

Response from Martin St-Louis, after CH training: “We have played three games so far against them. The matches were good matches, physical, but nothing to put anyone in a vulnerable position. I’m not sure what he’s talking about exactly. We are here to play hockey in front of young people who love the National League. I’m not going to stop there. »

Again Xhekaj

The Habs will continue their evaluation of young defensemen, as Kaiden Guhle, Jordan Harris, Arber Xhekaj and Justin Barron will be in uniform.

Of the lot, Barron is the one with the farthest to go, after having experienced a very unequal camp. If the quality of his shooting leaves no doubt, his defensive game can be improved. And it will be difficult to draw any conclusions about him against a team that will deploy multiple American League forwards.

Xhekaj is also still being evaluated, and we’re guessing he’ll be a target man for the Senators, who don’t carry the big mustachioed in their hearts. Quite the opposite of hockey fans in the region, who cheered the colossus when he arrived at the arena.

Note that Xhekaj, Guhle, Barron, as well as forwards Juraj Slafkovsky and Rem Pitlick will all play a sixth game of this preseason schedule, a peak within the team.

Drouin back

The only veteran left out on Thursday, Jonathan Drouin will be back in the Montreal squad on Saturday. This will only be his third preseason game this fall.

“I want to see more space [de tempo]. I want him to play freely, with more pace,” commented St-Louis. The head coach also spoke with Drouin while doing a few laps of the rink, before the start of morning training.

The only New Brunswicker on the team, Jake Allen will defend the Canadiens’ net. David Savard, who wore the colors of the Moncton Wildcats, will miss his turn, but he is healthy.

Another veteran on the blue line, Michael Matheson, will also be absent, but he also did not participate in the morning practice. Colleagues at practice on Friday said Matheson was suffering from “discomfort”.

Probable formations