Credit: David Kirouac-Imagn Images
Game 33: Montreal Canadiens vs. Philadelphia Flyers
Start time: 7:00 PM EST / 4:00 PM PST
In the Canadiens region: TSN2 (English), RDS (French)
In the Flyers region: NBC Sports Philadelphia
Streaming: ESPN+, RDS, TSN+
Mike Matheson played a great game on Sunday night, shadowing Connor McDavid for all but two minutes of the Edmonton Oilers’ captain’s five-on-five ice time and holding him to just a secondary assist. The Canadiens won’t have the benefit of Matheson’s services this evening, however, as he is day-to-day with an injury.
Matheson might have played through it if there weren’t six other defencemen that Martin St-Louis could trust, but Adam Engström is proving his NHL mettle in his second recall, and tonight will play a fourth consecutive game after both Jayden Struble and Arber Xhekaj were scratched in favour of the rookie in the past three games. Engström was a +1 on Sunday versus the powerful Oilers offence, and has yet to finish a game without at least an even goal differential.
The test for the defence will come from Philadelphia’s top line, on which Trevor Zegras and Travis Konecny are centred by former Hab Christian Dvorak. That will also be the challenge Jacob Fowler faces in his third NHL start and first on home ice after beginning his NHL career with a 1-0-1 record. The Bell Centre crowd is sure to offer him support throughout the night, and he can feed off that to help his club get the win that could vault it back into top spot in the division.
Montreal Canadiens projected lineup
Left Wing
Centre
Right Wing
#13 Cole Caufield
#14 Nick Suzuki
#76 Zachary Bolduc
#20 Juraj Slafkovský
#91 Oliver Kapanen
#93 Ivan Demidov
#17 Josh Anderson
#62 Owen Beck
#85 Alexandre Texier
#90 Joe Veleno
#71 Jake Evans
#11 Brendan Gallagher
Left Defence
Right Defence
#48 Lane Hutson
#45 Alexandre Carrier
#47 Jayden Struble
#53 Noah Dobson
#72 Arber Xhekaj
#42 Adam Engström
Starter
Backup
#32 Jacob Fowler
#75 Jakub Dobeš
Scratched: Jared Davidson
Conditioning loan: Samuel Montembeault
Injured: Kirby Dach, Kaiden Guhle, Patrik Laine, Mike Matheson, Alex Newhook
Philadelphia Flyers projected lineup
Left Wing
Centre
Right Wing
Trevor Zegras
Christian Dvorak
Travis Konecny
Carl Grundstrom
Sean Couturier
Owen Tippett
Matvei Michkov
Noah Cates
Bobby Brink
Nicolas Deslauriers
Rodrigo Abols
Garnet Hathaway
Left Defence
Right Defence
Cam York
Travis Sanheim
Emil Andrae
Jamie Drysdale
Nick Seeler
Rasmus Ristolainen
Starter
Backup
Dan Vladar
Samuel Ersson
