It’s not been an easy start to the season for Samuel Montembeault. Still, Martin St-Louis believes in his goaltender, and the Montreal Canadiens’ masked man will get an opportunity to bounce back tonight when he takes on the Ottawa Senators at Centre Bell. It hasn’t been easy for the visitors either since they lost their captain, Brady Tkachuk, to injury after just three games. The Sens’ pest underwent surgery and was told he would need 6 to 8 weeks before he could play again.
Ottawa needed a bit of time to process the news, but since then, they’ve replaced their captain by committee. The Sens have five players with double-digit point totals, compared to three for the Canadiens. Tonight’s game will be the first of four meetings between the two sides this season. There will be another one in Montreal at the start of December, and the final two will take place in Ottawa in January and March.
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Montembeault has taken on the Senators seven times in his career, and he has a 3-4-0 record with a 3.19 goals-against average and a .889 save percentage, but he has won three of his last four duels against them and has had a save percentage of .926 or above in two of those four games. The netminder had a tough time against Ottawa in the 2022-23 season, but he’s improved a lot since then. As for Dobes, he’s never taken on the Sens.
Ottawa’s starter for tonight is unknown, but Levi Merilainen has never faced Montreal, while Linus Ullmark has a 4-4-0 record against tonight’s hosts, but has faced them nine times. He’s lost three of his last four games against the Habs, and his save percentage in those three games was less than ideal, with .846, .667, and .871. In his nine games against Montreal, he has a 3.34 GAA and a .873 SV.
Brendan Gallagher is the Canadiens’ most productive forward against the Sens with 29 points in 48 games, while captain Nick Suzuki has 20 points in 29 games. Josh Anderson wraps up the top three with 16 points in 34 games. This season, Anderson only has two points in 11 games, so the Sens might be just what the doctor ordered for him and for Jake Evans, who’s also only got two points this season so far, but has 13 points in 21 games against the visitors. Meanwhile, Cole Caufield is almost a point-per-game player against the Sens with 12 points in 14 games.
Claude Giroux is the Sens’ point leader against the Habs with 39 points in 51 games. Tkachuk would be second with 27 points in 30 games, but Drake Batherson is also doing well against them with 26 points in 28 games. Tim Stutzle wraps up the top three with 20 points in 23 games.
This will be the first game in which Nick Cousins is dressed against the Habs since his ill-advised slash on rookie Ivan Demidov in the preseason tilt against the two rivals in Quebec City on September 30. Former Hab Cousins was fined $2,148.44 for the incident, the maximum allowable under the CBA. Arber Xhekaj said, “We remember what happened,” ahead of the game, and the Senators have announced that tough guy Kurtis MacDermid would be in the lineup. Furthermore, they’ve recently put Cousins on their top line alongside Stutzle and Batherson, so the Canadiens can expect to see plenty of him. In other words, all the ingredients are there for an explosive start to the game.
While the Canadiens have won three of their four duels with the Sens, they’ve only won those three out of the last 10 games, and Ottawa has won the last duel between the two sides by a score of 5-2 in April when the Habs were desperately trying to qualify for the playoffs. Suzuki will try to keep his 10-game point streak going, while defenseman Lane Hutson has a five-game point streak of his own. As for the Sens, three players have a four-game point streak going: Stutzle, Batherson, and Jake Sanderson.
Needless to say, the table is set for an exciting match-up at the Bell Centre tonight. If you are attending the game, please leave early, as the roads are likely to be jam-packed due to the STM strike; no subways or buses will be running. As always on Saturday night, the game will be broadcast on TVA Sports in French, and you can catch it in English on Sportsnet 1 at 7:00 PM.
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