Canadiens: 29 Years Later, Roy's In Town

Yesterday marked the 29th anniversary of the infamous game that ended the Patrick Roy era with the Montreal Canadiens. The Hall of Famer is now at the helm of tonight's visitors, the New York Islanders.

Related: A Dark Day In Canadiens History

While Roy's Islanders are doing better than their hosts, they're not setting the league alight either. In 25 games, they've managed to gather 24 points and currently sit in 23rd place. They're also second to last in the Metropolitan division. The Pittsburgh Penguins are at the very bottom with the same number of points, but the Isles have a game in hand.

Related: Canadiens Send Joshua Roy Back To Laval

The New York outfit has a 3-4-3 record in its last 10 games while Martin St-Louis men's are 4-5-1 but coming off a pair of tough defeats. While the Canadiens had a day off yesterday, GM Kent Hughes made a move, sending Joshua Roy back down to the Laval Rocket. As if that wasn't enough of a clue about Patrik Laine's impending return, the big Finn published a picture of himself in front of the St. Joseph Oratory and captioned the pic "Big week coming up! Hopefully Father Andre is a hockey fan." Clearly, the sniper wants faith, luck and everything else on his side as he makes his Canadiens' debut.

With Roy's (Joshua) demotion and Laine's likely return, it will be interesting to see what the Canadiens' lines look like at morning skate. If it was up to me, I'd go back to what worked in the past:

Juraj Slafkovsky - Nick Suzuki -Cole Caufield
Alex Newhook- Kirby Dach - Patrik Laine
Josh Anderson - Jake Evans - Brendan Gallagher
Emil Heineman - Christian Dvorak -Joel Armia

The Habs are set to hold their morning skate at 10:30 this morning, we should have a better idea of St-Louis' plan then. While the starting goaltenders' identity hasn't been revealed yet, logic dictates Samuel Montembeault will be back in the crease for the Canadiens after another difficult outing for Cayden Primeau. The latter was on duty in the first game between the two teams this season however, he poste a 2.77 goals-against average with a .917 save percentage.

Speaking about the previous meeting, Caufield had two goals that night and Slafkovsky's two assists. The Canadiens' sniper currently has a four-game scoring streak and he has six points in that span. In seven games against the New York outfit, he has eight point while his center Suzuki has 13 points in 12 meetings. Nobody has as many points as Gallagher though, across 29 tilts with the Islanders, the hard working right winger has 18 points.

Related: Canadiens: The Die Is Cast

In net, Montembeault has faced the Isles nine times in his career and has a 3-2-3 record, a 2.46 GAA and a .927 SP. As for Primeau, he's only taken them on once, with the outcome previously reported.

As for the Islanders' goaltenders, they've been very good against the Canadiens. Ilya Sorokin has a 4-0-1 record, with a 1.38 GAA and a .954 SP, it's hard to do better than that really. His backup, veteran Semyon Varlamov is 8-3-2 with a 2.75 GAA and a .908 SP, but he's currently day-to-day. The Islanders didn't play last night either, so Sorokin should be in net. Especially since he pitched a 3-0 shutout against the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday night.

Up front, Brock Nelson has 25 career points against Montreal in 30 games, Kyle Palmieri picked up 22 points in 25 matches, while Bo Horvat has 20 in 28 games. As for center Jean-Gabriel Pageau who always plays well against the Canadiens (18 points in 34 games, including three shorthanded goals), he's day-to-day with an lower-body injury. Finally, blueline Noah Dobson has got 14 points in just 10 tilts against the Habs.

The Islanders have won six of the last 10 meetings between the two sides, including the last two which both required extra time and the shootout on one occasion. The game is set for 7:00 PM at the Bell Centre and the Canadiens should be fuming after this weekend's result and provide a strong start. The question is though, will they be able to do so?

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