Canadiens: Looking For A Fourth Win In A Row

The Montreal Canadiens finished 2024 with the exclamation points, three wins over recent Stanley Cup champions and tonight, they'll try to start 2025 with a fourth consecutive win, a feat they've not managed in the last calendar year.

Today's opponents are not Cup contenders though, they are the Chicago Blackhawks and currently sit at the very bottom of the standings with 26 points. However, they have two games in hand on the San Jose Sharks who sit in 31st place with 28 points.

Last season, Montreal won both games between the two sides, a 3-2 victory at home in October and a 5-2 trumping in Chicago in December. For Kirby Dach, tonight's game could be special for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it will only be his second game in Chicago since the Hawks traded him to the Habs and secondly, yesterday, Chicago called up his brother Colton Dach from Rockford.

If you recall, in his return to Chicago, the elder Dach scored the game winning goal in the shootout and was happy to poke fun at the crowd. Since the start of the Holidays' road trip, the big pivot has been playing great, he has three points in his last three games and will no doubt hope to keep going.

After yesterday's practice, Martin St-Louis announced Samuel Montembeault would be in net tonight in Chicago. Since this is the first game of a back to back, you can expect Jakub Dobes to man the net in Colorado tomorrow night. Montembeault has got a great record against tonight's hosts, he's 2-0-1 with a 2.24 goals-against average and a .925 save percentage.

There's no word yet about who will be in net for the Hawks tonight, Petr Mrazek has a 5-6-2 record with a 3.10 GAA and a .900 SP. As for backup Arvid Soderblom, he's only faced the Habs once and lost, but he only allowed 2 goals and has a .913 SP and a 1.85 GAA.

Montreal's most productive scorer against Chicago is Patrik Laine, In 25 games, he has 27 points (18 goals and nine assists, totals he'll be trying to pad up tonight. Christian Dvorak is a distant second with nine points in 15 games.

Yesterday, defenseman David Savard left practice early so one can wonder if he's nursing an injury right now, if he is, Jayden Struble could draw back in. It would be his first game since Dec. 12 when he has a rough night, finishing the game with a minus-three rating.

The Canadiens have won six of the last 10 games between the two sides including the last four duels.

Tonight's tilt is scheduled for 8:00 PM and should make for very interesting viewing with the Dach brothers' first game against one another.

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