Canadiens Trying To Get Back To Winning Ways

The Montreal Canadiens have played a couple of underwhelming games lately, surrendering 89 shots to their last two opponents, making their goaltenders' life much harder than it needs to be.

Yesterday, Josh Anderson and Kaiden Guhle both missed practice to receive treatments, and there was a fresh face replacing the blueliner in the lineup: David Reinbacher. Four months after it was announced he would be undergoing knee surgery and missing between five and six months of action, the young Austrian was skating with the team at practice for the first time, but we a no-contact jersey. He has been skating on his own for a while, but there's nothing quite like practicing with the team.

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Of course, it doesn't mean that Reinbacher is coming back soon, just that his recovery is entering a new stage, one that is sure to make him happy. The match up with Winnipeg will be the last of the season. When they first took on one another in December, the Jets won 4-2, but the Canadiens had put on a good fight and Lane Hutson had scored his first career goal.

Jakub Dobes was in net for the Canadiens' 4-3 loss to the Devils and while it's not been confirmed yet, I believe it's likely Samuel Montembeault will be back in net. The Becaucour native has a 1-3-1 record against the Manitoba outfit and has a 3.56 goals-against average and a .883 save percentage. As for Dobes, he's never faced the Jets.

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As for the Jets' netminders, Connor Hellebuyck has a 12-6-2 against the Canadiens with a 2.91 GAA and a .910 SP. Meanwhile, backup Eric Comrie has only faced Montreal three times and has never won with a 0-2-1 record,  a 2.98 GAA and a .912 SP.

Up front, Brendan Gallagher is the Canadiens' most productive player against the Jets with 19 points in 27 games, but Nick Suzuki has a near point-per-game pace against them with 15 points in 18 games and Patrick Laine has four points in four games against the team that drafted him and hopefully, he won't take it upon himself to make comments that will fuel the Jets' motivation as he did in Columbus. That lesson has hopefully been learnt.

On the other side, the Habs will need to keep a close eye on Kyle Connor who has 24 points in 21 games against them. The same can be said about his center Mark Scheifele, who has racked up 22 points in 29 games against the Canadiens. Nino Niederreiter completes the top-three with 18 points in 28 games.

The Jets have won six of the last 10 meetings between the two sides and before the Canadiens lost in December, Martin St-Louis' men had a three-game winning streak against tonight's visitors. The game is set for 7:00 PM and the Canadiens will then get ready to welcome the Minnesota Wild to town on Thursday night.

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