The Montreal Canadiens will be taking on a team that has had a trying season, to say the least, on Tuesday night. The Vancouver Canucks were thrown into turmoil by a rift between J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson which President Jim Rutherford confirmed. Trouble in the room rarely leads to success on the ice, and eventually, the West Coast team elected to trade Miller to the New York Rangers at the end of January.
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Unfortunately, since then, Petterson has looked like a shadow of his former self. A week ago, he had fewer shots since the trade than Miller has points. The Canucks center ended the month of February with only two points to his name and he only has a goal in March so far, for a total of three points in 12 games since the trade. Could a game against the Habs be what he needs? It would be surprising; in 15 duels with the Canadiens, he has only picked up 10 points and has a minus-11 record. If you want to see the bright side though, his faceoff game has been better.
Pettersson wasn’t in the lineup when the Canadiens beat the Canucks 5-4 in overtime at the start of January, worst still, Miller was their dynamo in the game, picking up two goals and two assists.
Vancouver will hope that their top points producers against Montreal, Tyler Myers (20 points in 54 games), Brock Boeser (17 points in 20 tilts), and Jake De Brusk (17 points in 22 duels) will show up. Of course, Quinn Hughes’s presence would be a big plus (19 points in 18 games), but the blueliner is still day-to-day with an injury.
As for the Canadiens, captain Nick Suzuki has 16 points in just 18 meetings with the British Columbia outfit, while alternate captain Brendan Gallager has 14 in 29 games. Joel Armia wraps up the top three with 12 points in 19 games. It’s also worth noting that rookie blueliner Lane Hutson got three points in his only game against the Canucks.
We already know that Samuel Montembeault will be in net against Vancouver while Jakub Dobes will take on Seattle. The Becancour native was on duty when Montreal beat the Canucks in January and he has a 2-3-1 record against the Canucks with a .849 save percentage and a 4.50 goals-against average. As for Dobes, he’s never taken them on.
As for Vancouver’s top choice, Kevin Lankinen, he’s only faced Montreal once in that 5-4 defeat in January. As for backup Arturs Silovs, he’s never taken on the Canadiens. The Canucks could certainly use Tatcher Demko, but he’s week-to-week with a lower-body injury.
Montreal has won four of the last ten duels between the two sides, with Vancouver taking the other six. Both teams are in similar form right now: Vancouver is 5-5-0 and has lost its last game in regulation, while the Canadiens are 5-4-1 and have also lost their last game in regulation.
I asked Habs fans to pick Lane Hutson’s (MTL48) best performance of the season. They overwhelmingly chose his 1 goal 2 primary assist performance from Jan 6 against VAN.
Here are his most notable plays and puck touches from that game. #NHLPotN #GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/ridefQejFQ
— JFresh (@JFreshHockey) March 6, 2025
There’s been no word about Patrik Laine’s status for the game even though he missed Monday’s practice, but we know that Owen Beck won’t be there, having been sent down to the Laval Rocket to make way for Joshua Roy. Whether Laine is there or not should not matter, though. There’s a free spot on the second line, and that’s where Roy should have his audition.
Beck got a six-game tryout before being sent down, and Roy should receive the same kind of treatment. In the four games he’s played with the Habs this season, he has seen chiefly bottom-six minutes, and that’s not how a 20-goal scorer will shine.
The Canadiens are now four points out of the playoffs since the Ottawa Senators beat the Detroit Red Wings last night to leapfrog the Columbus Blue Jackets in the standings. The Habs also leapfrogged the Wings however since they now have played more games and suffered an extra regulation loss.
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