Game PS1 – Montreal Canadiens vs Boston Bruins: Things To Watch

And so it begins. The Montreal Canadiens get to the ice to face off against a team that’s not the Montreal Canadiens. The Boston Bruins, or some pre-season game form, come to the Bell Centre to play tonight.

Here is the Canadiens expected lineup:

25 DE LA ROSE – 14 PLEKANEC – 26 SEKAC
17 BOURQUE – 75 HUDON – 38 SCHERBAK
96 BOWMAN – 53 DOWELL – 34 McCARRON
97 SORKIN – 58 ANDRIGHETTO – 60 THOMAS

79 MARKOV – 77 GILBERT
24 TINORDI – 64 PATERYN
78 FINLEY – 36 NYGREN

35 TOKARSKI
39 MacDONALD

Here are the things I will be watching for on RDS (7:30 p.m.) tonight.

This is the first real action for Jiri Sekac. He gets a good chance playing with his mentor Tomas Plekanec and Jacob De La Rose. He’s in a pretty tight competition for the final top-nine spot for the Canadiens and a lot of it will rely on his play against NHL-type competition.

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Same thing goes for Nikita Scherbak. He played very well yesterday in a scrimmage with Alex Galchenyuk and Brendan Gallagher. Today it’s a little bit different but he still gets a nice chance to make some noise. Rene Bourque and Charles Hudon are two skilled players who will get plenty of ice time.

Mike McCarron has been much maligned since the Canadiens made him their first round pick in 2013. He is expected to be a project but some signs of life would be nice. I have always been a fan of McCarron and his selection but at some point he needs to make some noise.

The defence battle starts tonight. Three hopefuls – Jarred Tinordi, Greg Pateryn and Magnus Nygren – are in the lineup and have their first chance to lay claim to a spot on this team, or, at the very least, one of the first recalls from Hamilton. It will be interesting to see how hard they make the decision on Michel Therrien and management.

Dustin Tokarski was missing in last night’s scrimmage and it is probably so he would be ready for tonight. He will split the net with Joey MacDonald. Usually, this would be a preview of Hamilton’s goaltending tandem but things are nuanced with Tokarski’s playoff performance and waiver status.

Enjoy the game and we’ll be back in this spot tomorrow with thoughts on tonight’s game. What are you looking for?