Canadiens vs Blackhawks: Preview, Live Stream, TV Info

If insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result, what is keeping Dale Weise on a line with Max Pacioretty and David Desharnais for the second straight game after a 6-2 loss against the Calgary Flames?

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That’s what Michel Therrien is expected to do tonight as the Montreal Canadiens get set to host the Chicago Blackhawks at the Bell Centre tonight. (7:30 p.m. | TV: Sportsnet East, RDS [both regional only] | Live Stream: NHL GameCenter Live)

Therrien isn’t keeping everything as they are. At the morning skate this morning, Michael Bournival was skating in Travis Moen‘s spot but as we saw with Lars Eller, let’s wait until the lineups are announced.

Changing Bournival for Moen is a nice thought but on its own it’s pretty useless especially if you hamstring your 39-goal scorer with a guy best served on the fourth line. Weise may be a very good fourth liner, but he’s a pretty awful scoring winger despite good instincts with the puck.

The other lines are what we saw in the latter part of the game against Calgary: Brendan Gallagher with Alex Galchenyuk and Tomas Plekanec and Lars Eller with Rene Bourque and P.A. Parenteau. They will be looking for more consistency from all four lines.

The Canadiens need to improve their play at even strength. They need to get pucks on the net and skate, which they haven’t really been doing. Bournival at least gives them a little more speed on the fourth line but the bottom line is that they need to be better.

And, although Calgary had beat Chicago this year, that 6-2 score will be a lot worse if they play the same way against the Blackhawks. It will be interesting to see if last game served as a wake up call after a terrible road trip which has soured a strong start

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