Canadien: no surprises on the identity of the extras

This morning, the Canadiens’ reserves took to the ice in Washington.

And to no one’s surprise, Martin St-Louis didn’t hesitate to change his lineup from what we saw in game #82 a few days ago at the Bell Centre.

Oliver Kapanen, Arber Xhekaj, Michael Pezzetta and Jakub Dobes skated. They should logically skip their turn for tonight’s game.

CH reserves on the ice this morning in Washington.

Arber Xhekaj, Michael Pezzetta and Oliver Kapanen work with Adam Nicholas and Alex Burrows.

And Jakub Dobes works with Eric Raymond@RDSca pic.twitter.com/YSdmThVdSB

– Patrick Friolet (@PFrioletRDS) April 21, 2025

We’ll have to expect the Sheriff to play at some point in the series, but it made sense not to have him in the lineup from the start of the series against the Capitals.

You don’t change a winning formula, after all… and Xhekaj has often bailed out.

If there’s ever a big shake-up, Jayden Struble had better respond. Otherwise, it’ll be easy to get WiFi on the ice for Game 2 to face Tom Wilson and his gang.

To be continued in due course.

In front of the net, we know Samuel Montembeault will be there. But on the other side, we can increasingly expect Logan Thompson to take his place despite his absence in recent weeks.

When you leave training first, it’s a sign.

Logan Thompson is the first goaltender to leave @Capitals training

– Renaud Lavoie (@renlavoietva) April 21, 2025

Details to come…