Canadiens Notebook: Cayden Primeau will start against Devils

Article content

Cayden Primeau will start in goal for the Canadiens when they face the New Jersey Devils Tuesday night at the Bell Center (7pm, TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio).

Article content

Primeau has been pulled in each of his last two starts and has a 1-5-1 record with a 4.26 goals-against average and a .885 save percentage this season with the Canadiens.

The Canadiens are winless in their last six games (0-4-2), while the Devils lost their seventh straight game Monday night in Ottawa, dropping a 4-1 decision to the Senators.

Christian Dvorak isn’t fully recovered from an upper-body injury he suffered in the first period of an 8-2 loss to the Wild on Jan. 24 in Minnesota and will miss his fourth straight game. Forwards Michael Pezzetta, Rem Pitlick and Cédric Paquette will be healthy scratches.

Only 500 fans will be allowed at the Bell Center because of Quebec’s COVID-19 restrictions. The 500 fans will all be in private loges, meaning the actual stands will be empty.

Article content

Quebec Premier François Legault announced Tuesday that the Bell Center — with a capacity of more than 21,000 — can go up to 50 per cent capacity on Feb. 21 and 100 per cent starting March 14.

Tatar back at Bell Center

Tomas Tatar will play his first game against his former Canadiens teammates since signing a two-year, US$9-million contract with the Devils as a free agent during the off-season.

In 43 games this season, Tatar has 8-9-17 totals and is minus-12.

“It’s great to be back,” Tatar said during a Zoom interview Tuesday morning. “It’s still a little weird to be on the opposite side, but that’s just how the hockey world works. Just to be in this building brings very special memories. It’s kind of a shame we don’t get to play in front of a full Bell Centre. The atmosphere, the passion of the fans is something that I wish me and my new teammates would go through. But it is what it is. I’m very excited and looking forward to the game.

Article content

“It’s something amazing,” Tatar added about playing in the Bell Center as a member of the Canadiens for the three previous seasons. “This is one of the loudest buildings in the NHL and when you have the fans on your side it’s awesome. But even as the opposing team I always enjoyed to play here because you could sink in the tremendous atmosphere and I feel like it motivates a lot of players. It’s a special building.”

Tatar knew his time with the Canadiens was coming to an end when he only played five of 22 playoff games last season. He played in the first five games of a first-round series against the Toronto Maple Leafs and was then made a healthy scratch the rest of the way as the Canadiens advanced to the Stanley Cup final before losing to the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Article content

“It’s a business because some decisions have to be made when contracts are expiring and extending,” Tatar said. “So the decision was made. It didn’t really feel like it was a thing for me to continue here, so I accepted and I moved forward. I was trying to look for a new challenge, which I think I found. I’m enjoying Jersey a lot. We have a great group of guys and we have a great locker room again. We’re trying to build here something for the future and I really want to be a part of it.

“If you look around our locker room, we have tremendous talent, tremendous young guys coming up,” Tatar added. “So if we put the pieces in the right place and teach and learn the right way of playing hockey we can build something very special here.”

Tough season for Gallagher

Article content

This has been a tough season for the Canadiens’ Brendan Gallagher, who has been limited to 26 games because of injuries while posting 4-6-10 totals.

Before facing the Devils, Gallagher had only played in three of the previous 20 games.

“The first half of the season has been really frustrating for me,” Gallagher said. “I simply haven’t been able to stay in the lineup. For whatever reason, no injuries and whatnot, that’s something I’ve always taken pride in. The short summer obviously hurt. You weren’t able to build your body up.”

Gallagher returned home to British Columbia last week during the Canadiens’ bye week in the schedule to skate and work out, taking time to take care of his body and get ready for the final 38 games of the season.

Article content

“I’ve always prided myself on being a consistent player and part of that is being in the lineup every night,” Gallagher said. “Getting back to that here last half of the season, just being a guy that night after night can be there for your teammates. So I’m looking forward to it.”

Gallagher played all 82 games during the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons.

Missing his linemates

Gallagher has also been missing his regular linemates from the previous three seasons, Tatar and Phillip Danault,.

Danault signed a six-year, US$33-million contract with the Los Angeles Kings as a free agent during the off-season. Danault has 12-13-25 totals in in 45 games and only needs one more goal to match his career high from him. His 12 goals from him are three more than anyone on the Canadiens had scored heading into Tuesday night’s game.

Article content

“With those two guys there was the stability where you play with each other for so long you knew exactly where you’re going to be,” Gallagher said about playing with Tatar and Danault. “It takes time, so it’s something that I’ve been working on here. Hopefully as the end of the season goes on you can kind of settle into a line and create that little chemistry amongst the three of you.

“It’s been a difficult challenge, for sure,” Gallagher added. “I think with everything that’s going on, I could be wrong, but I don’t know if I’ve gone three games with the same linemates here. It’s just been a different challenge for me personally, something that I’ve had to figure out.”

When asked about the success he enjoyed while playing with Tatar and Danault, Gallagher said: “I think we’re three pretty proud guys. We enjoyed the challenge. I think we spent three years together and rarely were we broken up. We usually had the challenge of playing against top lines and matching up against some of the best players in the world and we also enjoyed producing at the other end of the ice as well. When you look at what we were able to do in those three years you know it was good.

Article content

“But it’s also in the past,” Gallagher added. “It’s also time to move on. That’s maybe at the end of the career you can look back and be thankful for those things. I think it’s important now to move on and we all have different challenges now. Got to build those things with our own separate teams and try to have success there.”

Gallagher was doing his Zoom interview Tuesday morning at the same time as Tatar was doing one.

“Is he talking right now?” Gallagher asked with a grin. “He’ll never shut up. You’re going to be there all day.”

The lines

Here’s how the forward lines, defense pairings and power-play units looked at Tuesday’s morning skate:

Lehkonen–Suzuki–Toffoli
Hoffman-Dauphin-Gallagher
Byron–Evans–Anderson
Armia–Poehling–Caufield
Pezzetta–Pitlick/Dvorak–Paquette

Article content

Romanov–Chiarot
Kulak–Petry
Clague–Wideman

First power play

poehling
Anderson-Gallagher-Caufield
Petry

Second power play

Toffoli
Suzuki-Lehkonen-Hoffman
Wideman

What’s next?

The Washington Capitals will be at the Bell Center Thursday (7 pm, TSN2, RDS, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM), followed by back-to-back Super Bowl weekend matinee games against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday (12:30 pm). , SN, TVA Sports, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM) and the Buffalo Sabers on Sunday (12:30 pm, SN, TVA Sports, TSN 690 Radio, 98.5 FM).

[email protected]

twitter.com/StuCowan1