Blues at Canadiens preview: Are the struggling Habs an easy win?

The Canadiens’ fall from Cinderella story to dumpster fire was steep. The completely understandable loss of Carey Price for most of the season started the troubles, and they haven’t let up from day one. Most recently, they shipped Tyler Toffoli off to the Calgary Flames to gather assets for a rebuild - this came just a few days after the team fired head coach Dominique Ducharme and replaced him with Martin St. Louis. St. Louis, a dominant offensive talent with the Tampa Bay Lightning, Calgary Flames, and New York Rangers (you can be forgiven if you forgot he played with the Flames and Rangers), was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2018. The former 2004 Stanley Cup champion does not have any post-NHL coaching experience. The closest that he’s gotten was being the special teams consultant for the Columbus Blue Jackets in the 2019-2020 season.

The Habs are 0-3 under St. Louis.

This shouldn’t shock many people - they have just eight wins on the entire season. The last time the Blues saw them back on December 11th, Charlie Lindgren backstopped St. Louis to a 4-1 victory that saw the Blues score on the power play twice and put up 37 shots on goal against Jake Allen. The fact that Allen has a save percentage above .900 (it’s .901) is a minor miracle; his 3.15 GAA is not.

Tonight would be a good chance for the Blues to get Jordan Binnington some work in tonight. Ville Husso has won his last two starts against Chicago and Ottawa; Binnington hasn’t won a start since January 9th against the Dallas Stars. In his last three starts, Binnington has a .823 save percentage. Tonight would be a good opportunity to get that number up.