Martin St-Louis drops Kirby Dach to fourth line for Game 3
Martin St-Louis has made his call. Kirby Dach is out of the top nine tonight at the Bell Centre, dropped to the fourth line as the Canadiens prepare for Game 3 against Tampa Bay with the series tied 1-1.
It did not take long after Game 2 to see this coming.
Dach had an extremely difficult night in Tampa on Tuesday. He finished the game with zero points, a -1 rating, and was on the ice for the sequence that directly led to Janis Moser's overtime winner for the Lightning. The kind of night that stays with a coaching staff.
St-Louis sat on it for two days. Then he moved.
Oliver Kapanen slides into the third-line centre role between Alex Newhook and Ivan Demidov. Dach drops to the fourth line alongside Zachary Bolduc and Alexandre Texier.
That is not a subtle nudge. That is a coach sending a message in a tied playoff series, in front of 21,000 people, on home ice.
Dach has zero goals and zero assists through two playoff games. The regular season already showed some limits, 15 points in 37 games, and the playoffs have not been kind to him either.
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Kapanen steps in as the Canadiens shuffle their bottom six
Kapanen is not a scorer by trade. He finished the regular season held scoreless over his last 10 games. But St-Louis is clearly prioritising pace and penalty kill reliability on that third line over offensive upside.
The fourth line now carries real pressure too. Bolduc and Texier have combined for zero points in two games. Adding Dach does not change the production question, it just reshuffles who owns it.
The top line stays untouched: Caufield-Suzuki-Slafkovsky. That trio has carried Montreal in this series. Juraj Slafkovsky leads all Canadiens in playoff scoring with 3 goals, all on the power play in Game 1.
Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield have 3 assists each without a goal between them. One of them scoring tonight would shift the entire dynamic of this series heading into Game 4.
Lane Hutson leads Montreal's defencemen with 2 playoff points. The Guhle-Hutson pairing stays intact, and Struble-Xhekaj holds the third pair spot.
Jakub Dobes gets the start again, sitting at a .895 save percentage over two overtime games. He has been steady without being brilliant. Tonight, with the building behind him for the first time, he gets a chance to be both.
Montreal won two of four regular-season meetings against Tampa, including a 4-1 road win on March 31 and a 2-1 home win on April 9. They know they can beat this team.
But the series is not about regular season results. It is about what Dach does with his demotion, what Kapanen brings to a line that needs more than he has shown lately, and whether this building finally tips the scale.
The organisation is asking fans to be seated by 6:50 PM for a pre-game presentation. After two overtime losses and one overtime win in Tampa, the crowd has been building energy for days.
Dach has 60 minutes to make St-Louis regret the move.
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LIVE
APRIL 24, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Kirby Dach | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Brandon Hagel | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Brayden Point | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Alexandre Texier | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Zachary Bolduc | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jake Guentzel | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Nikita Kucherov | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Arber Xhekaj | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Josh Anderson | - | - | - | |
| Declan Carlile | - | - | - | |
| Alexandre Carrier | - | - | - | |
| Cole Caufield | - | - | - | |
| Erik Cernak | - | - | - | |
| Anthony Cirelli | - | - | - | |
| Phillip Danault | - | - | - | |
| Ivan Demidov | - | - | - | |
| Jakub Dobes | - | - | - | |
| Jake Evans | - | - | - | |
| Zemgus Girgensons | - | - | - | |
| Gage Goncalves | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||
| 2025-2026 NHL STANDINGS | ||||||
| GP | W | L | OL | PTS | ||
| Sabres | 82 | 50 | 23 | 9 | 109 | |
| Lightning | 82 | 50 | 26 | 6 | 106 | |
| Canadiens | 82 | 48 | 24 | 10 | 106 | |
| Bruins | 82 | 45 | 27 | 10 | 100 | |
| Senators | 82 | 44 | 27 | 11 | 99 | |
| Red Wings | 82 | 41 | 31 | 10 | 92 | |
| Panthers | 82 | 40 | 38 | 4 | 84 | |
| Maple Leafs | 82 | 32 | 36 | 14 | 78 | |
| GP | W | L | OL | PTS | ||
| Hurricanes | 82 | 53 | 22 | 7 | 113 | |
| Penguins | 82 | 41 | 25 | 16 | 98 | |
| Flyers | 82 | 43 | 27 | 12 | 98 | |
| Capitals | 82 | 43 | 30 | 9 | 95 | |
| Blue Jackets | 82 | 40 | 30 | 12 | 92 | |
| Islanders | 82 | 43 | 34 | 5 | 91 | |
| Devils | 82 | 42 | 37 | 3 | 87 | |
| Rangers | 82 | 34 | 39 | 9 | 77 | |
| GP | W | L | OL | PTS | ||
| Avalanche | 82 | 55 | 16 | 11 | 121 | |
| Stars | 82 | 50 | 20 | 12 | 112 | |
| Wild | 82 | 46 | 24 | 12 | 104 | |
| Mammoth | 82 | 43 | 33 | 6 | 92 | |
| Blues | 82 | 37 | 33 | 12 | 86 | |
| Predators | 82 | 38 | 34 | 10 | 86 | |
| Jets | 82 | 35 | 35 | 12 | 82 | |
| Blackhawks | 82 | 29 | 39 | 14 | 72 | |
| GP | W | L | OL | PTS | ||
| Golden Knights | 82 | 39 | 26 | 17 | 95 | |
| Oilers | 82 | 41 | 30 | 11 | 93 | |
| Ducks | 82 | 43 | 33 | 6 | 92 | |
| Kings | 82 | 35 | 27 | 20 | 90 | |
| Sharks | 82 | 39 | 35 | 8 | 86 | |
| Kraken | 82 | 34 | 37 | 11 | 79 | |
| Flames | 82 | 34 | 39 | 9 | 77 | |
| Canucks | 82 | 25 | 49 | 8 | 58 | |
COMPLETE STANDINGS | ||||||