Samuel Montembeault is on the road to Toronto tonight, and the Canadiens just put his place in the pecking order down in writing.
Montreal split its roster for two preseason games Saturday. Jacob Fowler and Jakub Dobes both stayed home.
Third on the depth chart. No press conference required, the lineup sheet handled it.
Kent Hughes said Monday the club won't carry three goaltenders into the regular season. This is what that decision looks like on paper.
The group staying in Montreal is stacked. Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki and Chris Kreider open together on the top line.
Suzuki put up 101 points last season. Caufield buried 51 goals playing beside him.
Juraj Slafkovsky, Oliver Kapanen and Ivan Demidov take the second trio, with Lane Hutson and Alexandre Carrier paired on the blue line.
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Canadiens and Maple Leafs confirm lineups for tonight's preseason games
Kirby Dach made the trip to Toronto with Zachary Bolduc and Alexandre Texier in the lighter group. Dach got into only 37 games last season.
Toronto kept its heavy end at home. Auston Matthews, Matthew Knies and John Tavares all dress there.
Gavin McKenna is in that same lineup. Nobody drops a kid into that group by accident.
Sergei Bobrovsky gets the net in Toronto with Anthony Stolarz also on the sheet. Jim Hiller hasn't said how the minutes get divided.
Bobrovsky arrives on a $10,000,000 cap hit after posting a .876 save percentage last season.
The back end runs Chris Tanev and Darren Raddysh alongside Emil Andrae, Marshall Rifai and Ben Danford.
Raddysh piled up 70 points last season with a +21. Tanev got into only 11 games.
The squad headed to Quebec is prospects and depth. Artur Akhtyamov starts, with Ken Appleby and Samual Hlavaj behind him.
Nick Blankenburg is the one to watch in that group after signing a professional tryout.
Daniel Alfredsson runs the bench in Montreal. Hiller takes the one in Toronto.
The gap between these clubs is real. Montreal finished 48-24-10 for 106 points last season while Toronto landed 28th overall.
The Canadiens also took three of four meetings between them. A preseason night doesn't wipe that off the board.
So what really gets settled tonight? A split-squad game works like a dress rehearsal with half the cast missing. You learn something, just not the thing you came for.
Watch the crease in Toronto anyway. Montembeault is playing for a job that might already belong to somebody else, and waivers don't care how sharp he looks in September.
Will Samuel Montembeault still be a Canadien on opening night?
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