{"id":540143,"date":"2026-03-16T13:03:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T13:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/540143\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T13:03:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T13:03:15","slug":"canadiens-vs-ducks-game-thread-and-lines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/540143\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadiens vs. Ducks: Game thread and lines"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\/<\/p>\n

Credit: David Kirouac-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n

Game 66: Montreal Canadiens vs. Anaheim Ducks<\/p>\n

Start time:\u00a07:00 PM EDT \/ 4:00 PM PDT
In the Canadiens region: TSN2 (English), RDS (French)
In the Ducks region: KCOP-13, Victory+
Streaming: ESPN+, RDS, TSN+<\/p>\n

This could have been a game in which the Montreal Canadiens were seeking some bonus points after four consecutive wins, but their play wasn\u2019t up to the standard last night that they\u2019d shown through the last couple of games, and they lost for a second time this season to the San Jose Sharks. Now, tonight\u2019s game is one the Habs have to win to avoid a disappointing weekend back-to-back.<\/p>\n

Montreal scored five goals on the Ducks when they met just over a week ago, and such a performance should be enough to get the win in this rematch, especially with Jacob Fowler in net. In the last three games, however, they haven\u2019t scored more than three times. It\u2019s a team built more for offence than defence, and will need to take better advantage of its chances, especially on a power play that has gone one-for-eight this week. The Ducks are not a strong penalty-killing team, and that should be to Montreal\u2019s advantage.<\/p>\n

After this game, four of Montreal\u2019s next five matches will be played versus teams currently one to three points lower in the standings. Those will all be important games for the Canadiens to play their best hockey to really solidify their playoff standing. Tonight is their chance to set themselves up well with a consistent effort and an important two points before tackling that potentially season-defining stretch.<\/p>\n

Montreal Canadiens projected lineup<\/p>\n

Left Wing
\n Centre
\n Right Wing<\/p>\n

#13 Cole Caufield
\n #14 Nick Suzuki
\n #20 Juraj Slafkovsk\u00fd<\/p>\n

#15 Alex Newhook
\n #91 Oliver Kapanen
\n #93 Ivan Demidov<\/p>\n

#85 Alexandre Texier
\n #71 Jake Evans
\n #77 Kirby Dach<\/p>\n

#17 Josh Anderson
\n #24 Phillip Danault
\n #11 Brendan Gallagher<\/p>\n

Left Defence
\n Right Defence<\/p>\n

#8 Mike Matheson
\n #53 Noah Dobson<\/p>\n

#21 Kaiden Guhle
\n #48 Lane Hutson<\/p>\n

#72 Arber Xhekaj
\n #45 Alexandre Carrier<\/p>\n

Starter
\n Backup<\/p>\n

#32 Jacob Fowler
\n #75 Jakub Dobe\u0161<\/p>\n

Scratched: Zachary Bolduc, Patrik Laine, Samuel Montembeault, Jayden Struble, Joe Veleno<\/p>\n

Anaheim Ducks projected lineup<\/p>\n

Left Wing
\n Centre
\n Right Wing<\/p>\n

Chris Kreider
\n Leo Carlsson
\n Cutter Gauthier<\/p>\n

Mason McTavish
\n Mikael Granlund
\n Beckett Sennecke<\/p>\n

Jeffrey Viel
\n Ryan Poehling
\n Alex Killorn<\/p>\n

Frank Vatrano
\n Tim Washe
\n Jansen Harkins<\/p>\n

Left Defence
\n Right Defence<\/p>\n

Jackson LaCombe
\n Jacob Trouba<\/p>\n

Olen Zellweger
\n John Carlson<\/p>\n

Pavel Mintyukov
\n Ian Moore<\/p>\n

Starter
\n Backup<\/p>\n

Lukas Dostal
\n Ville Husso<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: David Kirouac-USA TODAY Sports Game 66: Montreal Canadiens vs. Anaheim Ducks Start time:\u00a07:00 PM EDT \/ 4:00…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-540143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}