Hidden Stat II: The Penguins could be facing a goaltender with one of the highest win ratios in Canadiens history. Only three goaltenders have recorded more wins<\/a> through 60 career games than Jakub Dobes, who earned his 37th in the Habs\u2019 season opener.<\/p>\n Getting to know the Canadiens<\/p>\n Projected lines (from Friday\u2019s practice<\/a>)<\/p>\n Cole Caufield \/ Nick Suzuki \/ Chris Kreider<\/p>\n Juraj Slafkovsky \/ Alex Newhook \/ Ivan Demidov<\/p>\n Alexandre Texier \/ Phillip Danault \/ Kirby Dach<\/p>\n Zack Bolduc \/ Jake Evans \/ Josh Anderson<\/p>\n Mike Matheson \/ Noah Dobson<\/p>\n Lane Huton \/ Alexandre Carrier<\/p>\n Jayden Struble \/ Arber Xhehaj<\/p>\n Goalies: Jakub Dobes, Sam Montembeault<\/p>\n Potential scratches: Oliver Kapanen (day to day), Adam Engstrom, Florian Xhekaj<\/p>\n Injured Reserve: Kaiden Guhle (groin)<\/p>\n The Canadiens are mostly looking to run things back with the core that took them to the Eastern Conference Finals last season, centered by top-line forwards Cole Caulfield and Nick Suzuki.The most notable addition to the Habs lineup this offseason was Chris Kreider, who has scored 20 career goals against the Penguins in 47 games as a member of the New York Rangers. Krieder is starting the season skating in what used to be Juraj Slafkovsky\u2019s spot on the top line.Rookies Adam Engstrom and Florian Xhekaj made the Canadiens\u2019 Opening Night roster but were scratched from the team\u2019s road opener in Toronto. Projected lines (from Friday\u2019s practice)<\/p>\n Nick Robertson – Sidney Crosby – Rickard Rakell<\/p>\n Egor Chinakhov – Tommy Novak – Evgeni Malkin<\/p>\n Ville Koivunen – Hendrix Lapierre – Filip Hallander<\/p>\n Connor Dewar – Ben Kindel (?) – Andrei Kuzmenko (?)<\/p>\n Declan Carlile \/ Erik Karlsson<\/p>\n Sam Girard \/ Kaeden Korczak<\/p>\n Trevor van Riemsdyk \/ Kris Letang<\/p>\n Goalies: Arturs Silovs and Sergei Murashov<\/p>\n Potential Scratches: Rutger McGroarty, David Gustafsson, Ilya Solovyov, Elmer Soderblom, Blake Lizotte<\/p>\n IR: Ryan Graves, Justin Brazeau, Bryan Rust<\/p>\n Blake Lizotte was missing from practice this week with a lower-body injury despite playing 13 minutes against the Flyers in the season opener. Bryan Rust, who sat out Game 1, also hasn\u2019t been practicing due to an upper-body injury.Kuzmenko is back with the Penguins following the death of his father. His return resulted in Elmer Soderblom being bumped from the even-strength lineup at practice. Kuzmenko was also featured on the second power-play unit Friday, per Michelle Crechiolo.Also on track for a potential return to the lineup is Ben Kindel, who was previously listed as week-to-week with a lower body injury. His availability hasn\u2019t been confirmed, but he has joined in on two straight practices and was involved with bone line rushes and the top power play unit Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Who: Montreal Canadiens (1-0-0) @ Pittsburgh Penguins (1-0-0) How to Watch: Local on SNE, TVAS and SportsNet Pittsburgh,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":869596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[128082,385,99],"class_list":["post-869595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-game-preview","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=869595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/869596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Screenshot-2026-10-03-at-6.50.04-AM.png\"\/)
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<\/a>Dobes is returning for a second season as full-time starter after capping off his rookie season with a run to the Eastern Conference Finals. He looked strong in his season debut for the Canadiens after giving up an initial goal to the Maple Leafs. The Canadiens will need to decide whether to start him or turn to Jacob Fowler, who was solid as Dobes\u2019 backup during his rookie season, for his 2026-27 debut.The Canadiens overall got off to a slow start to Tuesday\u2019s first game of the season. They\u2019ll be looking for more jump out of the gate against the Pens.<\/p>\n