Martin St. Louis was still sorting through his options Monday as the Montreal Canadiens prepared for Tuesday’s game against the Carolina Hurricanes, and the squeeze at the bottom of the lineup was already visible. Florian Xhekaj worked on a line with Jake Evans and Josh Anderson at practice, a sign that the coach is testing combinations before he settles on who plays.
The timing matters because this is not just another regular-season check-in. The Canadiens lost 6-5 in overtime to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday, and now they return to face the Carolina Hurricanes after being eliminated by them in the Eastern Conference Final. With that backdrop, every practice rep starts to look like a tryout, and every change carries a tradeoff.
St. Louis has said he wants a rotation that keeps players engaged because, as he put it, these players are ready to play too and have to be managed. That idea is easy to agree with in theory and harder to carry out in practice. Oliver Kapanen began the season day-to-day with a lower-body injury, Adam Engstrom has made enough of a case to deserve a look before Kaiden Guhle is fully recovered from surgery, and Monday gave Guhle his first full-contact practice in a full-contact jersey since his corrective adductor surgery this summer.
That is where the real friction sits. If Xhekaj stays in, or if Kapanen or Engstrom get in, someone else has to come out of a group that already includes players who were in the lineup against Pittsburgh. Montreal is not simply adding bodies; it is deciding which players it can afford to leave out against a Carolina team that has already beaten it in a far bigger setting.
Goal remains another moving part. Samuel Montembeault had a hot pre-season, while Jakub Dobes was overly generous in the loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins, and that contrast leaves St. Louis with another choice to make before Tuesday’s home opener rematch. Ivan Demidov also missed Monday’s practice for treatment and rest, another reminder that the Canadiens are still managing availability as much as they are managing matchups.
The most likely outcome is that St. Louis will use Tuesday to reward form without pretending the roster can absorb everyone at once. The Canadiens have enough players pushing for space that the final decision may say as much about the coach’s priorities as it does about any one skater’s performance.
