The Canadiens (6-3-2) visit the St. Louis Blues (5-5-1) tonight at 8:00 p.m. ET at the Enterprise Center, and the lineup news is on the back end. Arber Xhekaj, who dressed for all 11 games this season, is a healthy scratch for the first time. Adam Engstrom takes his place on the third pair next to Alexandre Carrier, the forwards are the same group that won in Winnipeg on Sunday, and Owen Beck is again a healthy scratch.

Jacob Fowler starts in goal for the third game in a row, with Jakub Dobeš on the bench as the backup. Below are the lines and the pairings with the numbers behind them. After that comes my take on the Xhekaj decision, the Larkin talk with Kris Draper expected in St. Louis, and why Fowler gets the net again. You can always find the latest lines on our Lineup Tonight page.

Tonight’s Game at a Glance

Team	Record	Goals for per game	Goals against per game	Power play	Penalty kill
Canadiens	6-3-2	3.27	3.27	12.5%	82.6%
Blues	5-5-1	3.18	3.18	24.1%	82.8%

Season numbers through the October 25 games.

Montreal is 4-6-0 against St. Louis in the 10 meetings since 2021-22 and has been outscored 41 to 30 in them. The last one was a 2-0 loss in St. Louis on January 3. The matchup to watch is special teams: the Blues power play is clicking at 24.1 percent, while the Canadiens power play, at 12.5 percent, still needs to find its rhythm.

Special Teams, Goaltenders and Scratches

Unit	Players
Power play 1	Caufield, Kapanen, Slafkovský, Dobson, Hutson
Power play 2	Kreider, Bolduc, Texier, Matheson, Newhook
Penalty kill 1	Danault, Anderson, Guhle, Carrier
Penalty kill 2	Evans, Newhook, Matheson, Dobson

Fowler is 5-1-0 with a 1.79 goals-against average and a .924 save percentage in six games. Dobeš is 1-2-2 with a 4.47 and a .847 in five. The healthy scratches are Arber Xhekaj and Owen Beck. Suzuki is out, and Demidov and Montembeault are on injured reserve.

The Xhekaj Decision

So is this a punishment for Xhekaj? Is the goalie decision a punishment for Dobeš? I do not think it is either one. After going through the ice time, the shot numbers and the way the coach used his defense this weekend, I see two explanations behind the defense change, and one of them has nothing to do with Xhekaj at all. First, here is where Xhekaj really stands.

Arber Xhekaj by the Numbers

Xhekaj has no goals and no assists in 11 games. That is the number fans see, and it is the least useful number for a third-pair defenseman who plays about twelve minutes a night. His job is to defend, hit, and keep the game simple. Here is the full line.

GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	SOG	TOI/GP	Hits	Blocks
11	0	0	0	-2	16	6	11:50	16	8

Season totals through the October 25 game. Hits and blocked shots count all game situations.

Now the part that surprised me. At five-on-five, with Xhekaj on the ice, the Canadiens have directed 113 shot attempts at the net and allowed 97. That is 54 percent of the shot attempts, and his expected-goals share, which scores the quality of every chance, is 51 percent. Those are not scratch numbers. Among the six defensemen who have played real minutes, only Lane Hutson (63 percent) and Noah Dobson (58 percent) have a better shot share. Mike Matheson, at 46 percent, is the lowest on the list.

Defenseman	GP	5v5 minutes	Shot attempts %	Expected goals %
Lane Hutson	11	224	63	61
Noah Dobson	11	180	58	52
Alexandre Carrier	11	172	52	54
Kaiden Guhle	7	128	52	49
Mike Matheson	7	124	46	51
Arber Xhekaj	11	110	54	51
Adam Engstrom	5	54	61	70

Five-on-five, through the October 25 game. Engstrom’s numbers come from only 54 minutes, so treat them as a small sample.

His Game Log: Seven Good Games Before a Quiet Weekend

Game by game: ice time on top, five-on-five shot-attempt share with Xhekaj on the ice below. Orange means the Canadiens were out-attempted.

The trend matters more than the total. In his first four games the Canadiens were out-attempted 36 to 34 at five-on-five with Xhekaj on the ice, and that includes a 15 to 2 night in Carolina. Over his last seven they have a 79 to 61 edge, or 56 percent. His minutes tell the other half of the story: 14:26 and 14:16 against Buffalo and Washington, then 10:38 in Chicago and 10:18 in Winnipeg.

What the Eye Test Shows

Numbers only tell part of the story, so here is what I see on video. For a player with his size and talent, Xhekaj has played a pretty good, efficient game. He is a 25-year-old, 6-foot-4, 240-pound defenseman, and he moves well for that frame: the tracking data has his top speed this season at 22.2 mph, in the 89th percentile of NHL skaters. His skating is better, and his first pass out of the defensive zone is crisp and starts offense instead of just clearing the puck. His gap control is good too. He closes the space on the forward early and pushes the play to the outside, rather than backing in on his own goalie. He spends 43.2 percent of his ice time in the offensive zone, a little above the NHL average of 42.1.

The Canadiens also trust him on the penalty kill. He has played 19 shorthanded minutes, and the opponent has put up 41 shots against per 60 minutes with him on the ice. Among the five Canadiens defensemen with real penalty-kill time, only Guhle (25) is better. Carrier (49), Dobson (55) and Matheson (70) are all behind him.

The One Blemish: Discipline

I will not pretend there was no problem. Xhekaj has 16 penalty minutes in 11 games: a 10-minute misconduct in Nashville, two minutes in Carolina and four against San Jose. The San Jose penalty hurt. In the third period, Montreal led 3-2 when a scrum with Michael Kesselring ended with Xhekaj taking an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on top of the offsetting roughing minors. San Jose scored on that power play at 11:09 to tie the game and won it 4-3 in overtime. You can read the full story in our San Jose game report. It is exactly the kind of penalty a coach hates, and he deserves to hear about it.

But that was a week ago. Since then, he played 10:38 in Chicago and 10:18 in Winnipeg. A coach who wanted to send a message would not wait a week to do it.

Why Xhekaj Sits: The Rotation, Not a Punishment

The coach has not tied this decision to Xhekaj’s play, and as far as I can tell he did not give a reason. My read is simple. Martin St-Louis does not like leaving a player out of the lineup for a long stretch. Look at Engstrom. He has played one of the last four Canadiens games, 12:56 in San Jose on October 20, and has not played since. In a normal season, a defenseman who sits that long gets a game before the rust sets in.

The second part of the puzzle is the return of Mike Matheson and Kaiden Guhle. The Canadiens now have six defensemen who can play, and the way the last two games were managed tells you the sixth spot was not getting real minutes. Sunday in Winnipeg, in a 2-1 win, the five other defensemen played between 19:25 and 25:37. Matheson led the group at 25:37. Xhekaj played 10:18, less than half of that.

The third period tells the rest. Xhekaj took only two shifts, 1:09 and 0:28, for about a minute and a half in total. His last shift ended at 10:53 with Montreal up 2-0. Winnipeg scored at 15:24 to make it a one-goal game, and he did not see the ice again. When your sixth defenseman does not play in the last nine minutes of a close game, the Canadiens are really playing with five defensemen. A sixth spot that plays ten minutes can be rotated, and that is what I believe is happening.

This is why I expect Xhekaj to be back in the lineup Thursday in Dallas. I see a one-game rotation, not a demotion. That is my opinion, not something the club has said.

The Larkin Rumour and Kris Draper

The other angle is pure speculation, and I could be completely wrong about it. Still, the timing is interesting, so let me lay out what is known and what is not.

The Dylan Larkin rumour got louder over the last 24 hours. Detroit’s captain has a list of 10 teams he would accept a trade to, and Montreal is not on it. Pierre LeBrun reported that the Red Wings are preparing in case Larkin changes his mind, and that they are still looking at the Canadiens’ prospects and assets. Earlier this month, Elliotte Friedman said the Red Wings’ visit to the Bell Centre “moved the needle a bit,” but not enough for Larkin to agree to a trade to Montreal. Friedman added that a deal would only move forward if the two teams first agreed on a trade and then went to Larkin. That is a long way from a done deal.

Here is the part that caught my attention. Red Wings assistant general manager Kris Draper has been at recent Canadiens games and is expected to be in St. Louis tonight. He has been in the building for the Habs, and now he is in the building for a game with a lineup change that moves a 22-year-old Swedish defenseman into the lineup.

There is another way to read Draper’s trip, and it may be the more likely one. Detroit still has to sign Simon Edvinsson, a young defenseman who returned to Sweden and must have a new contract by December 1. Detroit has reportedly talked with other teams about him, and the Blues are a team that interests Detroit because they have young players. Draper may be in St. Louis for the Blues and Edvinsson, not for Montreal at all.

Here is my theory, and I want to be clear that it is only a theory. If the Larkin rumours are true, and if Detroit asks Montreal for young players, the Canadiens may want to show Engstrom to a Red Wings executive who is in the building. Engstrom is 22, he is left-handed, and he has played 20 NHL games, with a 70 percent five-on-five expected-goals share this season in a short sample. I cannot prove any of it. Larkin has not put Montreal on his list, and Draper may just be doing his job. But when a veteran defenseman is scratched and a young one plays with an executive from the other team in the building, I think it is fair to ask the question.

Fowler Goes Again, and Dobeš Is Not Being Punished

Jacob Fowler starts for the third game in a row, and Dobeš is the backup. Since taking over the net, Fowler is 5-1-0 in six games. The NHL named him its third star of the week after he went 2-0-0 with a 1.00 goals-against average and a .964 save percentage, stopping 20 of 21 shots in Chicago and 33 of 34 in the Heritage Classic. We broke down whether he is now the Canadiens’ number one in our Fowler article.

Goalie	GP	Record	GAA	SV%
Jacob Fowler	6	5-1-0	1.79	.924
Jakub Dobeš	5	1-2-2	4.47	.847

Season totals before tonight’s game.

Some expected Dobeš to start tonight, and I understand why. St. Louis is where he grew up as a hockey player. He was born in Ostrava, moved to St. Louis at 16, played for the St. Louis AAA Blues youth team and went to De Smet Jesuit High School. For him this is a hometown game, with family and friends in the building, and those games come with extra emotion. He has also not played since the overtime loss to San Jose on October 20, when he allowed four goals on 30 shots.

Now look at it from the bench. The Canadiens want to win tonight, and they have a goalie who has won five in a row, who was named the NHL’s third star of the week, and who is playing with confidence. You go with the hot goalie. That is not a punishment for Dobeš, and it is not a slight on his hometown game. I believe it is the right call by St-Louis, and it is the same logic as the Xhekaj decision: the coach is picking the lineup that gives the team the best chance tonight and keeping everybody else ready.

I expect Dobeš to get the net Thursday night in Dallas. It keeps him sharp, it gives Fowler a night off after three straight starts, and it puts the focus back on his game, not on one bad week.

The lines tonight are the same as Sunday. The defense pairs are Hutson and Dobson, Matheson and Guhle, and Engstrom and Carrier. Nick Suzuki is out, Samuel Montembeault and Ivan Demidov are on injured reserve, and Xhekaj and Beck are the healthy scratches. You can always see the latest on our lineup page.

The Bottom Line

Tonight’s lines are the lines we know, with one change on the back end. Hutson and Dobson, Matheson and Guhle, and Engstrom and Carrier will take the ice in front of Fowler, who is 5-1-0 with a 1.79 goals-against average and has earned the net again. I do not read this as a message to Xhekaj or to Dobeš. It is a rotation on defense and a hot-goalie call in a building that means something to Dobeš, and the Larkin chatter is only that until someone confirms it. I expect both of them back Thursday in Dallas. No panic here.

Sources: NHL.com game data, play-by-play and shift reports, NHL EDGE tracking, MoneyPuck, RDS, Spector’s Hockey, Marqueur, Wikipedia.