The Canadiens play outdoors tonight. The Tim Hortons NHL Heritage Classic puts Montreal in Winnipeg against the Jets at Princess Auto Stadium, with puck drop at 7:00 PM ET. It is the first Heritage Classic in the NHL since 2023 and the eighth in league history, and several Canadiens will play their first outdoor game. The Canadiens are 5-3-2 with 12 points after a 4-1 win in Chicago on Friday and are 2-1-1 on the road, and the Jets are 4-3-3 with 11 points, have not won since October 13 and play their first game since trading Connor Hellebuyck. Martin St-Louis makes one change, Florian Xhekaj is back in for Owen Beck, Jacob Fowler is confirmed in goal, and the road trip needs a second good night. Here is how the lines should look, who is hurt, and what to watch. Our full Lineup Tonight page has the stats for every player.

One Change: Xhekaj In, Beck Out

The lines are the same as Friday’s 4-1 win over the Blackhawks with one exception. St-Louis puts Florian Xhekaj back on the fourth line with Jake Evans and Kirby Dach, and Owen Beck comes out of the lineup. With Nick Suzuki out, Oliver Kapanen still centers Juraj Slafkovský and Cole Caufield on the first line. The defense pairs are different from Friday: Arber Xhekaj plays with Noah Dobson, Kaiden Guhle stays with Alexandre Carrier, and Mike Matheson plays with Lane Hutson. Beck and Adam Engström are the expected scratches. We will update this article and the Lineup Tonight page if anything changes at warmup.

Group	Players
Line 1	Slafkovský – Kapanen – Caufield
Line 2	Kreider – Newhook – Anderson
Line 3	Texier – Danault – Bolduc
Line 4	F. Xhekaj – Evans – Dach
Defense	Hutson – Dobson
Defense	Matheson – Guhle
Defense	A. Xhekaj – Carrier
Goalies	Fowler (expected starter), Dobeš
Scratches	Beck, Engström

The fourth line is the only place that moves, and it comes off a good night. Evans scored twice in Chicago, one of them short-handed, and he and Dach and Beck combined for five points. Xhekaj steps into a line that is working, so his job is to keep the forecheck going and the shifts simple.

Fowler Starts Again

Fowler played the full game on Friday and stopped 20 of 21 shots, and St-Louis confirmed he gets the net again with one day between games. He is 4-1-0 with a .910 save percentage and a 1.94 goals-against average in five games. Jakub Dobeš is 1-2-2 with a .847 save percentage and a 4.47 goals-against average, so the choice is easy to explain. At 21 years and 335 days, he will become the youngest goalie in NHL history to start an outdoor game. Winnipeg ranks 24th in goals per game at 2.60, so a steady night from Fowler can keep this one close.

Know Your Opponent: The Jets

The biggest story in Winnipeg is the goalie situation. The Jets traded Connor Hellebuyck to the New Jersey Devils on Friday, after his offseason trade request became public on August 27 and he refused to report to camp. Winnipeg received forwards Dawson Mercer and Nick Bjugstad, goalie Nico Daws, prospect Alexander Command and two draft picks. The trade came after the Jets lost in overtime in Dallas on Thursday, so tonight is their first game since it. Mercer is expected to play tonight on a line with Adam Lowry and to work on the penalty kill. Bjugstad is recovering from offseason upper-body surgery and is expected to be out until at least January.

That leaves Stuart Skinner and Clay Stevenson as the NHL goalies. Skinner is 3-1-3 with a .912 save percentage and a 2.67 goals-against average in seven games, and he is expected to start. Stevenson is 1-2-0 with a .893 save percentage in three games.

Up front, Kyle Connor leads the team with 9 goals and 12 points in 10 games. Cole Perfetti has 6 goals and 9 points, Mark Scheifele has 8 points (2 goals, 6 assists), and defenseman Neal Pionk has 7 points while playing 24:35 a night. Josh Morrissey has played only 4 of the 10 games. The Jets have been good at keeping the puck out of their net, with 2.90 goals against per game (eighth in the league), but they are winless in four games, 0-2-2 since beating Minnesota on October 13, including overtime losses in Chicago and Dallas.

Special Teams Will Matter

This is where the game can tilt. Winnipeg’s power play is at 22.2 percent, and the Canadiens’ penalty kill is at 81.0 percent, almost identical to the Jets’ own kill at 80.8 percent. The Canadiens’ power play is the weak spot at 12.5 percent. Hutson and Dobson are on the first unit with Caufield, Kapanen and Slafkovský, and the second unit has Kreider, Bolduc, Texier and Newhook with Matheson at the point. Montreal needs to stay out of the box, and when the Jets give the Canadiens a power play, they have to cash one in.

One more number to watch on the blue line. Hutson has 20 goals in 176 games, and he enters tonight with the fourth-most goals by a Canadiens defenseman at age 22 or younger. Only Mathieu Schneider (25 in 195 games), Petr Svoboda (22 in 338) and P.K. Subban (21 in 160) have more.

Heritage Classic History

This is the eighth Tim Hortons NHL Heritage Classic and the third for both clubs. Montreal played in 2003, when it beat Edmonton in the first one at Commonwealth Stadium, and in 2011. Winnipeg played in 2016 and 2019, and the Jets won the 2019 game in overtime over a Calgary team whose goalie, David Rittich, made 43 saves. Both teams are 1-1-0 in these games.

The Canadiens are 2-2-0 in four outdoor games, counting the 2016 Winter Classic in Boston and the 2017 NHL100 Classic in Ottawa along with the two Heritage Classics. Tonight is their fifth, which breaks a tie with the Maple Leafs (2-2-0 in four games) for the most by a Canadian-based franchise. Montreal has been the visiting team in all five, the second most among all franchises behind the New York Rangers, who have six.

Injury Updates

Suzuki is out with a left-hand injury from blocking a shot against San Jose earlier this week, and the team projects two to four weeks. He missed his first game in Chicago, and his streak of consecutive games ended at 546. Ivan Demidov is still on injured reserve and in a protective boot, and Samuel Montembeault is on injured reserve. The Injury Report page is updated with every change.

History and What Comes Next

Montreal is 5-4-1 against Winnipeg since 2021-22, with a 30-32 goal difference in those ten games. The Canadiens won two of the last three, including a 5-1 win in Winnipeg on February 4 and a 3-2 shootout win in Montreal on December 3. These teams meet again at the Bell Centre on November 3. After tonight the road trip continues Tuesday in St. Louis and Thursday in Dallas, then the Canadiens come home Saturday to face Pittsburgh. Check our Head to Head page and the schedule for the rest of the trip.

The plan for tonight is simple: a good start, no penalty parade, and a goaltender who gives the team a chance to settle in. The Canadiens beat Chicago with depth, and the Jets are looking for a way out of a four-game winless stretch, so the first period will set the tone.

Sources: NHL.com and official NHL statistics.