How to Watch Tonight’s Habs Rookie Game

The Montreal Canadiens’ offseason is over! Roughly. The official season isn’t another month away, but we’re getting our first taste of 2022-23 Habs action tonight.

The Canadians are participating in a rookie tournament in Buffalo that begins tonight. They will play the Sabers rookie team tonight, followed by a contest with the New Jersey Devils rookies tomorrow night and an afternoon game against the Ottawa Senators rookies on Sunday.

The Habs have performed well over the past few years, and a few trades to the closing date last year when they were clearly sellers have resulted in an impressive crop of prospects. That becomes clear when you look at the group of players gathering for this year’s rookie tournament.

There are a total of five first-round picks on the squad, including the first overall winner Juraj Slafkovsky. Filip Mesar, Logan Mailloux, Kaiden Guhle and Justin Barron are also on the team and have been first-round picks in the last three NHL drafts.

La formation officielle du match de ce soir.

Tonight’s official lineup.#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/aPd8qSOPVs

— Canadiens Montreal (@CanadiensMTL) September 15, 2022

Tonight’s lineup will be fun to watch. The front row of Slafkovsky, Riley Kidney and Mesar will bring a lot of skill to the ice. Kidney had 100 points in the QMJHL last season, including 70 assists, leading the league and his two wingers are likely high-profile prospects.

This will be a first real chance for Habs fans to get a glimpse of Emil Heineman, who was brought in from the Calgary Flames as part of Tyler Toffoli’s return last season. He will be on the second row with second-round pick Owen Beck and Lucas Condotta.

Xavier Simoneau played his overage season in the QMJHL last year, scoring 86 points in just 48 games. He will play with Jan Mysak and the two are likely to be Laval Rocket teammates this season. Cedrick Guindon is on her wing after being drafted by the Canadians in the 4th round of the 2022 NHL Draft.

The fourth row features Brett Stapley with Jared Davidson and Ryan Francis.

The Canadiens’ defense will be pretty exciting to watch, too, and that’s without their top two D prospects, Guhle and Mailloux, playing at all. Mailloux is injured with a shoulder problem that has dragged on since last season and Guhle has been struggling with an injury all summer and the team want him to train more before getting into a game scenario.

It will be Mattias Norlinder, playing with Justin Barron, two players who have NHL experience with the Habs from last season. The same goes for Jordan Harris, who will play alongside William Trudeau tonight, and Arber Xhekaj is in the third pairing with Miguel Tourigny.

The game can be streamed online via the Canadiens website, their youtube page, their Twitter feed, or on Facebook. Game starts at 7:00 PM EST.