OK. So, it was different this morning at practice because Cole Caufield was absent at the beginning of the session... and he won't be participating in tonight's duel. Does the Habs want to take it easy on the young man's shoulder before the season starts? That's probably the most likely scenario at this point.
In the case of Brendan Gallagher, Ducharme and his teammates preferred to leave him with Jake Evans and Joel Armia so that this unit could develop chemistry. Ryan Poehling will have another chance to shine as he will be playing alongside Rafael Harvey-Pinard and Artturi Lehkonen.
Defensively, Kaiden Guhle will once again be paired with David Savard, while Gianni Fairbrother will again be uniformed, as he has greatly impressed so far.
UPDATE - 10:50: Okay. Caufield won't be in uniform tonight, but he did jump on the ice later than the others, as did Christian Dvorak. So it's understandable that the players scratched tonight simply jumped on the ice after the others. That's it!
For Caufield, we want to wait to play him again, I guess. Which probably means that the little number 22 will be in the last preseason game... We speculate!
