Montreal Canadiens goaltender Al Montoya is expected to make his 13th start of the season in the first of a back-to-back. Carey Price will likely play at home against the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday. Montoya is 5-2-2 with a 1.55 goals-against average and .938 save percentage in 10 games against the Devils. The Canadiens, who did not hold a morning skate, are 2-4-0 in the past six games and have been outscored 24-15 during that stretch. "We need to play a lot tighter, play our style of hockey," coach Michel Therrien said after practice Thursday. "I find we've been getting away from that of late, so we have to get back to basics." Center Alex Galchenyuk, who was playing between Max Pacioretty and Alexander Radulov for the past three games since returning to the lineup from a knee injury, was centering Andrew Shaw and Sven Andrighetto at practice on Thursday. "It's very easy to see that Alex isn't at the level he was at earlier in the season, not only offensively but defensively," Therrien said. "I take some responsibility for that as well, putting him on the top line right away in the hopes he would come back from his injury playing at the same level. It's not hard to see that he's not there yet, so we're making some adjustments. Once we see his level of play is back to where it was, we'll adjust again at that time." Galchenyuk has one goal and four shots since returning to the lineup after missing 18 games. "I played with [Andrighetto] last year down the stretch when [Brendan Gallagher] got injured," Galchenyuk said. "He's a skilled forward. He skates with the puck well and he sees the ice well, so hopefully we'll have that chemistry because we played pretty well last year."
