Golden Knights at Canadiens preview

GOLDEN KNIGHTS (25-19-6) at CANADIENS (21-21-7)
7 p.m. ET; CITY, SNE, TVAS, ATTSN-RM, NHL.TV

Fleury, who will make his fourth straight start, has 458 wins in his League career, tied with New York Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist.
Peter DeBoer will coach his second game for Vegas, which ended a four-game losing streak with a 4-2 win at the Ottawa Senators in his debut Thursday.
Goalie Carey Price will start for the Canadiens, 3-1-0 in their past four games following an eight-game winless streak (0-7-1).

Players to watch

Golden Knights forward Max Pacioretty has one assist in two games against Montreal since he was acquired in a trade with the Canadiens on Sept. 10, 2018.
Canadiens forward Ilya Kovalchuk has seven points (three goals, four assists) in seven games since signing with Montreal on Jan. 3.

They said it

"You want to see them start thinking about some situations, but you also want them to do it without slowing down or overthinking. So that's the fine line, but we've got a smart group and I'm not changing everything here or reinventing the wheel. So I think it's stuff that they can start to implement and we'll start to plant those seeds." -- Golden Knights coach Peter DeBoer
"They're obviously a good team to begin with, a lot of good players, and usually a team that makes a coaching change, guys are kind of on edge and it seems to bring out the best in guys in most occasions." -- Canadiens defenseman Shea Weber on Vegas

Golden Knights projected lineup

Max Pacioretty -- Paul Stastny -- Mark Stone
Jonathan Marchessault -- Chandler Stephenson -- Reilly Smith
Tomas Nosek -- Cody Eakin -- Alex Tuch
William Carrier --
Nicolas Roy
-- Ryan Reaves
Brayden McNabb -- Nate Schmidt
Nick Holden -- Shea Theodore
Nicolas Hague -- Deryk Engelland
Marc-Andre Fleury
Malcolm Subban
Scratched: Jon Merrill
Injured: William Karlsson (upper body), Cody Glass (lower body)

Canadiens projected lineup

Tomas Tatar -- Phillip Danault -- Ilya Kovalchuk
Max Domi -- Nick Suzuki -- Joel Armia
Ryan Poehling -- Jesperi Kotkaniemi -- Artturi Lehkonen
Nick Cousins -- Nate Thompson -- Dale Weise
Ben Chiarot -- Shea Weber
Marco Scandella -- Jeff Petry
Brett Kulak -- Victor Mete
Carey Price
Charlie Lindgren
Scratched: Cale Fleury, Jordan Weal
Injured: Brendan Gallagher (upper body), Paul Byron (upper body), Jonathan Drouin (wrist)

Status report

Each team is using the same lineup as its previous game. … Byron, who had knee surgery on Nov. 19, skated for the first time Friday.

Stat pack

Stastny has seven points (three goals, four assists) in his past seven games. … Tatar has six points (one goal, five assists) in his past five games. … Canadiens coach Claude Julien needs one win to pass Ron Wilson (648) for sole possession of 13th place on the NHL all-time coaching list.