It was time for Jon Merrill to make his Montreal Canadiens debut. He replaced Brett Kulak as Alexander Romanov’s partner on the third pairing in Wednesday night’s game against the Edmonton Oilers. Meanwhile, the only change on the forward side was demoting Jonathan Drouin to fourth-line duties and replacing him with Artturi Lehkonen in the top nine.
The game started off with incredible intensity. The two teams exchanged hit after hit without getting any kind of scolding from the referees. Three minutes in, everyone’s favourite pest, Corey Perry, dropped his gloves to settle the score with Montreal native Alex Chiasson.