Philadelphia Flyers vs. Montreal Canadiens Pick & Prediction JANUARY 10th 2024

The Philadelphia Flyers will hope to rebound from a disappointing three-goal loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins when they host the Montreal Canadiens on Wednesday.

Owen Tippett scored the lone goal in the 4-1 defeat.

Goaltender Carter Hart made 35 saves, but the Flyers fell to 1-3-2 in their last six games.

“We just weren’t good,” Flyers coach John Tortorella said. “We were not good enough in either end, and that’s the result.”

Chad Ruhwedel’s rare goal, his first of the season, gave the Penguins a 3-1 advantage at 8:07 of the second period. That was the goal that perplexed Tortorella.

“Third goal was the one that gets you,” Tortorella said. “We spent too much time in our end zone. We didn’t come out clean enough. … We just weren’t clean coming out and if you give that team opportunities on breakouts, sooner or later the momentum changes. I thought we fought, we just struggled scoring. We don’t have enough people going offensively. They were the better team.”

Travis Konecny had his seven-game points streak come to an end. He had five goals and five assists during that stretch.

During the game, it was announced that the Flyers traded forward Cutter Gauthier, the No. 5 overall pick in the 2022 draft, to the Anaheim Ducks for defenseman Jamie Drysdale and a second-round pick in the ‘25 draft.

Tortorella said that Drysdale is expected to practice Tuesday. His status is unclear for the game against the Canadiens.

“I think we’ve got a pretty good player coming back with Drysdale,” Hart said. “He’s a young guy, I heard he’s a great dude and obviously a really good player. I think he’s going to be a huge addition to our back end.”

The Canadiens will be playing for the first time since Saturday when they defeated the New York Rangers 4-3 in a shootout.

It was a bizarre game in which the Canadiens let a three-goal lead slip away, leading to overtime.

“Every night here is special, but there’s some nights that stand out a little bit more,” Canadiens forward Brendan Gallagher said. “A Saturday night when the Rangers are in town, it was a good hockey game. There were chances both ways. It was physical, and ‘Monty’ really stepped up and made some massive saves.”

Gallagher scored his first goal since Nov. 11.

Goaltender Sam Montembeault was stellar with 45 saves, including two more in the shootout.

“I try not to think too much when guys are coming down on me in the shootout,” Montembeault said. “But (Mika Zibanejad) did the same move on me last year — and scored. I made a nice save this time and I’m really happy.”

Montembeault’s performance likely has vaulted him into the No. 1 goaltender job ahead of Jake Allen and Cayden Primeau.

“I think (Montembeault) has had more starts than the other two,” Montreal coach Martin St. Louis said. “I’d say there’s some kind of separation there. There are things that progress throughout the season, and you see that now. He’s earning all the extra starts, so to speak, that he’s getting now that maybe he wasn’t getting early on.

“We’re going to keep managing that. It might not be the easiest situation to deal with, but I think we’ve done a great job with it.”

–Field Level Media