Montreal's problem is up the middle. Nick Suzuki took a Michael Kesselring shot off the left hand late in the loss to San Jose and is out 2-4 weeks. That ended a 546-game ironman run, the 2nd-longest active streak in the league. He was leading the team with 12 points in 9 games, and he had 101 last season. The Habs also have Ivan Demidov, Florian Xhekaj and goalie Sam Montembeault on IR, so this is a thinned-out lineup making the trip west.
Their 1st game without Suzuki went better than it had any right to. Montreal won 4-1 in Chicago. Jake Evans scored twice, one of them shorthanded, and the Canadiens scored 3 straight across the 2nd and 3rd after Connor Bedard opened the scoring. Montreal has alternated wins and losses for 5 games running, and nearly all of them were close: 4-3 twice over Buffalo, 4-5 in Washington, 3-4 against the Sharks. When this team plays, the scoreboard moves.
That's the gap that settles Sunday. Montreal keeps putting up 3 or 4 a night even with key bodies out. Winnipeg has scored 8 goals across its 4-game skid and is getting badly outshot. An outdoor sheet in late October, with puck drop at 6:00 PM CT, isn't going to make the game any cleaner. If the Jets want a skid-breaker, they'll need Mercer to give the top 6 something right away and Skinner, or whoever starts in net, to steal another one. This time the shots have to turn into a win.