Canadiens at Sabres preview

CANADIENS (26-36-12) at SABRES (23-38-12)
7 p.m. ET; MSG-B, TSN2, RDS, NHL.TV

Girgensons missed the past two games with an undisclosed injury. He will play on line with Jack Eichel and Jason Pominville.
Goaltender Linus Ullmark will start for the Sabres, who have lost two straight games and are 1-3-1 in their past five.
Defenseman Nathan Beaulieu will miss the game with an upper-body injury.
Antti Niemi will start for the Canadiens, who have lost four in a row and have been shut out in two of their past three. Montreal is 1-7-2 in its past 10 games.
Montreal and Buffalo have been eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention.

Players to watch

Canadiens forward Jonathan Drouin has five points (two goals, three assists) in his past six games.
Sabres forward Sam Reinhart has nine points (four goals, five assists) in his past nine games.

They said it

"When you're not in the playoffs you have to look at your situation differently, and that's what we're doing right now; we're just allowing guys to play in certain situations that they normally wouldn't if we were healthy at this point." -- Canadiens coach Claude Julien on the number of young players in the lineup
"For us, we're continuing to try and build here. ... We have seven divisional games remaining; these games are meaningful. This is one area that in our season that we can hang our hat on something, and it's got to start tonight." -- Sabres coach Phil Housley

Canadiens projected lineup

Paul Byron -- Jonathan Drouin -- Brendan Gallagher
Alex Galchenyuk -- Jacob de la Rose -- Artturi Lehkonen
Nikita Scherbak -- Logan Shaw -- Charles Hudon
Nicolas Deslauriers -- Byron Froese -- Daniel Carr
Mike Reilly -- Jeff Petry
Karl Alzner -- Noah Juulsen
Jordie Benn -- Brett Lernout
Antti Niemi
Carey Price
Scratched:Michael McCarron
Injured:Ales Hemsky (concussion-like symptoms), Max Pacioretty (knee), Victor Mete (finger), David Schlemko (upper body), Rinat Valiev (lower body), Phillip Danault (upper body), Andrew Shaw (upper body)

Sabres projected lineup

Scott Wilson -- Ryan O'Reilly -- Sam Reinhart
Zemgus Girgensons -- Jack Eichel -- Jason Pominville
Benoit Pouliot -- Evan Rodrigues -- Nick Baptiste
Jordan Nolan -- Johan Larsson -- Kyle Okposo
Marco Scandella -- Rasmus Ristolainen
Brendan Guhle -- Casey Nelson
Josh Gorges -- Victor Antipin
Linus Ullmark
Robin Lehner
Scratched:Justin Bailey, Justin Falk
Injured:Nathan Beaulieu (upper body), Chad Johnson (upper body), Jacob Josefson (lower body), Kyle Criscuolo (upper body), Jake McCabe (shoulder), Zach Bogosian (hip)

Status report

Deslauriers will face the Sabres in Buffalo for the first time since he was traded to Montreal on Oct. 4. ... Johnson skated Friday morning; he left the game against the Arizona Coyotes on Wednesday after taking a shot in the mask.

Stat pack

The Canadiens have allowed at least four goals in six of their past nine games. … Eichel has one assist and 10 shots on goal in three games since he returned from a right high-ankle sprain.