Montreal Canadiens vs St. Louis Blues Prediction: Best Bet for Tuesday

Montreal has taken points from four straight games, but the Canadiens play this one without Nick Suzuki, who is out with an upper-body injury and leads the team with 12 points. St. Louis scores and allows the same 3.18 goals per game, a perfectly even team that gets to test a visitor missing its top center on the road.

The Matchup

Montreal's 6-3-2 record has been built on goaltending and opportunism. The Canadiens score 3.09 goals per game and allow 3.27, a negative differential on a winning team, and the crease explains it. Jacob Fowler is 5-1 with a 1.79 goals-against average and a .924 save percentage in six starts, a rookie-level sensation who has taken the net while Sam Montembeault sits on injured reserve and Jakub Dobes has struggled at 4.47 and .847.

Montreal won 4-1 at Chicago and 2-1 at Winnipeg in its last two games, both on the road, and its road mark is 3-1-1. Cole Caufield leads the healthy forwards with 6 goals and 10 points, and Juraj Slafkovsky has 8 points.

St. Louis is the most even team on the slate, literally. The Blues score 3.18 goals per game and allow 3.18, sit at 5-5-1, and have beaten Winnipeg and Vegas in the last week while losing 4-0 to Carolina on Saturday. Mason McTavish and Dylan Holloway lead St. Louis with 10 points each, and Jimmy Snuggerud has 6 goals.

The crease is a two-speed story. Joel Hofer is 4-3 with a 2.40 goals-against average and a .917 save percentage across eight starts, while Jordan Binnington is 1-2 at 4.68 and .831 in three. Which Blues team shows up depends heavily on which goalie starts.

Key Factors

The game's biggest fact is an absence. Nick Suzuki is out with an upper-body injury. Suzuki leads Montreal with 12 points and centers its top line and first power-play unit, and Montreal's power play already converts at only 12.5 percent with him.

Without him, Caufield loses the playmaker who gets him the puck in stride, and a road offense that lives on Fowler's goaltending has to win shifts against a full St. Louis top six. Ivan Demidov is also on injured reserve with a lower-body injury, removing another skilled forward from a thin group.

St. Louis's power play, at 24.1 percent, is the best unit in this game, and it runs at a Montreal kill of 82.6 percent that has been good but will spend the night without its best defensive center in front of it. The Blues' own kill matches at 82.8 percent, so Montreal's weakened power play has no soft target either.

The counterpoint wears a Montreal mask. Fowler has been the best goalie in this game by a wide margin this season, and a hot goalie on the road is the oldest upset script in hockey. If Fowler holds St. Louis to two, Montreal needs very little from its Suzuki-less offense, and the Canadiens have already won twice on this trip. St. Louis also carries its own goalie risk. A Binnington start, at 4.68 goals against, hands Montreal the opening its skaters may not create.

Every pick is published with its line before the game. Odds via consensus sportsbooks at time of writing and move constantly. Must be 21+. If gambling is a problem, call or text 1-800-GAMBLER.