Report: Julien officially confirms 2 Habs out for tonight's game.

The Montreal Canadiens are set for what is always a very important match up for their franchise and for their fan base, a game against arguably their most bitter rivals, the Boston Bruins. 

As you would expect the Canadiens will be pulling out all of the stops in order to pick up a win against their hated rivals and on Saturday morning during the Canadiens morning skate we got some indication of who will be in and who will be out tonight. Unsurprisingly Noah Juulsen was once again not an active participant in practice due to what remains a mysterious "upper body injury" and head coach Claude Julien would later confirm that the promising young defenseman was indeed out of the line up this evening. 

Unfortunately for fans of the Canadiens that means that veteran defenseman Karl Alzner, he of one of the worst contracts in the National Hockey League right now, will be stepping in to replace Juulsen. Alzner has looked quite bad to start the 2018 - 2019 NHL regular season for the Canadiens and that on top of the big money that he is currently pulling in has resulted in a lot of animosity and derision from the Habs fan base. 

The other big question this morning at the Habs morning skate was which player would be sitting out tonight's game due to the return of 24 year old winger Charles Hudon. Initially it looked like 2 time Stanley Cup winner Andrew Shaw would be the one sitting out due to his extra skating time during the morning skate and Julien would go on to confirm that during his media availability after the fact.

For Shaw this marks yet another healthy scratch as the veteran forward has seemingly fallen well out of favor with head coach Claude Julien, and it will only further serve to fuel the trade talk around Shaw that has been flying freely this season. As a decorated NHL player this has to feel like a low point for Shaw in his NHL career and it will be interesting to see if this begins to light under a fire under the gritty forward. 

The Habs face off against the Bruins tonight at 7 pm EST.

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