After the Dallas Stars obliterated the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday night at the Bell Centre, Martin St-Louis had set a practice at 11:30 on Friday morning for his men. Still, at 10:00, two players were already jumping on the ice.

The Montreal Canadiens weren’t expected to be major players in the David Kampf sweepstakes. Then Alex Newhook went down — and everything changed. The injury, which looked troubling the moment it happened,

Kämpf, a valuable penalty-killer and faceoff man, was waived by the Maple Leafs on Thursday and cleared waivers to become a UFA on Friday.

Dallas scored first and opened the offensive floodgates in Montreal en route to a season-high fourth straight victory

MONTREAL (AP) – Jason Robertson had two goals and an assist, Casey DeSmith stopped 24 shots for his first shutout of the season, and the Dallas Stars beat the Montreal Canadiens 7-0 on Thursday night.

BOTTOM LINE: The Montreal Canadiens host the Dallas Stars after the Stars took down the Ottawa Senators 3-2 in overtime. Montreal has a 10-4-2 record overall and a 5-2-1 record on its home ice. The Canadiens have a 7-2-1 record in games decided by a goal.

Martin St-Louis had no NHL coaching experience when he became the Montreal Canadiens coach but 300 games in, it's obvious that he was the right man for the job.