Montreal Canadiens Game Preview: Home on the Range(er)
The Montreal Canadiens are in desperate need of a win as they are set to take on the New York Rangers in the final game of this home stretch.
It’s starting to get real testy for the Montreal Canadiens at the moment. More seats are being left unclaimed and the fans are starting to boo the team more. Not even fan favourite Carey Price can escape the wrath as he was getting the, “Bronx Call”, in their last game.
Again the team finds themselves in a must-win scenario. The first was against the Toronto Maple Leafs because of the dominant and historical significance behind it. Montreal lost that game ending a 14-game winning streak against them. Back then, that loss had them at a 1-3-1 record. The Montreal Canadiens are 2-7-1 at the moment and they’ll need to have a productive effort to put an end to this.
With the injury to Nikita Scherbak last game, it looks like Torrey Mitchell is going to draw in to the lineup. There hasn’t been a clear decision as to who will be playing center between Michael McCarron and Jacob de La Rose, but I’d put my money on it being the former.
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It’s literally a battle between teams who have both had terrible starts to their season. The New York Rangers won their last game against the Arizona Coyotes, who are significantly worse, but they are in need of another win just as much as the Habs.
Ondrej Pavelec will be getting the start. He had a decent performance against the Coyotes in the 5-2 win finishing with a .931 save percentage. The Habs will have Price in net and hopefully he doesn’t have as much bad luck as he had on Thursday.
Marc Bergevin told media that he believes the team’s problem is their confidence. To some extent yeah, but the team is still making outrageous defensive errors and can’t capitalize on their scoring chances. As much as Bergevin wants to refrain from making an impulsive change to the team, it may be better than continuing to be a bottom-feeder. That is unless the team decides to tank the rest of the season, but they’ll cross that bridge if they get to it.
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What are your predictions for the game? Will they generate more offence? Let us know your thoughts down below.