The Montreal Canadiens have had one of the hottest power plays in the league hitting at numbers they haven’t reached in years.
Good Morning Montreal Canadiens fans, we’ve officially gotten through ANOTHER break in the season.
The latest surge of wins from the Habs have been getting people talking. Although the chances of making the playoffs are at a lowly 1.5% (via sportsclubstats.com) and they have to acquire eight points while leapfrogging six other teams, the hope hasn’t completely run out. However, the playoffs aren’t something fans and analysts, as far as the Habs go, are talking about. Have you seen the power play?
After scoring five goals on the man advantage over the weekend, the Habs’ power play is now firing at 21.6%! That has them seventh in the league behind the Boston Bruins and in front of the Minnesota Wild. It’s been many moons since the Montreal Canadiens had a 20% power play. In fact, the last time was in the 2012-13 season when they finished at 20.69%.
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We can’t fail to mention that this coincides with Jeff Petry‘s latest offensive performances for the team. The 26-year-old is continuing to step up for the Habs and had three of their five man-advantage goals. Obviously, the team misses Shea Weber‘s booming slap shot from the point, but they’re finding other ways to get it done and it worked against Anaheim and Ottawa.
Brendan Gallagher was asked yesterday what the power play is doing to be this successful where he replied saying:
"If I had to point to one thing it’s probably our puck retrieval. We’re getting a lot of loose pucks back and it’s creating second and third opportunities whenever you hemm penalty killers in. The more opportunity you get with the puck in the zone I think the more chance you have to score and it’s been paying off (and) we’ve been making some good shots but the recoveries of the puck have led to that."
If that’s what it is, then it’ll be interesting to see if the Habs can keep it going. They may have a chance to against the Flyers who have a bottom five penalty kill, but it’ll all come down to execution at the end.
Morning Links
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