Montreal Canadiens at Minnesota Wild Preview, Game Time, TV, Live Stream
The Montreal Canadiens take on the Minnesota Wild for the second time in four days. They will be looking to duplicate their effort against the Wild from Thursday night.
The Montreal Canadiens were a bit of a roller coaster ride to begin the season. They would come flying out of the gates in a game, then suffer a letdown and fall behind, only to come storming back in the third period and force extra time.
This pattern emerged in their first three games of the season. A shootout loss to the Carolina Hurricanes, a shootout win over the Toronto Maple Leafs and an overtime loss to the Buffalo Sabres all came after good starts, tough stretches and huge comebacks.
It was more of the same against the St. Louis Blues, through they were able to win 6-3 in regulation after falling behind 3-2. The Canadiens played well against the Tampa Bay Lightning after that but lost 3-1 due to a huge game from Bolts netminder Andrei Vasilevskiy.
Where the Canadiens finally looked great from start to finish was their 4-0 victory over the Minnesota Wild. Nick Suzuki and Victor Mete both scored the first goals of their careers, the team limited the Wild to 17 shots and Price grabbed his first shutout of the season.
It was a complete, dominant victory for the Canadiens that led Wild forward Jason Zucker to call out his coach and teammates. He basically said everyone needs to be better but he named Bruce Boudreau by name while doing it so it caused a bit of a stir. I’d expect him to play extremely well today to try and get back on his coaches good side.
The Wild are going to need Zucker, along with several of their other high priced players to step up. After seven games this season, they have a record of 1-6-0 which has them in last place in the entire National Hockey League. Their leading scorer is Brad Hunt, a 31 year old defenseman who has twice as many AHL games played than NHL games in his career.
I would expect to see backup goaltender Keith Kinkaid suit up for the second time this season. The low scoring Wild provide a perfect opportunity for Kinkaid to get into the lineup, especially since it is the second game in two days for the Canadiens.
Here is everything you need to know about today’s contest with the Minnesota Wild: