Montreal Canadiens: 3 Keys To Victory over Toronto Maple Leafs

Montreal Canadiens have not played a game since last Saturday when they took on the Toronto Maple Leafs. They pulled out a 2-1 win over their division rivals, and will look to repeat that feat tonight when they face the Maple Leafs once again.

After a six day break, we finally get to see the Habs in action once again.

The Leafs have been busy since their last meeting with the Canadiens. They played the Ottawa Senators on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday night. They blew a 5-1 lead on Monday night to lose in overtime, but bounced back with a pair of wins later in the week.

The Maple Leafs appear to be a little banged up at the moment. They did get Joe Thornton back in the lineup, but lost Zach Hyman and Rasmus Sandin to injuries. There was no word on Hyman’s availability for tonight’s game as of this morning.

Tonight’s battle is yet another that features the top two teams in a rather thin Canadian Division. The Leafs are 13-3-2 on the season to lead the division while the Habs are 9-4-2, settling into second place though they’ve played less games than everyone else in the division.

The Canadiens were able to win their latest meeting 2-1, but fell 4-2 earlier last week to the Maple Leafs and lost 5-4 in overtime on opening night to Toronto.

What can the Habs do to ensure they come out on the winning side once again tonight? Here are their three keys to finding victory against the Toronto Maple Leafs tonight.

Start Carey Price

Carey Price has earned the nickname “Mr. Saturday Night” for his performances over the years on the night when the lights shine brightest around the National Hockey League. He’s been good for years, but he always seemed to step it up a notch when playing on Hockey Night In Canada.

Of course, it didn’t matter what day of the week it was in recent years, Price was going to get the start. This season, with Jake Allen in town, Price is taking more nights off than he ever has since taking over the starting role in Montreal over a decade ago.

However, it was still quite surprising when Jake Allen started against the Ottawa Senators two Saturday’s ago after the Habs had Friday off and had Sunday off as well. This situation was a no-brainer that it would be Price’s game for 11 years, but Allen is here to take on some of Price’s burden and he did that night with a great performance.

But Price has to start tonight. He has played three games on Saturday so far this season and is 3-0-0 with a 1.33 goals against average and a .951 save percentage. When Price won the Vezina and Hart Trophy’s in 2015, he basically duplicated those numbers over 20 Saturday starts.

Saturday is Price’s night. He showed it again last weekend and needs to have the chance to show it again tonight.

Balance

The Canadiens can’t boast about their superstars the way many other teams in Canada can. The Leafs have Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, John Tavares and William Nylander. The Canadiens just don’t have anyone who can score as much as any of those players.

Tyler Toffoli and Jeff Petry have been keeping up with Nylander and Tavares thus far, but I don’t expect those two Habs players to continue scoring at a point per game pace all year long.

What the Canadiens do have is tremendous depth. While the Maple Leafs are trying to make Jimmy Vesey work as a top six winger and will likely give Alex Galchenyuk a chance to play on the second line, the Habs simply don’t have room for players like that on their roster at all.

Without injuries, the Habs have to choose to make either Corey Perry or Paul Byron (or Tomas Tatar) a healthy scratch. I think it is safe to say Byron could beat out Pierre Engvall for a third line role if he was on the Maple Leafs.

The Maple Leafs are routinely playing Matthews and Marner over 22 minutes per night. This leaves very few minutes for the Leafs fourth liners as they all average less than ten minutes per night. This allows the Habs to have an extra gear in the third period that the Leafs can’t match.

The Habs came back from down 1-0 after the second period to win 2-1 in their last meeting. This was reminiscent of last season when the Canadiens outscored the Leafs 8-3 in the third periods of their three contests. A deep, balanced approach will give the Habs the upper hand as the game moves along.

Rolling all four lines like they usually do, and taking advantage of the fact they haven’t played in six days, should give the Canadiens an advantage later in tonight’s game.