Another game, another must-win outing for the Montreal Canadiens, who will be hosting the Carolina Hurricanes at the Bell Centre on Tuesday night.
The Montreal Canadiens will try to win a second game in a row when they take on another team from the Metropolitan Division: the Carolina Hurricanes. Unlike the Habs, the Canes are not in a playoff race; they sit atop their division and have a 10-point lead on the Pittsburgh Penguins. However, they now have some competition for the Conference title, thanks to their incredible performance this season; the Buffalo Sabres now trail them by a single point.
Carolina comes to town running a three-game win streak and with a 7-3-0 record in its last 10 games, while the Canadiens are 5-4-1. Tuesday night’s tilt will be the second of three games between the two teams this season, and they’ll meet again on Sunday night. Montreal came out on top in the first game with a 7-5 win in January.
Neither team has confirmed who will be in the net for the game, but both Canadiens goaltenders will see some action this week with four games in the next six days. While Jacob Fowler has won his last game, it wasn’t his best performance, and Jakub Dobes has a 2.20 goals-against average and a .917 save percentage in his last five games. The latter is the only one who has faced Carolina so far, but only once as he backstopped Montreal to the win over the Canes in January.
Meanwhile, Frederik Andersen has faced Montreal 22 times in his career and has a 15-5-2 record with a 2.29 GAA and a .924 SV. As for Brandon Bussi, he has only faced them once, earlier this season, finishing with a 6.17 GAA and a .727 SV%.
Up front, the Canadiens will hope the first line can keep its incredible form up. Nick Suzuki and Juraj Slafkovsky are both on a six-game point streak, while Cole Caufield is running a five-game point streak. None of them has been particularly productive against Carolina in the past, however. The captain has seven points in 15 games, the sniper three points in 10 games, and the power forward four points in seven games. Brendan Gallagher leads the team in points against Carolina with 16 points in 32 games, followed by Phillip Danault with 13 points in 23 games, and Noah Dobson is third with nine points in 18 games.
It’s a different story for the Canes, who have five players who have over 20 points against the Habs. Sebastian Aho leads them all with 29 points in 23 games, followed by Taylor Hall with 23 points in 28 duels and Jordan Staal, who also has 23 points, but in 55 games. Nikolaj Ehlers has 22 points in as many games, and Shayne Gostisbehere has 20 points in 25 tilts. As for Andrei Svechnikov, he has 19 points in just 18 games. The Canadiens will need to keep a very close eye on Aho, who put up five points in the only meeting between the two sides this season, while Ehlers and Svechnikov had three each.
The Canadiens have only won three of the last 10 games against the Hurricanes, but that includes the last two meetings and three of the last four. However, Carolina has outscored Montreal 36-25 in those last 10 games, and the Habs will need a good performance from their goaltender to come out on top on Tuesday night.
The game is set for 7:00 PM, and you can catch it on RDS, TSN2, and FDSNSO. Kendrick Nicholson and Jake Brenk are set to officiate, while Ryan Daisy and Jonathan Deschamps will be the linemen. Montreal is still third in the Atlantic Division with 86 points, but the Boston Bruins have the same number of points and have three more regulation wins. As for the Detroit Red Wings, they are now ninth, having been overtaken by the Islanders, who bounced back from their loss in Montreal with a 1-0 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets. Whichever way you look at it, the Canadiens need to put some distance between themselves and the teams chasing them; Boston and Detroit have more regulation wins and would therefore win the tiebreaker.
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