Fresh off a tough 6-4 defeat against the Philadelphia Flyers, the Montreal Canadiens will face the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday night for the second of three meetings this season. The sole duel so far was held at the Bell Centre towards the end of February, when Samuel Montembeault backstopped the Habs to a 4-0 win.

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After making way for Jakub Dobes on Thursday night in Philadelphia, Montembeault will be back in net against the Canes. He’s taken on Carolina eight times so far and has a 1-5-1 record with a 3.01 goals-against average and a .912 save percentage. Those are hardly reassuring stats, considering the importance of the duel.

While the Canadiens were playing the Flyers on Thursday, Carolina last played on Tuesday night when they were beaten 3-1 by the Nashville Predators. Pyotr Kochetkov was in net that night, but he has a perfect record against the Canadiens, blanking them in his only game against them. As for Frederik Anderson, he has a 14-5-2 record against Martin St-Louis’ men with a 2.36 GAA and a .924 SP.

The Habs might have won the only duel between the two sides this season, but that’s the only game they’ve won against Carolina in the last 10 confrontations, and they’ve been outscored 36-14 in the process.

On the attack, Patrik Laine is the Canadiens’ most productive player against the Carolina outfit, with 22 points in 24 games, including a goal and two assists in the February match-up. Brendan Gallagher is second with 14 points in 29 games, followed by David Savard with 11 points in 45 duels.

The Canes are a team Montreal’s first line struggles against. Before the last match, Nick Suzuki had a single point in 12 tilts, but he did register three points in February, still he’s minus-15 against them. As for Cole Caufield, he has a single point in seven games and is minus-12. Juraj Slafkovsky has one point in four games and a minus-five rating. Friday night would be a good time to turn that around.

Meanwhile, the Hurricanes have got five players who have scored 20 points or over against the Canadiens; Sebastian Aho (23 points in 21 games), Jordan Staal (23 points in 53 games), Taylor Hall (21 points in 25 games), Brent Burns (20 points in 26 games) and Shayne Gostisbehere (20 points in 23 games).

Needless to say, the Habs have got their work cut out for them and they need to start winning soon if they want to make the playoffs. They are still in the second wild card spot, but largely because the other pretenders to the last spot for the Spring dance keep on losing, like the Detroit Red Wings last night who dropped a game 4-3 in regulation against the Ottawa Senators. Montreal now only has a game in hand on the New York Rangers. 

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