Photo: AP

Photo: AP

The Montreal Canadiens are in town tonight, as the New York Rangers are going to look to build on their solid shutout of the Philadelphia Flyers earlier in the week. The Rangers are well rested, with their Friday night game in Buffalo postponed due to biblical amounts of snow. The Habs are a solid team this year, building on their run to the Eastern Conference Finals last season, sitting atop the Atlantic Division with a 16-5-1 record. One of those wins came against the Rangers in October by a score of 3-1.

Under Michel Therrien, the Canadiens play a 1-2-2 forecheck, but do use a 2-1-2 style from time to time based on the score and puck location. Though this team prefers to want to play passive and clog up the neutral zone. Like the Rangers, Montreal’s defensive zone system is to overload when the puck is along the boards and man-on-man when the puck is down low.

What’s interesting is that Therrien has said in the past that they overload the boards because of their team size and speed (note: small and fast). On special teams, the Habs play your standard umbrella powerplayOn the penalty kill, they rotate between a diamond force and a box depending on puck location. They really look to pressure the opposition all over the ice when shorthanded.

Rangers lineup:

Rick NashDerick BrassardMartin St. Louis
Chris KreiderDerek StepanMats Zuccarello
Carl HagelinKevin HayesAnthony Duclair
Tanner GlassDominic Moore-Lee Stempniak

Marc StaalDan Boyle
John MooreDan Girardi
Matt HunwickKevin Klein

Henrik Lundqvist gets the start.

Scratches/Injuries: Ryan McDonagh (shoulder), Jesper Fast (healthy)

As always, be sure to check out our ticket link if you’re looking for tickets to a game.

Game time is 7pm on MSG.

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