Photo: AP

After Tuesdays discouraging loss to the Isles, the Montreal Canadiens are coming to town to take on the New York Rangers. The Habs got off to a hot start to the season, but have mostly been riding Carey Price this year. He’s been unreal, and could be up for a Vezina and Hart this season. He’s been posting a .929 SV%, and anyone in Montreal will tell you that he’s the real reason why Montreal is in the playoffs this year.

Montreal isn’t a good possession team, and have really been riding Price all year. Hot goaltending does wonders for a team, but it’s expected that Montreal dips a bit in the standings. As you see their line combos, they don’t have much scoring depth and their blue line after Subban/Markov is ‘eh’ at best.

This is the third and final meeting between these two clubs, who split decisions 3-1 (Habs) and 5-0 (Rangers) previously. This game may play a role in playoff seeding later on, so this isn’t just a throw-away game either.

What have they done lately?

The Habs are winners of three in a row, and are 7-2-1 in their last ten. They are not a good possession team, and have been trending the wrong way (much like the Rangers, sadly) on the FF% chart for a while now. The chart below shows their ten-game rolling average in black, compared to the Rangers in blue.

nyr mtl ff

As mentioned above, the Habs had really been riding Price all season, and have carried an astronomical PDO as a result. They are crashing back to Earth hard though, and are right in line with the Rangers at this point. League average is 100, but teams with strong goaltending will more often than not sit above that number.

nyr mtl pdo

In the Habs you have a minimal possession team that rides hot goaltending, so they remind us a bit of the Avs last year. That said, they’ve banked enough points to be a playoff team, and still have enough skill to make a team pay for taking them lightly.

Habs Systems

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.

Habs Lines

Max Pacioretty-Tomas Plekanec-Dale Weise
Alex Galchenyuk-David Desharnais-Brendan Gallagher
Jiri Sekac-Lars Eller-Brandon Prust
Michael Bournival-Manny Malholtra-Christian Thomas

Andrei Markov-P.K. Subban
Nathan Beaulieu-Sergei Gonchar
Alexei Emelin-Tom Gilbert

PP1: Gallagher-Galchenuyk-Desharnais-Subban-Markov
PP2: Pacioretty-Plekanec-Sekac-Subban-Markov

PK: Plekanec, Pacioretty, Subban, Markov, Gilbert, Gonchar, Weise, Eller, Malholtra, Prust, Emelin

Carey Price gets the start.

Rangers Lines

Rick Nash Nash-Derick BrassardMats Zuccarello
Chris KreiderDerek StepanMartin St. Louis
Carl HagelinDominic Moore-Lee Stempniak
Tanner Glass-Kevin HayesJesper Fast

Ryan McDonaghDan Girardi
Marc StaalDan Boyle
John MOore-Kevin Klein

PP1: MSL-Brassard-Stepan-Nash-Boyle
PP2: Stempniak-Kreider-Zucc-Girardi-McDonagh

PK: Stepan, Nash, Girardi, Staal, Moore, Fast, Hunwick, Boyle, Hagelin, Klein, McDonagh, MSL

Henrik Lundqvist is in net.

Scratches/Injuries: J.T. Miller (healthy), Matt Hunwick (healthy)

Be sure to check out our ticket link if you’re looking for tickets to the game. Game time is 7pm on NBCSN.

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