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Habs look to rebound against Bolts

February 12, 2013, 10:57 AM ET [1472 Comments]
Habs Talk
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Fragile was a word often used to describe last year's Canadiens, and though Saturday's game against the Leafs may have provoked the label, their team mentality doesn't appear to be fragile. At least not when you hear the comments from the players after this very tough stretch of games.

The story spread yesterday about Erik Cole reaching out to all of his teammates by text to say he'd be part of the solution moving forward. The fact that he offered this story to the press tells you he's not hiding from his bad play. In addition, he's applying more pressure to his situation, and it'll say a lot about his character if he turns it around as early as tonight.

The gesture, nonetheless, goes along way towards setting an example for the rest of the team. There are 18 more players from Saturday's lineup that can look in the mirror and suggest to themselves that they have much more to offer.

A few lineup adjustments could be the key to unlocking the offensive potential in what were the Canadiens' three best players not named Price, last season. Cole and Brandon Prust will try to spark David Desharnais, who could use a four-alarm fire more than he can a spark at this point. Should that experiment fail from the onset of tonight's game, I'd look for Therrien to make a quick adjustment by moving Prust to the fourth line, and promoting Eller to play with Cole and Desharnais-- something that seemed to work pretty well before Max Pacioretty rebounded from his appendectomy.

Speaking of Pacioretty, will some ice-time with Brendan Gallagher and Alex Galchenyuk put him on the scoresheet? The Habs are hoping to get a very quick answer to this question.

If you want to look at the positives, the Habs are 4-0 against opponents outside of their division (3-0 against the SouthEast).

Carey Price gets the nod against Anders Lindback.

Ryan Malone will be out for this one, ailing with what's believed to be a lower-body injury.

************

-Watch out for that Tampa powerplay. Lecavalier mans the point on unit one with Sami Salo. Both of them have bombs. And obviously, Stamkos is a major threat on the off-wing. Tampa's powerplay at home: 44%.

-Good news for Montreal, their powerplay's running at 25% on the road. Their 81% on the penalty kill could stand to improve.

-Rookie battle: Cory Conacher (12 pts, 30th in league scoring) versus Alex Galchenyuk (7 pts, +6).
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