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Habs-Sharks, Jean Beliveau, and Patrick Roy, by Andrew Saadalla

December 2, 2016, 5:52 PM ET [82 Comments]
Habs Talk
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As the Montreal Canadiens continue their Californian road trip, they ready themselves to take on the San Jose Sharks who are faring relatively well thus far in the 2016-2017 regular season. Their 14-9-1 record places them atop of the Pacific Division with 29 points, and they are coming off of a 4-1 Wednesday night win over the Habs’ next opponent the Los Angeles Kings. While Michel Therrien’s troops will look to bounce back from a loss against the Anaheim Ducks last Tuesday, they enjoyed a long day off on Wednesday and were back at practice yesterday. They’ll need everyone to pull their weight as convincingly as possible, including Brian Flynn who joined the team out West, in order to put an end to the 17-year winless drought in San Jose.

Special teams will be the key elements in tonight’s 10:30pm ET matchup, as the Canadiens have not scored in their last three games with the man advantage. They are currently 9th in the league on the power pay, though their penalty kill percentage is a mere 82.8%, good for 17th overall. Meanwhile, the Sharks are first in goals-against with an average of 2.08 and their 10th-ranked penalty kill is at 84.2%. Their 16th overall power play converts on 18.1% of their chances, and the Habs will have to take advantage of a 20th overall goal-scoring team that averages 2.42 goals per game.

The Habs’ offense has come under fire recently, as their 3-4-1 record over the last eight games might partly be explained by being limited to two goals or less six times. Moreover, their 2-1 loss at the hands of the Ducks marked the sixth consecutive game decided by a single goal. Barring any blowouts, I would expect goaltenders Carey Price (.947 save percentage) and Martin Jones (.921 SV%) to be on full display tonight.


Daniel Carr will sit tonight’s game as Brian Flynn is inserted into the lineup:






In other news, today marks the second anniversary of the passing of the legendary Jean Beliveau. Here is a little report, courtesy of The National:






21 years ago, on this very day the infamous Patrick Roy meltdown took place as he would play his last game in a Montreal Canadiens uniform:


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