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Game Preview: Habs look to spoil Lightning's playoff hopes |
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The Montreal Canadiens will attempt to play spoiler to the Tampa Bay Lightning’s playoff hopes Friday night at the Bell Centre in what will be their final regular season home game before the postseason begins next week. The Toronto Maple Leafs have needed to win just one game in order to clinch their return to the playoffs this week but have lost two games in a row. Should they completely fall from grace they will have no one but themselves to blame as they would not have to depend on the Canadiens to defeat the Lightning this evening had they been able to defeat the Lightning themselves on Thursday night.
For their part, the Maple Leafs should be thankful that the Canadiens lines are icing a nearly regular lineup for tonight:
With Shea Weber, Alexei Emelin and Jordie Benn all out of the lineup, the Canadiens will attempt to balance their pairings on the backend so that each duo has NHL experience. Nikita Nesterov will be familiar with Andrei Markov having played together when Markov first returned from injury in January while Brandon Davidson has often played with Jeff Petry when he has been able to crack the lineup. That leaves Nathan Beaulieu with Brett Lernout as the bottom pairing but I would expect Beaulieu to still play around 18 minutes tonight while Lernout will probably see closer to 12-15 minutes of ice time. For Lernout, it will be a big opportunity to prove to the organization that he deserves to be in their long term future plans. He might essentially be a replacement one day for Greg Pateryn, a steady sixth, seventh right handed, physical defenceman.
The major downside to all of these injuries on defense be it minor or not, is that it does not allow head coach Claude Julien to rest Markov, the player that might just benefit the most from a night off. Canadiens fans will remember the last time the team made the playoffs in 2015 and Markov played like a shell of himself. Tired and slow with his body not able to keep up with his mind. While most assumed that Markov’s playing days were near the end, Markov committed himself to training and learning to adapt to his slower legs. This is not to call him a slow player. He simply has less time to react to plays and so a pinch that he may have been able to do six years is just not as easy as it used to be. While Markov is a proud player and likely would not want to sit, with back to back games and now being counted on to play big minutes with an inexperienced backend, there is a danger that Markov could get overworked this weekend. While Markov’s minutes have been cut back to everyone’s benefit this season, there is little doubt that once the playoffs begin he will be called upon to play more than the 21:46 minutes of ice time that he has averaged this season…
As expected, this evening will be Price's last start of the regular season. If healthy Al Montoya will get a 'hometown' start to close out the Joe Louis Arena as he played NCAA Hockey for three years at the University of Michigan. Julien confirmed that neither Benn or Weber will play this weekend but will 100% be ready for the playoffs. Alexei Emelin's status is still uncertain and he will be re-evaluated early next week. Julien hinted that other players may also skip the flight to Detroit in order to get an extra day's rest before the playoffs.
Up front Michael McCarron and Andreas Martinsen will replace Torrey Mitchell and Brian Flynn on the Canadiens fourth line. Mitchell and Flynn have been perhaps the biggest losers from general manager Marc Bergevin’s trade deadline moves as Steve Ott, Dwight King, Andreas Martinsen and even Mike McCarron have seemingly passed them by on the depth chart. The playoffs are a grind and the others are able to bring a physical dimension that Flynn does not possess and Mitchell barely uses. Neither are they really needed for the penalty kill anymore as the Canadiens have found a new recipe for success that does seem not include Mitchell or Flynn in their plans. However, it would not be shocking come game one of the playoffs if Mitchell lines up on the right side of Steve Ott and Dwight King as Julien may just give his veteran forward the first chance to play over younger, more inexperienced players.
With the lineup that the Canadiens are icing this evening, the Lightning will have to work that much harder in order to keep their playoff hopes alive. Apart from injuries on defense, the Canadiens are starting Carey Price and their top nine forwards are all in as well. For their part, the Lightning will have to wary of tired legs playing in the second of back to back games on the road. One thing is certain, the Maple Leafs must be thrilled with the Canadiens serious approach to the game as their fan base will be cheering for the Canadiens like never before.
As the Lightning held an optional practice Friday morning, their lineup will only be confirmed later in the day. It appears as though Andrei Vasilevskiy will get the rare back to back start in goal as Peter Budaj participated for most of today’s practice. Steven Stamkos and Tyler Johnson continued to practice with the team but are still unlikely to play.
Since it is the Canadiens last regular season home game of 2016-2017, the team will be handing out some hardware before the start of the game. Despite a rough few months in the middle of the season, Carey Price has won the Molson Cup while Phillip Danault beat Paul Byron for the Jacques Beauchamp award by just seven points. Captain Max Pacioretty won the Jean Beliveau trophy for the second consecutive year, albeit this time around with much less controversy.
Game time is 7:30pm.
Cheers & enjoy the game!
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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