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Habs vs. Flyers game preview and five questions |
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The Montreal Canadiens will take on the Philadelphia Flyers in a rare Monday night game at the Bell Centre. Montreal leads the Atlantic division and most recently defeated the Boston Bruins by a score of 4-2 on the road while the Flyers were victorious on Saturday night as well as they defeated the Carolina Hurricanes to improve their record to 2-2-1 on the season. There will be no lineup changes for the Canadiens as Carey Price gets his third consecutive start while Daniel Carr and Mikhail Sergachev will be spectators in the press box.
Two Flyers will missing the match due to their suspensions, Radko Gudas and former Hab Dale Weise. It is unfortunate that Weise will have to wait for the opportunity to play against his former teammates but he will not have to wait too long as the Flyers return to the Bell Centre in a couple of weeks time. Weise did have some interesting quotes regarding his friend P.K. Subban and how things ended with himself and the Canadiens:
Weise bled Bleu-Blanc-Rouge from the moment that he became a Montreal Canadiens. Under his father’s influence, he grew up a fan of the club despite being born and raised in Winnipeg. His hard work was appreciated by the fans and coaches in Montreal although he was asked to play too large of an offensive role with all of the injuries last season and he struggle once he was traded to the Chicago Blackhawks. I believe it is fair to say that fans are happy for Weise that he was able to cash in and sign a multi year contract with the Flyers but they are happy that Marc Bergevin did not offer such a contract as the Canadiens have enough bottom six forwards.
According to Bill Meltzer, the Flyers lines should look like:
10 Brayden Schenn - 28 Claude Giroux - 17 Wayne Simmonds
11 Travis Konecny - 14 Sean Couturier - 93 Jakub Voracek
25 Nick Cousins -76 P-E Bellemare - 24 Matt Read
76 Chris VandeVelde - 27 Boyd Gordon - 13 Roman Lyubimov
47 Andrew MacDonald - 53 Shayne Gostisbehere
9 Ivan Provorov - 23 Brandon Manning
55 Nick Schultz - 32 Mark Streit
35 Steve Mason
[30 Michal Neuvirth]
While there are no lineup changes for the Canadiens, the powerplay units have been tweaked:
Alexander Radulov needs more powerplay time and having him on the point is an experiment worth exploring. His creativity will be a welcome addition to the first unit and gives many options that will be harder to defend. As well, it will get him some playing time with Alex Galchenyuk which has been dynamite in their limited minutes together. Another positive is that Artturi Lehkonen will finally get some playing time with the man advantage as well. He has been very consistent since the start of the season and gets even better with each passing game. His shot is dangerous and he also brings some much needed net presence to the second unit. Tomas Plekanec and David Desharnais both practiced centering the second unit and it looks like whoever is having the stronger game will get the additional powerplay time. Fair is fair. The loser in the shakeup is Nathan Beaulieu who had been playing well on the second unit with Jeff Petry. However, he is fourth on the depth chart in terms of offensive talent as long as Andrei Markov continues to play well. The risk is that since Beaulieu does not kill penalties very often, in a penalty ridden game his ice time can suffer and he will not get into the flow of the game. Beaulieu is the type of player that the more responsibility that he is given, the better he plays. That is notwithstanding his poor judgement at the end of the Bruins game when he gave up the puck as he went for an empty net goal rather than safely sending the puck into the corner.
5 Questions for tonight’s game:
1) The Flyers offense will be another big test for Carey Price. Will he be able to keep them to two goals or less or will the Flyers get to him and score three or more? I say that Price plays his best game yet and holds them to one goal, despite the Flyers traditionally playing very well against the Habs.
2) How will the new look Canadiens powerplay perform? If they score, it will come from which unit? First unit will score and it will be either Radulov or Gallagher with the goal.
3) Will Nathan Beaulieu play over 18 minutes with his reduced time on special teams? I think he’ll play less than 18 minutes as I expect a lot of penalties between these two clubs.
4) Should Sergachev have been reinserted into the lineup against the Flyers? I would have liked to see him dressed and play against his friend and compatriot Ivan Provorov.
5) What will be the outcome of the game? I think the Habs will continue to score and it will be 4-1 win.
Puck drops at 7:30pm.
Cheers & enjoy the game!
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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