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The New Jersey Devils are in Montreal tonight to take on the NHL's top seeded team in the Canadiens.
Montreal owns a 12-1-1 record on home soil, and have the league's best goaltender manning their crease, but if there was a time to play the Habs, and feel good about your chances of winning, it is right now.
The Canadiens have won just four of their last 11 contests and things are heading a little south for them. Shea Weber is cooling off following an excellent start (he has one point in his last six) and Alex Galchenyuk, the team's leading point producer, as well as David Desharnais, are out for the next 6-8 weeks.
As such, Montreal doesn't have much left in the way of center depth or scoring depth.
They still have impact players at each position (Max Pacioretty up front, Weber on defense and Price in goal) and they're on home soil so they won't be pushovers but, again, they've struggled of late and now they're dealing with big injury problems. Let's see if the Devils can take advantage of that.
Here are the expected line combinations for New Jersey:
Mike Cammalleri - Travis Zajac - Kyle Palmieri
Taylor Hall - Adam Henrique - P.A. Parenteau
Beau Bennett - Sergey Kalinin - Nick Lappin
Miles Wood - Vern Fiddler - Devante Smith-Pelly
Andy Greene - Damon Severson
Yohann Auvitu - Ben Lovejoy
John Moore - Kyle Quincey
Cory Schneider
And the expected lines for the Canadiens (via dailyfaceoff.com):
Max Pacioretty - Tomas Plekanec - Alexander Radulov
Sven Andighetto - Phillip Danult - Brendan Gallagher
Artturi Lekhonen - Andrew Shaw - Daniel Carr
Paul Byron - Torey Mitchell - Brian Flynn
Alexei Emelin - Shea Weber
Andrei Markov - Jeff Petry
Mark Barbeiro - Greg Pateryn
Carey Price
A few notes:
1) One thing the P.K. Subban for Weber trade undeniably did is take away a lot of team speed from a blueline that didn't have much to begin with. Petry is the only guy in their top-4 who could be considered a plus skater. I think the likes of Wood, Hall, and co. could cause the Habs' defense some problems with their straight line speed.
2) Speaking of Hall, he has been lights out of late. He has five points in three games since returning to the lineup and nine in his last six overall.
3) Montreal's power play has been powerless this season. They rank 29th in shot attempts per 60, 29th in scoring chances per 60 and 30th in high-danger chances per 60. Taking penalties is never a good idea, but the Devils should be able to survive if they take a few.
Tonight's game is scheduled for 7:30 pm eastern and can be seen on MSG+2 and SN360.
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