Canadiens Square Off Against Calgary Flames + Injury Notes (Plekanec)

Plekanec

Canadiens Square Off Against Calgary Flames + Injury Notes

By Brandon Smillie

Dec 7, 2017 • 7:19 pm

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Tonight your Montreal Canadiens are set to face of against their western Canadian rival, the Calgary Flames. The Habs will look to get back on track after losing a close game to the top notch St. Louis Blues while the Flames have lost 3 in a row (0-2-1) and 6 of their last 8 (2-4-2). With the Flames mired in 2 week slump where their only victories have come against Colorado and Arizona this could present a great opportunity to bounce back and keep the confidence going in the Habs room.

Montreal got back into the last game against the Blues despite falling back into an early season habit of allowing two goals in quick succession. In the early 2nd period Montreal allowed two goals in 7 seconds to S Upshall at 2:32 and B Schenn at the 2:39 in a moment that likely had every Habs fan watching letting out a sigh of disappointment. This put the Blues up 3-1 at the time.

Not this again….

But to the Canadiens credit they battled back to tie this game on two goals by S Weber at 17:04 of the 2nd period, and 6:34 of the 3rd period. Unfortunately, some break downs all game led to Schenn completing his hat trick at 12:11 of the 3rd and the was all that was needed for the Blues to escape the Bell Centre with 2 points.

A quality game by the Canadiens but there were a few guys who played under their norm like Price, Petry, and Hudon. The person that the Habs need the most in games like this is the Captain Max Pacioretty but he has been struggling mightily lately with only 1 G and 3 A in his last 10 games. I don’t really know what to say about the captain, he gets his ice and his shots but just doesn’t seem fast or smooth lately. I can’t speculate he’s injured but maybe he is fighting something we don’t know about? It could just be the pressure of the situation and being he’s the captain he’s carrying it all on his shoulders all day and it’s getting to him?

I don’t know but what I do know is that Pacioretty needs to come out this game and show he’s gamer. Doesn’t matter if he scores or not, we need to see some battle and fight from the man who wears a very important letter on his jersey. I’m not hating on Max here, this is simply the truth. He needs to fight back.

The Calgary Flames come into the Bell Centre in the aforementioned slump, but they are a team with scorers so there’s no discounting them at all. J Gaudreau is having a career year with 36 point in 28 games (12 G, 24 A) and so is S Monohan with 28 points in 28 games (15 G, 13 A). If they ever figure out how to use sophomore M Tkachuk properly they could have 3 PPG players in the near future.

M Tkachuk is a star waiting to be unleashed. He is tops on his team in CF% at 58.9 with a CF% Rel of 8.9 which is incredible. His FF% is also tops on Calgary at 59.1 with a FF% Rel of 9.8. Basically, when he is on the ice it may as well be tilted in Calgary’s favor so when it’s time for Tkachuk to break out he is going to dominate the game of hockey for Calgary. What a steal he was at 6th overall in 2016 for the Flames.

There is a chance Tkachuk doesn’t play tonight pending the NHL’s decision on whether or not to suspend him for a spearing incident last night from his own bench but since it was on a Maple Leaf I’ll just say he deserved it. With the way Komarov and Kadri look to injure players consistently it would just be karma for their players to get a similar play. Don’t want to get dirted? Talk to Kadri and Komarov and ask them to stop playing like knobs.

The Flames are on the second half of back to back game nights after a disappointing loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs last night in a shoot out. The Flames appeared to badly outplay the Leafs, but the Leafs were saved by their season MVP so far, goaltender F Andersen. Andersen is making up for Toronto’s very poor defensive play this season after a rough start and while it’s unknown how long he can keep it up I’m sure the Leafs and their fans aren’t complaining.

Calgary turned to M Smith last night in goal and it’s been confirmed that 25 year old, Czech back up D Rittich will get his 2nd start of the season tonight. Rittich comes in with a 1-1-0 record with a .875 SP% and 3.04 GAA. His win came Nov 25 against Colorado and his loss came on Dec 2 in relief against Edmonton. Might be a good opportunity to pounce on the inexperienced NHL’er early and get ahead of the Flames before the 1st intermission.

PROJECTED LINE UP

These were the lines from the Canadiens practice yesterday. Weber missed the skate with a therapy day (clearly not free of what has ailed him) and Drouin missed due to illness after it was expected he would play tonight. As of writing, Drouin looks to be missing this game.

Pacioretty - Danault - Shaw Galchenyuk - de la Rose - Byron Hudon - Plekanec - Gallagher Deslauriers - Froese - Carr

Alzner - Petry Benn - Schlemko Mete/Morrow - Jerabek

Price Niemi

Price confirmed in goal by Julien and the Canadiens.

LEHKONEN SKATING AGAIN

WEBER SCORES POINTS 500 AND 501 IN LOSS

S Weber hit a personal milestone last game with his two goals being points 500 and 501 of his remarkable career. Congrats are in order and I hope to see his 600th point in the next couple seasons!

Every game from here on out is going to be a big game until the Habs are mathematically out of the playoff running so I apologize for beating that drum so often but its true. It’s the reality of the game right now and a win tonight will be important to the end goal of making playoffs. Let’s hope the Habs can make it happen tonight.

Go Habs Go!

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