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Soaking in the Sun, by Andrew Saadalla |
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With the Trade Deadline having come and gone, the final stretch of the Montreal Canadiens’ disastrous 2015-2016 season is underway as they continue their 3-game road trip in the West. Having lost by a score of 6-2 against the San Jose Sharks on Monday night, the Habs will look to carry on with their relatively young lineup as they face the electrifying Anaheim Ducks tonight at the Honda Center. Experiments will resume as Michael McCarron, Sven Andrighetto, Jacob de La Rose and Philip Danault will look to continue their development while 22-year-old Stefan Matteau will be watched carefully to see if the former first-round pick can unleash his potential. Victor Bartley and Mark Barberio will surely man the blue line tonight, pending any updates on whether Morgan Ellis will make his Habs debut soon. It’s clear that the organization will use the remaining 19 games to play the young guns and see if anyone is headed in the right direction.
Greg Pateryn will continue to play and showcase his steady reliability as a 5th or 6th defenseman, while the workload will continue to be split between Mike Condon and Ben Scrivens in net. Scrivens will face the hottest team in the National Hockey League tonight who are looking for a ninth consecutive win. They are 15-1-1 in their last 17, and adding Jamie McGinn at the Trade Deadline should help with added scoring depth.
Chance favours the Ducks tonight, as Montreal is dealing with an endless amount of injuries to regulars such as Carey Price, Jeff Petry, Tom Gilbert, Brian Flynn, David Desharnais and to a lesser extent, Daniel Carr who was coming into form with 5 goals in 19 games before injuring himself over a month ago. While I don’t necessarily think that the Habs will cause an upset tonight as I had guessed they would against the Washington Capitals, I’m willing to bet that the players will thank their head coach Michel Therrien for having given them the day off yesterday to soak in the sun in California. They’ll have to give it their all to come up with a victory, but I’m sure Therrien will be satisfied with a sustained effort from his players. At the very least, with auditions (of sorts) being held lately, I would expect a rather entertaining hockey game nonetheless as the youngsters will look to leave their mark with every shift.
In other news, the World Cup of Hockey set to take place this summer has been grabbing fans’ attention as Tomas Plekanec (Czech Republic) and Andrei Markov (Russia) have been selected to represent their respective countries:
And, just for kicks, P.K. Subban’s been hanging out with none other than Snoop Dogg in California:
Does anyone know what he actually calls himself these days?!
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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