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In Hainsight: Taking on the Coach’s Alma Mater |
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Follow me @KarineHains for all updates about the Montreal Canadiens and women's hockey
For the third game in a row, the Canadiens will be taking on a team on the tail end of a back-to-back and they’ll be hoping to take advantage of the situation. The Bolts played a tiring game yesterday in Toronto, and one that might have felt like a punch in the gut. Even though they were up 4-1 on the Leafs after 20 minutes, the Lightning ended up losing 6-5 in overtime.
Tampa Bay is still without star goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy who had to undergo a microdiscectomy to fix a lumbar disc herniation. As a result, Jonas Johansson has been taking on the lion’s share of the work in net, but since he was in action yesterday, we can expect Matt Tompkins to play his third career game in the NHL. So far, he’s lost his two starts and has a 3.61 GAA and a .891 save percentage. This will be his first game against the Canadiens, but Johansson’s numbers against the Habs aren’t great (1-1-0, 5.50 GAA and .807 SP).
Montreal’s leading pointers against the Lightning are Sean Monahan (7-310 in 15 games played), Josh Anderson (5-3-8 in 14 games played) and Brendan Gallagher (5-8-13 in 30 games played. The alternate captain has scored in the last two games and will hope to keep that streak going while Monahan has a point in the last five games. The veteran center has proven to be very valuable to the Canadiens’ so far, he’s played in every situation, excels at the faceoff dot and has scored 2 shorthanded goals this season. Alex Newhook is also riding a two-game point streak and will be hoping that his second game back on the wing comes in a game where there’s a better team effort.
Rafael Harvey-Pinard skated this morning for a second day in a row, but he’s still considered day-to-day and won’t be playing tonight. Mike Matheson will be paired up with Jordan Harris tonight and the coach is confident he can handle the Bolts’ top forward if he uses his skating well. St-Louis also explained why Arber Xhekaj is coming off the power play, as he wants him to focus on his defensive game but also on playing the rush without forgetting about defending.
It's hard to watch the Canadiens take on the Bolts without wondering what could have been if the Drouin-Sergachev deal didn’t happen. The 6’3’’ blueliner has been a great acquisition for the Lightning and with 198 career assists, he only needs two more to reach 200 career assists and tie Tyler Johnson for the 11th-most assist in Lightning history. The all-time assists leader in franchise history will be behind the opponent’s bench tonight though as Martin St-Louis still holds that record with 588, 39 more than Steven Stamkos who’s got 549, for now. Meanwhile, Jonathan Drouin has left the Canadiens this offseason and signed as a free agent in Colorado. Unfortunately for him, things aren’t going well in Denver; he’s got a single assist in 10 games, and he’s even been an healthy scratch.
This will be the 113th game between the two sides and so far, the Canadiens have got a 50-47-6-9 record, but they’ve lost nine of the last 10 duels against the Bolts. The Habs will be playing against three divisional rivals this week, Tampa Bay tonight, Detroit on Thursday and Boston on Saturday. Last season, Montreal posted a 6-19-1 record against Atlantic division teams surrendering 117 goals while only scoring 59. Then, on Sunday, they’ll be taking on the Vancouver Canucks who are having a red-hot start to the season with a 9-2-1 record.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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