Yet to win consecutive games this season the Canadiens are at home to face the Boston Bruins. Boston is currently on a four game winning streak and despite a crazy game in LA have been playing very well defensively, in their five wins this season Boston has allowed 1 goal or less in four of those games. The Canadiens on the other hand have only held the opposition to a single goal just once and managed to eventually lose that game in a shootout.
Bryan Smolinski will reach a milestone tonight as tonight will be his 1,000th game in the NHL. Smolinski actually begun his career with the Bruins. In his first full season in the NHL he scored 31 goals a mark he has never equalled since then. Smolinski is the second Canadiens player to reach the milestone this year after Roman Hamrlik accomplished the feat in game one of the season against Carolina.
Claude Julien will be behind the bench for the Bruins this evening and will look to extend his winning streak to five against the Canadiens since he was fired in the middle of the 2005-2006 season. Last year his Devils won all four meetings with the Canadiens and despite a 49-24-9 record was also fired by the Devils and is now with his third team in three years.
Last season the Habs won the season series with the Bruins 5-3 and outscored the Bruins 24-21. The Habs also won the last three games in Montreal.
Despite a 5-2-1 record, a 2.04 goals against average and a .938 save percentage against Boston Cristobal Huet had a tough time handling the Bruins last year with a 1-1 record in 3 starts. Huet had a .880 save percentage and a inflated goals against average of 4.22. Huet will look to regain his 2005 2006 form he had against the Bruins.
Line up- For the first time this season Guy Carbonneau will go with the same lines and defensive parings, meaning Gorges and Kostitsyn will be back in the press box. The Bruins will start Manny Fernandez and have informed the Vancouver Giants that Milan Lucic will be staying the entire year in Boston.
Fun Fact
1. The Canadiens have a 29-9-2-1 all time Monday record against the Bruins and an even better 14-4 all time record on Mondays in Montreal.
2. Alex Kovalev has 51 points in 60 games against the Bruins but last year just had 2 assists in 8 games against the Bruins. Also in the first game between the two teams last year he received a game misconduct.
3. Manny Fernandez is the nephew of former Canadiens great Jacques Lemaire