HabsWorld.net --
Who’s afraid of the big bad bear? Apparently fewer and fewer teams as the
2009-2010 season moves along. Montreal (7-8-0) goes into Boston (6-7-1) tonight
after coming off a loss to the Atlanta Thrashers on Tuesday. With so many
changes in the offseason and injuries (affecting both teams) this game might not
have the same feel as previous Boston-Montreal tilts. With no Milan Lucic
tonight, we will leave it up to former Habs Steve Begin and Michael Ryder to
provide the drama.
Rewind:
The Bruins are coming off a 2-0 loss to the Detroit Red Wings on Tuesday night.
Chris Osgood was credited with the shutout for the Red Wings. The Bruins have
spread out their scoring this season with Patrice Bergeron leading the way for
Boston with 8 points. Bergeron, Blake Wheeler and the injured Marc Savard are
all tied with 4 goals to lead the Bruins.
Montreal is coming off a very poor performance versus the Atlanta Thrashers on
Tuesday. Atlanta won the game 5-4 thanks to some very shoddy defense and
goaltending. See Matt Dilworth’s
game
recap to review the details.
Lineup News:
The usual suspects I’m afraid won’t be so usual tonight. The injury bay in
Montreal is starting to fill up. With Hal Gill recently being diagnosed with a
hairline fracture in his foot he will be out for 3 weeks. You can add that to
the Andrei Markov and Ryan O’Byrne injuries on the blueline. This should see
Mathieu Carle start his second NHL game for Montreal tonight. So when is Chris
Chelios signing again?
Brian Gionta also took a “therapy day” yesterday and will be a game time
decision tonight. Matt D’Agostini is doubtful for this game after being
diagnosed with a concussion, and Georges Laraque is still suffering from back
problems. With all that in mind Montreal recalled Ryan White and Tom Pyatt
yesterday for insurance purposes. Carey Price gets the nod in goal once more for
the Habs.
Boston also has their own injury worries to deal with. The latest being Bruins
forward David Krejci who was diagnosed with the H1N1 virus. He has been
quarantined from the Bruins team for the time being. Both Milan Lucic and Marc
Savard are sidelined for 4-6 weeks. Byron Bitz will be a game time decision with
a groin issue. Expect Tim Thomas in goal for the Bruins.
Keys to the Game:
To put it bluntly, the Habs have been brutal on the road so far this season.
They will have to find a way to shake their road blues in order to get anything
out of tonight. Both teams are very banged up and it might come down to last man
standing to who gets the 2 points tonight. Montreal will need some other players
to step up and help out the cause tonight, especially on the defense. Let’s see
what kind of magic Jacques Matin can conjure up.
Closing thoughts:
The Habs are going into tonight on a 9 game losing streak against the Bruins,
something they would dearly love to change. Montreal has been poor on the road
so far this season and tonight’s game against a banged up Bruins team might be
exactly what the doctor ordered.
According to Dave Stubbs’ Twitter feed, (habsinsideout1) today in 1955 Jean
Béliveau scored the NHL’s second fastest hat trick in 44 seconds. Unfortunately,
I don’t think we will see that watermark shed tonight by anyone on the
Canadiens.
The game tonight can be seen on TSN (HD), RDS (HD) and NESN (HD). Puck drop is
at 7pm ET.
