Montreal Canadiens (27-17-5) vs. Philadelphia Flyers (32-12-5) – January 25, 2011
The Canadiens have a week-long All-Star break to look forward to after tonight’s game on Broad Street. The Habs are coming off a 4-3 loss in an emotional, high-spirited comeback game against Anaheim on Saturday. The Flyers, on the other hand, are riding high after beating Chicago 4-1, thus exacting a small measure of revenge against the team that denied them the Stanley Cup last spring.
Montreal is 6-1-3 in its last ten, and seems to have regained both its scoring touch and superb goaltending. Philadelphia is 8-2-0 in that span, and is in first place in the Eastern Conference, ten points ahead of the Canadiens.
In the teams’ first meeting this season, Nov. 16, Carey Price made 41 saves to shut out the Flyers and win the game 3-0. Mike Cammalleri, Tomas Plekanec and Brian Gionta all recorded goals in that victory. Cammalleri will miss tonight’s game with a shoulder injury. In related injury news, Jeff Halpern is likely to return to action tonight, after having missed two games.
Montreal and Philadelphia are quite evenly matched in the special teams department, with the Canadiens having a slight edge. Both are tops in penalty-killing (MTL: 85.4%, PHI: 82.6%) and on the power-play (MTL: 20.6%, PHI: 16.7%).
Game time is at 7:30 p.m. and will be broadcast on RDS.