Buffalo Sabres (26-22-6) at Montreal Canadiens (31-20-6) – Tuesday,
February 15th, 2011
The Montreal Canadiens finish off their 3-game homestand as they host the
Buffalo Sabres tonight. The Habs have gone 1-0-1 on their stint on home
ice, and would surely like to pick up some more points before heading out on a
western-Canada road trip. Despite coming off a tough 7-6 overtime loss to
the New York Islanders, the Buffalo Sabres remain one of the hotter teams in the
New Year, and have gone 7-2-1 over their last 10 games while trying to factor
into the mix for the last playoff spot in the East. With a win over
Toronto on Saturday, the Habs snapped a 3-game losing skid, and improved to
5-3-2 over their last 10 matches. The Canadiens and Sabres have met 4
times already this season, with the Canadiens holding a 3-0-1 advantage.
Buffalo bested Montreal 2-1 in overtime in their last encounter, but the game
was more memorable by the sheer number of injuries incurred by the Canadiens.
After an impressive 3-0 shutout over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday,
Carey Price (27-18-5, 2.38 GAA, .920 SV%) will be back in net for the Canadiens.
Carey was the unlucky loser in net the last time the two teams played, but owns
a career 8-4-4 record against the Sabres with a 2.02 goals-against average and
.936 save percentage. In light of starting 31 consecutive games, Ryan
Miller (24-15-5, 2.78 GAA, .909 SV%) has earned the night off, and it will be
Jhonas Enroth (2-2-1, 2.89 GAA , .897 SV%) in front of the Buffalo net.
Tomas Plekanec (19-26-45) continues to lead the way for the Canadiens, while
Brian Gionta (21-10-31) holds the goal-scoring lead. James Wisniewski
(5-31-36) leads all Montreal defencemen and sits 9th in NHL scoring by
blue-liners. Max Pacioretty (9-9-18) has been on fire lately, recording 11
points (6-5-11) in the 10 games since being injured in the last game against the
Sabres. Not to be outdone, David Desharnais (5-6-11) has recorded 2 goals
and 4 assists in the last 3 games. The Sabres are led by Austrian sniper
Thomas Vanek (22-26-48) who has been unstoppable of late, recording 17 points
over his last 12 games. Equally potent is Drew Stafford (23-10-33) who has
marked three 3-point games out of his last 4, with 2 of those being hat-trick
games.
Montreal (19.0%) and Buffalo (18.8%) rank similarly on the powerplay, but
Montreal maintains the slight advantage. Despite losing Josh Gorges for
the season, Montreal penalty-killing has remained one of the league’s best,
successfully killing off 85.0% of all infractions. Buffalo ranks mid-pack
in this department, and boasts an 81.4% penalty-kill percentage. In the
season-series, Montreal has gone 3 for 14 while Buffalo has gone 2 for 14 with
the man-advantage.
Montreal remains without Andrei Markov (knee), Josh Gorges (knee), Hal Gill
(upper-body) and Mike Cammalleri (shoulder). Mathieu Darche is slated to
return from injury after missing 2 games. Brendon Nash has been called up
from Hamilton, but will likely view the game from the pressbox unless Jaroslav Spacek can’t play. Buffalo
will be without the services of Derek Roy (quad) and most likely Steve Montador
(upper-body).
The game can been seen on RDS and Versus; the game-time is 19:30 EST.