New York Rangers: Can they keep the streak going in Montreal?

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – DECEMBER 06: Filip Chytil #72 of the New York Rangers is stopped by Carey Price #31 of the Montreal Canadiens during the second period at Madison Square Garden on December 06, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) /

About the Canadiens

Carey Price will be in net for the Canadiens. He’s had a solid season for the Habs, but for the first time found his name bantered about as potential deadline trade bait. He has always played well against the Rangers with a 19-8-1 lifetime record. This season he hasn’t fared as well, splitting two decisions with a 3.58 goals against average and a .891 save percentage. He was in net for that brutal loss to the Blueshirts in November.

Jonathan Drouin will miss tonight’s game with an ankle injury. Charlie Hudon has been called up from the AHL to replace him. Although they have been dogged by injuries, both Brendan Gallagher and Shea Weber will be in the lineup.

The Canadien’s lost their last game, blowing a two goal lead to the Canucks before losing in overtime, 4-3.

The Canadiens top four scorers are Tomas Tatar, Max Domi, Phillip Danault and Nick Suzuki. All four were acquired via trade with Tatar and Suzuki coming from Vegas for Max Pacioretty and Domi coming from Arizona for Alex Galchenyuk. Danault was acquired from Chicago for Tomas Fleischmann and Dale Wiese. All of those trades have worked out pretty well for the Canadiens.

Montreal is seven points out of third place in the Atlantic Division. When they look back on this season, they can point to the four games they lost to the worst team in the NHL as the reason they missed the playoffs. Unbelievably, the Red Wings swept the four game series. That’s four of the 15 games that Detroit has won this season.

When you look at Montreal, they are right smack in the middle of the NHL. They are 17th, scoring an average of 2.97 goals per game and are 16th in the league, allowing an average of 3.05 goals per game. Their power play and penalty kill both rank 20th in the league. All of that adds up to the 23rd best record in the NHL.

As a result, the Canadiens were sellers at the deadline, trading Ilya Kovalchuk, Marco Scandella, Nick Cousins and Nate Thompson to contenders, all for draft picks.

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