Montreal Canadiens vs. Minnesota Wild
How to watch
Start time: 7:00 p.m. EDT / 4:00 p.m. PDT
In the Canadiens region: TSN2 (English), RDS (French)
In the wilderness: Bally Sports North, Bally Sports Wisconsin
There have been plenty of bad times in the 2021-22 season for the Montreal Canadiens, but some of them have made a more lasting impression than others.
One of them was a game at the Bell Center on Dec. 9 when the Chicago Blackhawks came to town. Montreal failed to score a goal that night, adding to Marc-André Fleury’s shutout total, but more importantly resulting in the goaltender’s 500th regular season win. Habs fans didn’t have much to cheer about as the loss was the fifth in a row for the home team. So they decided to make the best of the situation and give Fleury a standing ovation.
Another came in the last game of a long road trip in January when the Canadiens visited the Minnesota Wild. A new COVID lockdown had forced some postponement and the Canadiens were playing their 10th consecutive game on the road since the Christmas break. It was an uninspired 8-2 loss. Head coach Dominique Ducharme said after the game that the team would “put this one in the trash”, but when it was followed by four more home losses, it was the coach who was put on the line. apart.
Tonight, those two storylines converge as Fleury is now a member of the Wild after a deadline trade last season, and is now looking for win number 522.
Tale of the Band
Canadian | Statistics | Savage |
---|---|---|
Canadian | Statistics | Savage |
3-3-0 | Registration | 1-3-1 |
44.1% (28th) | Score chance for % | 46.2% (23rd) |
2.67 (27th) | Goals per game | 3.80 (6th) |
3.00 (14th) | Goals conceded per match | 5.40 (32nd) |
5.6% (31st) | PP % | 36.4% (2nd) |
83.3% (11th) | PACK% | 75.0% (22nd) |
0-2-0 | H2H report (21-22) | 2-0-0 |
Fleury’s progress in the win standings has stalled this season as he has just one win in five tries. and the one against a Vancouver Canucks team giving points to their opponents like they were boxes of raisins on Halloween. Only Matt Murray of the Toronto Maple Leafs has recorded a worst over-average goal per 60 minutes, and Fleury’s mark of -2.94 is significantly lower than the next goaltender (Jeremy Swayman, -2.41 ) with at least two departures. Minnesota substitute Filip Gustavsson was no better with eight goals conceded in just 95 minutes of play.
Random Stat of the Day: Josh Anderson at the face-off point: 7/8 (87.5%)
At least Fleury can take comfort in not being the only one on his team to play badly. The club are in the bottom 10 of the league in terms of shared scoring chances, and unlike some of the other teams in this section (Montreal included), they don’t have the excuse of being in the middle of a reconstruction; Minnesota finished the 2021-22 season with 113 points. Rather than taking another step towards their goal of a Stanley Cup, they currently sit 29th in the league standings.
They always score goals, and lots of them. Mats Zuccarello is scoring at two points per game, and Kirill Kaprizov is not far behind with eight points in five games. The team averages nearly four goals per game, ranking near the top of the NHL with teams such as… the Buffalo Sabres, Ottawa Senators and Detroit Red Wings. A few minor tweaks on the defensive end should start to translate into the wins they racked up with consistency a season ago, especially with the power play operating near 40%.
The Montrealers will be hoping the defensive game stays loose for at least one more game as they would like to score their own goals. They were held to just two on Saturday by the Dallas Stars, while giving up more than three for the first time this year.
On the face of it, they will have Brendan Gallagher available after spending much of the last game between the bench and the locker room after suffering a knee injury. A Juraj Slafkovský return seems less likely, however, as his upper body injury is still an issue and he is undergoing tests. Expect the offense to be carried, as it has been thus far, by the front line of Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki and Sean Monahan, as well as rookie defensemen Arber Xhekaj and Kaiden Guhle.
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