What is the story about?
Just the Facts
- The Time: 7 PM
- The Place: TD Garden – Boston, MA
- Place to Watch: NESN, TSN-2, RDS
- Place to Listen: 98.5 The Sports Hub
- Opposing perspective: Eyes on the Prize
Know your enemy
- 11-3-4, 26PTS, 3rd in the Atlantic Division
- Lane Hutson: 3G-15A-18PTS; Cole Caufield: 11G-6A-17PTS; Nick Suzuki: 7G-9A-16PTS
- Jacob Fowler: 8-1-2, 2.14 GAA, .925 save percentage
Game Preview
- It’s homecoming and rivalry season across the United States as we approach Thanksgiving, and nothing says homecoming quite like meeting your rivals in a year in which you’re both pretty good. After all, the game is better when both the Habs and Bruins are playoff teams.
- Montreal is genuinely pretty good! They’re definitely better at creating unblocked shot attempts than actually creating shot quality (they’re at league average, just below, you guessed it, the Bruins), but they tend to control play pretty well and they can skate like the wind.
- The Habs have not lost a game in regulation in nearly a month, a 5-4 loss to Washington back on October 14. They’re 7-0-3 in their last ten games, part of an 11-game point streak overall. It’s wild to think that in spite of that run, the Habs are still a point behind the B’s in the Atlantic, an indicator of how good the Bruins have been to start the season.
- Former Boston College Eagle (and teammate of James Hagens) Jacob Fowler has played a large role in Montreal’s early-season success. Fowler is 6th in the league in GAA, 3rd in save percentage, tied for 2nd in shutouts, and 1st in getting apples thrown at him, though he’ll likely get overtaken in that last one by someone on the Maple Leafs if their struggles continue.
- The Habs were last in action on Tuesday night, a 2-1 OT loss against Minnesota that some on the team blamed on…the referees. Olé!
- Montreal has spent most of the season without Ivan Demidov, who had a standout rookie season (19G-43A-62PTS) and finished second in Calder Trophy voting. Demidov fractured his ankle in preseason and is still a few weeks away from returning.
- Chris Kreider, who joined the Habs shortly before the season started after having his contract terminated by Anaheim, has 3G-6A-9PTS for Montreal.
- In a somewhat surprising stat for a team with plenty of high-end talent on offense, Montreal has the league’s third-worst power play at 14.8%. The Habs are also third in the league in penalties taken with 93, which is 18 more penalties than they’ve drawn. I bet you can guess whose fault it is that they’ve taken 93 penalties!
- There’s little to report for the B’s, which isn’t a bad thing, of course.
See
ya tonight!
