Montreal Canadiens host Vancouver Canucks
Both the Montreal Canadiens and Vancouver Canucks occupy third place in their respective conferences and go head-to-head on Tuesday 9 November, at the Bell Centre in Montreal.
Previous meetings and recent games
Last season, the Canadiens and Canucks split their season series one apiece. This is the first of two meetings between these two teams this season, and sees each team in first place in their respective division.
The Canucks have won six games in a row as they begin a five game road trip.
Since their four-game win streak at the end of last month, the Canadiens have since hit a rough patch and have lost three out of their last four. Home has also been a difficult place for them to play as they have a 3-3-1 record at the Bell Centre as compared
with a 5-2 record away from the pressures of playing in front of their hometown fans.
How they match up
The Sedin twins have been on fire to start the season as each has 16 points in 13 games and both are in the top 10 in the NHL in scoring. Brother Daniel scores most of the goals and leads the team with nine, while Henrik plays the role of provider and leads
the league with 14 assists.
Up front for the Canadiens it's been hard to find consistent scoring. It seems to be a new player coming forward to provide the offence just about every game. Recently it's been Jeff Halpern and Benoit Pouliot.
When the Canadiens were on their four-game winning streak, it was the line of Andrei Kostitsyn, Tomas Plekanec, and Mike Cammalleri that had been running the show, but they've cooled down considerably over the last four games.
The real point of concern for the Canadiens is the points production of two of their highest paid players – Brian Gionta and Scott Gomez. After 14 games, the two players have only seven points between them. Rookie Lars Eller, who was the major pick up for
the Canadiens in the Jaroslav Halak trade, has proved to be a bit of a bust collecting only one assist to date despite spending time recently on the Canadiens top line.
In goal for the Canadiens recently, Carey Price has been solid and done well in silencing many of his critics. He hasn't posted the kind of numbers Halak has in St. Louis, but he's given the Canadiens a chance to win just about every night.
For the Canucks, Roberto Luongo has been solid as always in goal, while his backup Corey Schneider, although only having played in four games, has put up Vezina-like numbers every time and is undefeated. Luongo, however, is the undisputed number one in Vancouver.
What to expect
The Canucks were early season favourites to go to the Stanley Cup final this year, while the Canadiens' early success took the NHL a bit by surprise as they were pegged to finish out of the top eight in the Eastern Conference. This match-up pits one true
contender (the Canucks) against a pretender (the Canadiens), and no matter how loud the Bell Centre gets, the Canucks will be ones cheering by the end.
Vancouver will win 4-2.
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