National Hockey League update – New York Rangers host Montreal Canadiens (Preview)
The New York Rangers will be hosting the Montreal Canadiens at the Madison Square Garden as part of the 634th game of the season. This is the first of the four meetings between the two sides. The last time these two met was during the last season where Montreal Canadiens won the match comfortably 3-1. During the course of the last season, both teams met four times as well out of which Montreal Canadiens won three with all of the games being high scoring.
A major setback for the New York Rangers ahead of the match is that their star studded line up will be hurt with the absence of Alex Frolov who will be missing the rest of the season due to the knee injury he sustained. The New York Rangers weren’t be hurt by this during this particular game due to the reason that Montreal Canadiens will be missing their top scorer in Michael Cammarelli which leaves a quite a big hole up front.
In the most recent game against the St. Louis Blues, New York Rangers were a goal down as the Blues were on top of the game. However, the Rangers changed the strategy which resulted in them scoring twice in the second period to emerge as 2-1 winners of the match. This extended their winning streak to three.
"It's about finding ways and showing a lot of that resiliency, a lot of that battle," said goaltender Martin Biron, who made 24 saves in place of starter Henrik Lundqvist. "Playing hard, that's our identity."
New York Rangers has played 43 games so far in the season out of which they have won 25 games in regulation time and 3 games in overtime scoring 53 points. Montreal Canadiens on the other side have played 42 games so far in the season out of which they have won 23 games in regulation time and 3 games in overtimes scoring 49 points.
Montreal Canadiens face the problem of not being able to finish the game in regulation time. Their last four matches have all went into overtime out of which they lost one game. The most recent match saw them winning 3-2 against the Boston Bruins with the winning goal scored by Max Pacioretty.
"I'm never going to live this one down but it's all a blur, all a daze," Pacioretty said. "I was just so excited about the goal and I don't think it was anything too big. I think he was just upset about the breakdown by their team, but it is what it is and it's a good feeling, so I'll try not to let that ruin it."
Ahead of the match Montreal Canadiens will be expecting defenseman James Wisniewski to shine once again as he has scored two goals in the last games and has brilliant in defence. New York Rangers will be led by Brandon Dubinsky who has scored 2 goals while creating 7 in the last eight games.
Both teams are evenly matched but New York Rangers have momentum in their favour and it looks that they would be able to come up with a victory this time with the score expected to be very close.
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