Canadiens face big challenge against healthy Sidney Crosby
The Canadiens had a 1-1-1 record this season against Pittsburgh, but Penguins captain Sidney Crosby didn’t play in two of those games.
When the Canadiens beat the Penguins 4-1 in Pittsburgh on Dec. 10, Crosby was sidelined after having surgery to repair a core muscle injury in November. Crosby was still recovering from the surgery on Jan. 4, when the Penguins beat the Canadiens 3-2 in overtime at the Bell Centre.
Crosby was pointless and minus-7 in his last four games before having the surgery. Crosby missed 28 games because of the surgery, but the Penguins still went 18-6-4 without their captain. A big reason for that was Evgeni Malkin, who posted 11-27-38 totals in the 28 games Crosby missed.
In his first game back on Jan. 14, Crosby had 1-3-4 totals in a 7-3 win over the Minnesota Wild. Crosby was in the lineup when the Penguins beat the Canadiens 4-1 on Feb. 14 in Pittsburgh and he picked up three assists.
Crosby finished the season with 16-31-47 totals in 41 games and was minus-8, while the Penguins finished with a 40-23-6 record, 15 points ahead of the Canadiens (31-31-9), who played two more games than Pittsburgh. Malkin finished the season with 25-49-74 totals in 55 games and was plus-7.
Obviously, the Canadiens are going to have to find a way to limit the damage Crosby and Malkin can do when they meet in a best-offive first-round postseason series that will begin on Saturday, Aug. 1 in Toronto.
The Canadiens’ Phillip Danault has developed into one of the best two-way centres in the NHL, but he won’t be able to check both Crosby and Malkin.
“As much as I’d like to say he’s going to be in Crosby’s and Malkin’s face all the time, when you don’t have home-ice advantage that may become a little tough,” Canadiens coach Claude Julien said when asked about Danault during a video conference. “It may not be as easy as we think it can be.”
The Penguins will be the home team for Games 1, 2 and 5 (if necessary), meaning they will have last change for those games.
“Phil can’t cover two guys that may be centres on two different lines here, unless (Penguins coach) Mike Sullivan wants to make it easy on me and send those two centres with another line in between,” Julien said. “(Then) I can double-shift (Danault) at times, which I doubt’s going to happen. But having said that, I think at the end of the day you’re going to have to rely on other players to do the job.”
One of those players will be rookie Nick Suzuki.
“Nick Suzuki might be a first-year player, but he’s a smart player,” Julien said. “This may be Nick’s opportunity to step in there and we know how reliable and smart he is as a player. So he may be able to do the job. We don’t know what’s going to happen with a Max Domi yet. So there’s some situations here that are going to happen that there’s some guys that are going to have to step up and help with that role. That’s all we can do. We can’t create magic here and all of a sudden bring an experienced guy in our lineup that would be adequate for that role. We have what we have and we need to make it work with what we have — and that’s what we intend to do.”
DANAULT KEEPS GETTING BETTER
Danault tied his career high with 13 goals this season (despite the last 11 games being wiped out because of COVID19) and had 47 points in 71 games to finish second on the Canadiens in scoring behind Tomas Tatar (22-39-61).
Danault was also plus-18 (a career-high and team best) while playing against the opposition’s No. 1 line every game and he won 54.5 per cent of his faceoffs.
CANADIENS 2-0 VS. PENGUINS IN PLAYOFFS
The Canadiens and Penguins have only met twice before in the playoffs and the Canadiens won both series.
In 1998, the Canadiens beat the Penguins in six games during the first round of the playoffs.
In 2010, the Canadiens beat the Penguins in seven games in the second round of the playoffs.