LIGHTNING AT CANADIENS
Here are five things you should know about the Canadiens-Lightning game at the Bell Centre Saturday (7 p.m., CITY, TVA Sports, TSN 690 Radio), by Pat Hickey.
The matchup: Tampa Bay has the most points in the NHL standings (85) but are being pushed by Boston for first place in the Eastern Conference. This is the third of four meetings between these teams this season and they split the first two. Tampa Bay won 3-1 at home on Dec. 28 as Steven Stamkos scored two goals. The Canadiens were 2-1 winners in a shootout at the Bell Centre on Jan. 4. Max Pacioretty and Nikita Kucherov swapped goals early in the first period and Paul Byron scored the only goal in the shootout. But the star was Carey Price, who made 44 saves and stopped three more shots in the shootout. The goalies: Antti Niemi is coming off a strong performance in Thursday’s 3-1 win over the New York Rangers and he will make his third start in four games with No. 1 Carey Price sidelined by a concussion. Niemi, who was waived by Pittsburgh and Florida this season, has played well on the rare occasions he has been used in Montreal. He has a 3-2-1 record with a 2.58 goals-against average and a .922 save percentage. Tampa’s Andrei Vasilevskiy has tailed off a bit after a strong start, but he leads the NHL in wins (35) and shutouts (seven) and he ranks ninth with a 2.33 goals-against average and sixth with a .928 save percentage.
The trade revisited: It may be a bit unfair to compare the relative fortunes of Jonathan Drouin and Mikhail Sergachev since they were traded for each other last June, but we can’t resist. Three-quarters of the way through the season, it’s evident Drouin hasn’t lived up to expectations, but that’s because the Canadiens expected him to play centre and he’s a winger. He has nine goals and 20 assists, down from 21 goals and 32 assists in 73 games last season. After a hot start, Sergachev has three assists in his last 10 games but he has produced more than Drouin with eight goals and 23 assists. The rookie defenceman is also a plus-8, while Drouin is minus-28.
Offensive juggernaut: The Lightning is the most explosive team in the NHL, averaging 3.56 goals a game, compared with the Canadiens who rank 28th at 2.53 goals a game. The offensive leader is Nikita Kucherov, who tops the NHL scoring race with 80 points, seven more than Calgary ’s Johnny Gaudreau. Kucherov is also third among NHL goal-scorers with 32. Steven Stamkos is sixth in the scoring race with 69 points, including 24 goals. Other doubledigit goal scorers for Tampa are Brayden Point (24), Yanni Gourde (22), Vladislav Namestnikov (20), Tyler Johnson (17), West Island native Alex Killorn (11) and Chris Kunitz (10). Gourde, a StNarcisse-de-Beaurivage native, is a 25-year-old rookie and he is among the top-five in plus-minus at plus-26.
How low can they go? There was a segment of Habs Nation that was upset when the Canadiens defeated the New York Rangers 3-1 at the Bell Centre Thursday. These are the fans who believe that losing is a priority because, the lower the Canadiens sink in the standings, the better the chance of securing the No. 1 overall pick in the draft lottery. Heading into Friday ’s games, there were only four teams below the Canadiens in the standings and two of them — Vancouver and Ottawa — were within two points of Montreal. There’s room for the Canadiens to drop because 15 of their 22 remaining games are against teams currently in a playoff position and there are 12 road games coming up.