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Last night, millions witnessed a display of exactly how defense wins championships when Floyd Mayweather defeated Manny Pacquiao in a 12-round decision. The Montreal Canadiens have been a team that prides itself on defensive prowess in the regular season, and have carried that success forward into the playoffs where, aside from 5 against the Senators when they gave up 5 goals, the Canadiens have allowed an average of 1.83 goals against in the post-season. But unlike the world's best boxer, the Canadiens have no counter-punch, having only scored 14 goals in 7 playoff games.
The Canadiens' shooting percentage is down from 7.93% in the regular season to a dismal 2.69% in the playoffs. The Habs threw 44 shots on 85 shot attempts at Ben Bishop on Friday night and only beat him once. The Denver, Colorado-born goaltender took a beating in his first game of the series, but came out on top by a slim blue-line sized margin, and now the Tampa Bay Lightning stand poised to leave Montreal with home-ice advantage as the series shifts back to Tampa on Wednesday.
Michel Therrien is not making any changes to his lineup tonight (other than one changed forced upon him with David Desharnais called out last minute with an illness), and indicating no change of plans to his team's approach to the game. We may see more dump and chase from the Habs than was utilized Friday, as Ben Bishop looked vulnerable at times when playing the puck in Game 1. Otherwise the Canadiens are confident in the way they played Friday night even though they didn't walk out of the game with the result they desired.
The puck drops at 6:00 PM EST. David Desharnais is out with an illness, with Brian Flynn drawing in to replace him. How this will impact the line combinations has yet to be revealed.
In Canada (French): TVA Sports
| Left Wing |
Center |
Right Wing |
| Max Pacioretty | Tomas Plekanec | Brendan Gallagher |
| Alex Galchenyuk | Bryan Flynn | Dale Weise |
| Brandon Prust | Lars Eller | P.A. Parenteau |
| Jacob de la Rose | Torrey Mitchell | Devante Smith-Pelly |
| Left Defense |
Right Defense |
| Andrei Markov | P.K. Subban |
| Jeff Petry | Tom Gilbert |
| Alexei Emelin | Greg Pateryn |
|
Goaltenders |
| Carey Price |
| Dustin Tokarski |
Scratched: Mike Weaver, Manny Malholtra, Sergei Gonchar, Brian Flynn
Injuries: Nathan Beaulieu (upper body), David Desharnais (illness)
| Left Wing |
Center |
Right Wing |
| Alex Killorn | Steven Stamkos | Ryan Callahan |
| Ondrej Palat | Tyler Johnson | Nikita Kucherov |
| Brian Boyle | Valterri Filppula | Cedric Paquette |
| Brenden Morrow | Vladislav Namestnikov | J.T. Brown |
| Left Defense |
Right Defense |
| Victor Hedman | Anton Stralman |
| Jason Garrison | Braydon Coburn |
| Matthew Carle | Andrej Sustr |
|
Goaltenders |
| Ben Bishop |
| Andrei Vasilevski |
Scratched: Mark Barberio, Jonathan Drouin, Nikita Nesterov
Injuries: Mattias Ohlund (knee)
Check out the enemy over at Raw Charge.