Game 48: Montreal Canadiens vs. New York Islanders
Start time: 7:00 PM EST / 4:00 PM PST
In the Canadiens region: TSN2 (English), RDS (French)
In the Islanders region: MSGSN
Streaming: ESPN+, RDS, TSN+
Things aren’t going the way the Montreal Canadiens would like at the moment. Their defensive play has evaporated in the last week, giving up 19 goals in three games. Defencemen have been moved around the organization, pairings have been juggled, but still the team shows an inability to deal with teams playing an up-tempo style.
The New York Islanders have seen similar defensive issues this year, not so far ahead of the Canadiens in goals against per game, and even a little bit worse on the penalty kill. The difference for them is that they aren’t a rebuilding team, but one full of veterans on long-term deals, and a club that has added several pieces through trades and free agency hoping to win a Stanley Cup.
Unhappy with how things were going, Lou Lamoriello decided to make a coaching change. Out went Lane Lambert, in came Patrick Roy, rejoining the NHL in a head-coaching capacity for the first time since 2016. Tonight will be Roy’s third game behind the bench with his new team, off to a 1-1 start so far.
| Canadiens | Statistics | Islanders |
|---|---|---|
| 19-21-7 | Record | 20-16-11 |
| 44/7% (29th) | Scoring-chances-for % | 47.2% (26th) |
| 2.68 (28th) | Goals per game | 2.91 (23rd) |
| 3.51 (27th) | Goals against per game | 3.32 (23rd) |
| 18.7% (20th) | PP% | 22.2% (14th) |
| 73.8% (28th) | PK% | 73.4% (30th) |
| 1-0-0 | Head-to-Head Record | 0-1-0 |
Lamoriello may have been hoping that Roy’s reputation as a fiery character would inject some energy into the club, but the Hall-of-Famer is also coming off a tenure in the QMJHL during which his Quebec Remparts were arguably the top defensive team in the Canadian Hockey League, and — as is the case in Montreal — that’s the first step to getting things headed in the right direction.
It has been a very uneven season for the Islanders’ roster, with some players performing exceptionally well and others performing well below their expected level. At the bottom is one-time Habs-killer Jean-Gabriel Pageau, sitting on an expected-goals-for percentage of 40.3%; the only other regular with a worse mark is second-year player Simon Holmstrom.
Then you have some stellar performances like that of Noah Dobson, who leads the team from the blue line with 48 points in 47 games, and his plus-20 goal differential is seven higher than second-place man Alexander Romanov. Mathew Barzal, Bo Horvat, and Brock Nelson are also putting good offensive seasons together, but not getting enough help from their teammates to keep the team afloat in the push for a playoff berth.
Montreal experienced New York’s defensive issues in the first meeting of the season when they came away with a 5-3 win; one of just four games in which they’ve scored five goals this season. Josh Anderson had two goals in that game on December 16, starting off a short-lived hot streak for the winger. As part of Martin St-Louis’s lineup shuffle trying to get the team out of its doldrums, Anderson found himself back on Nick Suzuki’s line in the third period of Tuesday’s game, and he remained there at yesterday’s practice. If Anderson wants to hold onto that spot over Juraj Slafkovský, he will need to put in a similar effort to the one that night.
