Game 49: Montreal Canadiens @ Pittsburgh Penguins
Start time: 7:00 PM EST / 4:00 PM PST
In Canada: CBC, CityTV (English), TVA Sports (French)
In the Penguins region: Sportsnet Pittsburgh
Streaming: CBC Gem, ESPN+, Sportsnet+
The Pittsburgh Penguins were expected to be a great team. They had Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang on the roster, then added Erik Karlsson in the off-season. That’s a quartet of some of the most dangerous offensive players the league has seen in the past 15 years, combining for 4175 career points.
Sidney Crosby is holding up his end of the bargain on what was supposed to be a super team, but the other members of the foursome have lost their powers. They still have decent numbers — Malkin has 39 points and the two defencemen have combined for 63 — but that wasn’t the production new general manager Kyle Dubas was envisioning when he inherited another group of elite talent.
His team is … decent, holding a .533 points percentage that ranks 18th in the league and 10th in the Eastern Conference. They have to play more hockey over the final portion of the season than most of the clubs they’re chasing, but they still have a fair chance to make the post-season. Given the age of their stars and the limited window they have left to contend, you can probably expect Dubas to be a busy man in the remaining weeks before the deadline.
| Canadiens | Statistics | Penguins |
|---|---|---|
| 20-21-7 | Record | 21-17-7 |
| 44.6% (29th) | Scoring-chances-for % | 52.7% (9th) |
| 2.71 (28th) | Goals per game | 2.98 (21st) |
| 3.50 (28th) | Goals against per game | 2.73 (7th) |
| 19.4% (20th) | PP% | 13.3% (31st) |
| 73.2% (28th) | PK% | 82.8% (7th) |
| 0-0-1 | Head-to-Head Record | 1-0-0 |
Pittsburgh’s power play has been a major issue all year long, but that was the case the first time they played Montreal this season as well and they scored two goals on the man advantage that night. They also scored a power-play goal in last night’s match — their first following a five-game drought — and then another at six-on-five to tie their game with the Florida Panthers late, so they’re clearly capable of playing while a man up. Watching that game, one issue seems to be over-passing the puck, wanting to maximize all the talent available and letting good scoring chances go by the wayside.
That’s something the Canadiens have been guilty of this season, despite not having the same level of skill to work with. They’ve finally begun to change things up recently, shifting the focus to the goal line instead of the blue line, and crafting some designed plays to execute. With these new strategies, they’ve scored multiple power-play goals in three of their last six games.
Five players have been generating the success. The relatively new addition of Juraj Slafkovský to the top unit is providing a different look on the right side of the ice, and that’s opening things up for new half-wall quarterback Nick Suzuki, pointman Mike Matheson, and what are essential dual bumper players in Cole Caufield and Sean Monahan, one playing at the side of the crease and one at the top of it. With the numbers boost from the unit’s recent run of success, the latter four players mentioned would each lead the Penguins in power-play points. Even Slafkovský, now with five points, would slot in sixth.
More offence on the man advantage would put Montreal in a position to go into a nine-day break back at a .500 record. At this point the team is limited to playing a spoiler role against the likes of the Penguins with more realistic playoff aspirations, treating these games as chances to work on their defensive game against dangerous opposition.
Especially with Brendan Gallagher out for the next five games with a suspension, there will be some important reps for the young players in tonight’s game and the next few after All-Star Weekend. Tonight, that will likely include Jesse Ylönen who was the extra forward on the roster, but might see a rotation of forwards from the Laval Rocket when the season continues on February 6.
