Canucks & Canadiens battle following surprisingly similar Tuesday victories (Preview)

Last night, the Vancouver Canucks and Montreal Canadiens played road games in different countries.

So, how was it that players from both teams were drinking from the same water cooler?

On Tuesday, the Canucks were vastly outplayed by the Ottawa Senators for 40 minutes, only to show up in the third and steal the victory (even if they desperately tried to lose)

Jimmi eloquently summed up the Canucks performance with one crisp sentence in his recap.

“The Canucks started the game like trash, but finished it like gold filleted trash cans.”

Speaking of trash, that’s probably how you could describe the early part of Montreal’s performance against the Detroit Red Wings last night.

They were lucky enough to take a 2-1 lead after the first period, even though they were outshot 16-8 after one and 30-16 through 40 minutes.

Much like the Canucks though, the Canadiens played better in the third period and eventually won in a shootout.

VANCOUVER CANUCKS (4-6-3) @ MONTREAL CANADIENS (6-6-1)

BELL CENTRE, MONTREAL, QB. 4:30 PM PST

TV: SN RADIO: SN650

OPPOSITION BLOG: EYES ON THE PRIZE

Neither of these teams will have the rest advantage with both playing on the road last night.

And, based on the Canucks porous defence coupled with the Canadiens’ no name blueline, this has the potential to be a high-scoring game.

Of course, that probably means one of these teams is winning 2-1 in overtime.

PROJECTED LINES

VANCOUVER

Forwards

Tanner Pearson — JT Miller — Brock Boeser

Andrei Kuzmenko — Elias Pettersson — Ilya Mikheyev

Vasily Podkolzin — Bo Horvat — Conor Garland

Dakota Joshua — Nils Aman — Jack Studnicka

Defence

Quinn Hughes — Luke Schenn

Oliver Ekman-Larsson — Tyler Myers

Jack Rathbone — Ethan Bear

Starting Goalie: Thatcher Demko

Backup: Spencer Martin

Scratched: Riley Stillman, Kyle Burroughs, Nils Hoglander

Injured: Tucker Poolman (undisclosed), Travis Dermott (concussion), Curtis Lazar (undisclosed)

I do wonder if one of Joshua or Aman will sit out tonight in place of Nils Hoglander. Both have been cratering in terms of on-ice shot attempt differential, and Joshua lost a battle that led to the Travis Hamonic goal last night.

Neither player has been porous, but I actually think Hoglander’s effort level defensively has been more noticeable than last season. I don’t think he should be sitting for a prolonged period of time.

MONTREAL

(based on last night’s game aside from the goaltender)

Forwards

Cole Caufield — Nick Suzuki — Kirby Dach

Mike Hoffman — Christian Dvorak — Brendan Gallagher

Evgeni Dadonov — Sean Monahan — Jonathan Drouin

Michael Pezzetta — Jake Evans — Joel Armia

Defence

Kaiden Guhle — David Savard

Joel Edmundson — Arber Xhekaj

Jordan Harris — Jonathan Kovacevic

Starting Goaltender: Sam Montembeault

Backup: Jake Allen

Scratched: Chris Wideman

Injured: Michael Matheson (abdomen)

Suspended: Josh Anderson (2nd of two-game suspension tonight), Juraj Slafkovsky (1st of two-game suspension tonight)

The Canadiens are basically a one-line team right now. All of their first-liners have hit double digits in points (Caufield: 15, Suzuki: 14, Dach: 10). No one else on their team has more than six points.

Expect Sam Montembeault to start tonight after Jake Allen was in net last night. He has a .928 save percentage in four games this season.

How They Stack Up

Goals for/game

• Vancouver: 3.62 (T4th)
• Montreal: 2.77 (27th)

Goals against/game

• Vancouver: 4 (30th)
• Montreal: 3.23 (T17th)

Shots for/game

• Vancouver: 30.3 (T21st)
• Montreal: 29.5 (26th)

Shots against/game

• Vancouver: 33.2 (21st)
• Montreal: 34.2 (25th)

Power play

• Vancouver: 28.3% (5th)
• Montreal: 14.7% (28th)

Penalty kill

• Vancouver: 60.5% (32nd)
• Montreal: 80.9% (11th)

GAME DAY BATTLE HYMN

Just when we thought I hoped the Canucks might somehow enter the Bedard sweepstakes, instead, they manage to go 4-1-1 over their last six games.

They’ve found life...for now.

If they lose tonight, they’ll go into a tough 7-game stretch to end the month where they play Toronto, Boston, Buffalo, Los Angeles, Colorado and Vegas x2.

If they want to keep staying alive, a win tonight almost seems crucial.

Ride the guitar riffs from the Tygers of Pan Tang to victory.

Enjoy the game, folks.