The Montreal Canadiens will try to continue their 6-0-1 point streak as they host the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday night at the Bell Centre. Their only overtime loss in their current run came against Buffalo, giving this game a little extra meaning and intensity.
The Canadiens are currently second in the East and looking to overtake the streaking Penguins for the top spot, but are by no means taking it easy. On Thursday, they were losing to the Islanders 2-1, but scored 4 straight to get the win.
Goaltender Carey Price on the win:
“We wanted to rebound after that last game [Buffalo]. I don’t think we played particularly well in those first two periods, but we came out really strong in the third.”
After missing the first six games of the season, P.K. Subban has gotten off to a great start. He leads all NHL defenseman in goals, six of them coming on the powerplay. In their last meeting, the Sabres were able to shut down Subban from adding any more points to his stats.
On the other end of the playoff spectrum, Buffalo is fighting in the bubble. They currently sit four points behind the 8th place Hurricanes, but changes are starting to be noticed in their gameplay.
“The bench is a lot better, now you can feel the confidence kind of coming in when we get down that we can battle back if we stay with things.”
Ott has been bringing energy to the lineup ever since his arrival this season, and coach Rolston described him as the ‘go to guy’ against Toronto on Thursday. In that game, Ott added an assist and also scored in the shootout, propelling the Sabres to victory. He scored two goals in the last match-up between the Sabres and Canadiens, one of which being the overtime game-winner.
Christian Erhoff comes into tonight’s game with his highest time on ice average of his career. He had a three point game against Toronto and was a major reason the Sabres were able to pull out the win (1 goal, 2 assists).
On an off-the-ice type note, Ryan Miller and Patrick Kaleta seem to have worked out whatever misunderstandings there were after Miller called Kaleta ‘childish’ for expressing his anger about being a healthy scratch. This was proven by Kaleta being the first one to congratulate Miller after the shootout win on Thursday.
Coverage starts at 7 p.m. on MSG.