The faint smell of entitlement and cheap cologne in the air can only mean the Montreal Canadiens and their fans are in town for a Northeast Division clash with the Bruins tonight at TD Garden (7:00 PM ET, NESN, TSN, RDS, 98.5 FM The Sports Hub). The Bruins enter tonight's game 3 points up on the Montreal Canadiens with 2 games in hand. The Bruins turned in a solid performance in a 4-1 win over the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday night, while the Habs are looking to bounce back from a 2-0 loss to the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday night.
As if this game needed any more fuel to feed the fire, Mark Recchi's candid interview on Felger & Mazz about Zdeno Chara's hit on Max Pacioretty has made the former Hab Public Enemy #2 up in Montreal (Chara is Public Enemy #1 and Michael Felger is #3).
Projected Lines:
Boston
Milan Lucic - David Krejci - Nathan Horton
Michael Ryder - Patrice Bergeron - Mark Recchi
Rich Peverley - Chris Kelly - Tyler Seguin
Brad Marchand - Gregory Campbell - Shawn Thornton
Zdeno Chara - Johnny Boychuk
Tomas Kaberle - Dennis Seidenberg
Andrew Ference - Adam McQuaid
Montreal
Travis Moen - Scott Gomez - Brian Gionta
Michael Cammalleri - Lars Eller - Andre Kostitsyn
Benoit Pouliot - David Desharnais - Ryan White
Nigel Dawes - Tom Pyatt -Andreas Engqvist
Hal Gill - P.K. Subban
Roman Hamrlik - James Wisniewski
Alexandre Picard - Paul Mara
Injury Report
Alexandre Picard (foot) is also questionable for the Habs.
Notes:
- Gary Bettman met with Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli and Canadiens GM Pierre Gauthier last week and warned both teams not to let tonight's game get out of control.
- Patrice Bergeron was on Gresh & Zo on Wednesday and talked about tonight's game (and Montreal's freeloading media).
- Has anyone spoken with Dudley Do-Right lately? How is his investigation against Snidely Whiplash going?
- Rene Rancourt is scheduled to belt out the anthems before tonight's game.
- Brian Gionta has 5 goals in 5 games against the Bruins this season.
- Milan Lucic has 6 points (4-2-6) and is a +6 in 5 games against Montreal this season.
- Pointless stat actually pulled from the Montreal Canadiens media game notes: "Since 2005-06, the Canadiens have a 29-16-4 record in their games played during NCAA March Madness". Really? What intern waste their time compiling this stat? This has to be the most pointless and least useful stat of all-time.
- Mark Recchi needs 1 point to tie Paul Coffey for #12 on the NHL's all-time points list.
- The Public Skate open thread starts at 6:30 PM ET.