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Bruins vs. Canadiens 11/25/19 PREVIEW

Once again the Boston Bruins face their archnemesis. Can they actually get a win out of this one?

Boston Bruins v Montreal Canadiens Photo by Francois Lacasse/NHLI via Getty Images

Just the Facts:

The Time: 7pm EST

The Place: Centre Bell, Montreal, Quebec

Place to Watch: NESN, ESPN+

Place to Listen: 98.5 The Sports Hub

Opposing SBNation Blog: Eyes on the Prize

Know Your Enemy:

  • The Habs are 11-7-5 in 23 games. They are 3rd in the Atlantic Division, 7th in Conference.
  • After a while of Joel Armia leading the team in goals for whatever reason, Brendan Gallagher has firmly re-established himself as the head honcho of Habs goalscoring with 9 in 23 games. The points leader for the Habs is Tomas Tatar, with 20 in 23 points.
  • Tatar, Shea Weber, Jonathan Drouin, and Joel Armia are all tied for 2nd in goalscoring with 7 goals.
  • Because team defense isn’t exactly a priority for the Habs right now, Carey Price is only sporting a .907 SV%. Money well spent!

Game Preview:

Last time the Bruins faced the Habs, they had come off of one of their worst individual period efforts in their game against the Penguins, and the bad lessons learned from that seemed to bubble over in their first contest in MTL. This time, Boston is coming off one of the more dramatic come-from-behind games they’ve played all year thanks to some ugly play throughout the first couple of periods.

Let’s hope they learned a lesson about starting on time from Saturday, because the Habs are not in a good mood right now.

Having just lost a wild 6-5 game to the New York Rangers to cap off a 4 game losing streak in which they rarely hold leads for any noteworthy amount of time, the Habs’ defense just got publicly called out by Claude Julien for being not good at their jobs, though he and the coaching staff should share at least some of the blame for that, as well as their absolutely miserable special teams. Things aren’t great for the bleu, blanc, et rouge right now, in spite of their otherwise positive results.

You just hate to see it.

That said, Boston’s as per usual very undermanned, with Patrice Bergeron day-to-day and Brett Ritchie dealing with a lingering infection, which means Jack Studnicka and Brendan Gaunce’s 2019-20 big boy hockey debut is upon us after a good AHL start. How will they fare in one of the historically most difficult games the Bruins play all year? Tune in tonight to find out!