Tampa traditionally represents a formidable challenge for the Canadiens, largely due to the presence of French-Canadian superstars Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis. These guys just love to play against, and beat the Habs. Year after year whether their team is good or bad, they always make life difficult for the Canadiens.
Tonight, however, there are a ton of addition angles to this game, not least of which is the fact that this will be the Canadiens' home opener.
The Return of Roman Hamrlik and Guy Boucher
The Canadiens are coming home with a one-and-one split on the road—buoyed by an outstanding effort by goaltender Carey Price—and you know that they want to provide their rabid fans with the first home win of the season.
In addition, Brian Gionta will be playing his first home game as captain of the Montreal Canadiens and he is sure to want to keep that crowd smiling.
The Habs will be getting reinforcements on the back end tonight in the form of Roman Hamrlik. His presence is sure to help stabilize a so far questionable—at times—defensive corp.
On a similar note, very unofficial word from the Team 990's Tony Marinaro says that star defenseman, Andrei Markov, could make a return to the lineup as early at Saturday's match up against the Ottawa Senators.
But I digress.
With all of the drama surrounding tonight's game, the storyline of the night has to be Tampa's coach Guy Boucher, coaching his first game against the Montreal Canadiens.
For those who have been hiding under a rock all summer, Guy Boucher previously coached the Canadiens' AHL affiliate Hamilton Bulldogs, to within a game of the Calder Cup finals.
Moreover, there was a lot of angst from the Canadiens' fan base the Habs failed to make Boucher part of their Montreal coaching staff and instead opted to let him go to the Lightning.
As my colleague Eric Engels pointed out, Boucher knows large swathes of this team from his days in Hamilton and he's sure to do everything in his power to down his former organization.
Carey Price
The other storyline that I feel will be most prominent, is the play of Carey Price.
He started the season with a loss in Toronto on a solid goaltending performance, in a situation where his teammates simply could not score enough goals in front of him.
Price followed up that performance with a stupendous 36 save effort two nights later in Pittsburgh, to steal two points from a hungry Pens team.
After the game, Coach Martin, in front of all of the other players in the dressing room, said that the victory belonged to Price, and he gave him the game puck to applause from his teammates.
The move is a smart one by a veteran coach who knows that Price is a player who's confidence is fragile and needs a little stroking.
So how will Price respond? That, to me, is the big question and it will be interesting to find out.
My gut tells me that he'll play well and the Habs will pull out a win.
Tune in tonight to find out.
So what are the storylines that you will be watching for and who do you think will win?
0 comments:
Post a Comment