The Month of February
The schedule makers have thrown the Canadiens a bit of a bone this month as the Habs play a bunch of teams currently out of the playoffs. In fact, 11 of the 14 teams Montreal plays in February are currently on the outside looking in. Toronto visits the Bell Center twice, on Valentine's day and two weeks later on the 28th. The Leafs fired coach Randy Carlyle January 6th and the team is in turmoil. The stiffest test will likely be February 24th vs. St. Louis. The Blues are a fast team and have players who can hit the net. One game the Habs will need to be wary of is on February 3rd against Buffalo. I say this because the Sabres are currently on a lengthy losing streak spanning 13 games and teams like this that desperately want to win a game to save face can be the most dangerous to play. Also, earlier this season, the Sabres swept a home-and-home series that was closer than it should have been thanks to the goaltending. Montreal has two back-to-backs in February, so expect Dustin Tokarski to get a couple of starts this month. It is essential that Montreal win most of the games this month. Most of the games are versus teams that have zero chance of making the playoffs. As you will see below the schedule for March is much more difficult
The Month of March
Habs fans, brace yourselves, the month of March is going to be a difficult mountain to climb. In the first week of March, Montreal goes on a California road trip where they will meet the top team in the NHL (Anaheim Ducks) March 4th and the defending Stanley Cup champs (LA Kings) the next night. Oh yeah, and March 2nd Montreal visits San Jose to start the trip. It might be a challenge not to look past this game for the players. When the Habs return home from that California adventure, they face Tampa Bay in the first of three meetings over twenty days. A quick note about Tampa Bay. I think Montreal was fortunate to sweep the Lightning. I still think they would have won last year's playoff round with a fully healthy Steven Stamkos in the line-up. However, Stamkos was barely back from his broken leg last year. This season, Stamkos has been lighting it up and he burned the Habs a few times this season. This month will be a good chance to prepare to playoff-style competition. The teams Montreal faces are the top teams in the league and Montreal needs to figure out how to beat these teams now as they will be facing teams very similar to them in terms of difficulty level a few weeks later
The month of April
At this point, Montreal should have locked down a playoff spot if they win the games they are supposed to win in February and March. If that is the case, some of the veterans such as Subban, Pacioretty and Markov may sit out a game or so to rest for the playoffs. Also, Carey Price will likely back-up Tokarski a couple of games. Three of the five games this month are against non-playoff teams (Florida, Toronto and NJ). The Habs also play Washington and Detroit. There is one back-to-back scheduled April 2-3.
Potential Playoff Match-ups
As I mentioned at the beginning of this blog post, the Habs would face rival Boston if the playoffs started tomorrow. However, this matchup is far from certain as there is still a lot of hockey to be played. I think the current eight playoff teams will end up being the eight that eventually make the playoffs as eighth place New York Rangers have an eight-point cushion over 9th place Florida at the moment. Other potential playoff opponents are the Rangers and the Capitals. I think Montreal has the best chance against Boston, followed by Washington and then NY. Montreal faced two of the three in last year's playoffs, losing to NY in the 3rd round and defeating Boston in 7 in the 2nd round. The last time Montreal and Washington met in the playoffs was in the 1st round of the 09-10 season when the then 8th seeded Habs defeated the top seeded Capitals in seven entertaining games. One cannot make any comparisons between the teams as both Montreal and Washington have undergone significant personnel changes in the past five years, especially Washington who has a completely different coach in Barry Trotz. Anyway, Montreal should be able to beat any of these teams on any given night. Of course the challenge is to do it four times in seven games or less. I think doing so will be toughest against NY, who has pretty much the same line-up as last year and has proven to be a tough match-up this season, including a 5-0 spanking by NY back in November, but Carey Price was not in goal for that one-sided lost. Price is the X factor!
The next 35 games should be fun to watch. Go Habs Go!
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