There aren’t many teams that are below the Montreal Canadiens right now in the standings but tonight’s hosts, the Philadelphia Flyers are. Both sides have played eight games so far this season, but the Habs have three wins while the Broad Street Bullies have two.
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Still, yesterday, both clubs put on great performances. The Canadiens tidied up their defensive game to sign a 5-2 win over the St. Louis Blues while the Flyers exploded for seven goals in a 7-5 win over the Minnesota Wild.
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The last time the two teams met in a regular season setting, Juraj Slafkovsky score his first career hat-trick, but the big Slovak won’t be there tonight thanks to an upper body injury. Josh Anderson could also be missing the tilt after he blocked a hard shot last night with the inside of his skate. There’s been no official word on his status yet, but the Canadiens did recall Lucas Condotta from the Laval Rocket.
Tonight will mark the first time the Canadiens take on the Flyers’ new Russian sensation Matvei Michkov and we should hear and read plenty about how the Canadiens’ passed on the skilled forward today. Philadelphia fans are quick to forget how the Habs landed Cole Caufield thanks to the Pennsylvania outfit opting for Cam York though, so keep that in your back pocket Montreal fans.
Michkov is leading all rookies in the league in scoring so far with nine points in eight games, but does find himself on the ice for a lot of goals against as well since he’s carrying a minus-five rating. Meanwhile, last night, Lane Hutson became the first rookie blueliner in Canadiens’ history to record seven assists in his first 10 games. The rearguard is fourth in rookie scoring this season with 5 points in eight games, but like Michkov, he’s been on the receiving end of a lot of goals, showing a minus-three rating.
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Tonight’s tilt will be the 209th match-up between the two teams and the Canadiens have got the edge overall with a 96-75-30-7 record, but when it comes to games played in Philadelphia, the Habs have a losing record with 41-42-16-4. The Canadiens have won seven out of the last 10 meetings against John Tortorella’s men including the last two.
Cayden Primeau will be manning the net for the Canadiens while the Flyers have yet to confirm who their starting goalie will be, but since Samuel Ersson played last night, it would make sense for Ivan Fedotov to get the nod.
Primeau has played four games against the Flyers in his career and has a 2-1-1 record against them with a 1.69 goals-against average and a .948 save percentage. Meanwhile, Fedotov has appeared in one game against the Habs surrendering four goals on 13 shots which gives him a 8.79 GAA and a .692 SP. As for Ersson, he’s played three games against the Canadiens and has a 1-2-0 record with a 3.47 GAA and a .824 SP.
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Flyers captain Sean Couturier, who got his 500th point in the NHL last night, is the Flyers top scored against the Canadiens with 20 points in 31 games. Right winger Owen Tippett is a point-per-game player against the Habs with nine points in nine game. As for left winger Travis Konecny he has 12 points in 17 games when taking on Montreal and he currently co-leads the Flyers in points with nine in eight games (just like linemate Michkov).
On the Canadiens’ side, Cole Caufield (who is red hot so far this season) has seven points in as many games against the Flyers while Nick Suzuki has 10 points in 12 games. As for Brendan Gallagher, he has faced the Flyers 29 times and has 22 points to show for it.
Understandably, only extras will be skating this morning at the Wells Fargo Center and selected players will be meeting the media around noon. Tonight’s game is set for 7:30 PM and the Canadiens will then make their way back to Montreal after the game as they’ll host the Kraken on Tuesday evening at the Bell Centre.
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