The Montreal Canadiens will be taking on a team that has had a trying season, to say the least, on Tuesday night. The Vancouver Canucks were thrown into turmoil by a rift between J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson which President Jim Rutherford confirmed. Trouble in the room rarely leads to success on the ice, and eventually, the West Coast team elected to trade Miller to the New York Rangers at the end of January.
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Unfortunately, since then, Petterson has looked like a shadow of his former self. A week ago, he had fewer shots since the trade than Miller has points. The Canucks center ended the month of February with only two points to his name and he only has a goal in March so far, for a total of three points in 12 games since the trade. Could a game against the Habs be what he needs? It would be surprising; in 15 duels with the Canadiens, he has only picked up 10 points and has a minus-11 record. If you want to see the bright side though, his faceoff game has been better.
Pettersson wasn’t in the lineup when the Canadiens beat the Canucks 5-4 in overtime at the start of January, worst still, Miller was their dynamo in the game, picking up two goals and two assists.
Vancouver will hope that their top points producers against Montreal, Tyler Myers (20 points in 54 games), Brock Boeser (17 points in 20 tilts), and Jake De Brusk (17 points in 22 duels) will show up. Of course, Quinn Hughes’s presence would be a big plus (19 points in 18 games), but the blueliner is still day-to-day with an injury.
As for the Canadiens, captain Nick Suzuki has 16 points in just 18 meetings with the British Columbia outfit, while alternate captain Brendan Gallager has 14 in 29 games. Joel Armia wraps up the top three with 12 points in 19 games. It’s also worth noting that rookie blueliner Lane Hutson got three points in his only game against the Canucks.
We already know that Samuel Montembeault will be in net against Vancouver while Jakub Dobes will take on Seattle. The Becancour native was on duty when Montreal beat the Canucks in January and he has a 2-3-1 record against the Canucks with a .849 save percentage and a 4.50 goals-against average. As for Dobes, he’s never taken them on.
As for Vancouver’s top choice, Kevin Lankinen, he’s only faced Montreal once in that 5-4 defeat in…