Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports
Prior to their first two games of the week, the Montreal Canadiens were just as hot as any team in the NHL as they had been winners of of their previous five games. In their two games so far this week, the Canadiens have found themselves on the losing end of each as they lost 6-0 to the Los Angeles Kings on Tuesday night and 2-1 to the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday night.
In the 6-0 loss to the Kings, the Canadiens stood no chance of winning the game as they came out flat and off their game against one of the league’s best teams who came out ready to play and jumped on the Canadiens. A four goal second period sealed the fate of the Canadiens on Tuesday night as Carey Price was pulled after the Kings made it 4-0. In the game against the Flyers, Price played a very good game as he stopped 25-of-27 shots on goal to give the Canadiens a chance to win the game. His efforts didn’t help as his teammates were unable to generate enough offense to eek out a win on Thursday night.
Luckily for the Canadiens on Saturday night they take on a struggling New York Islanders team who, after having made the playoffs in the shortened season last year have taken a step back in this 2013-14 season. All the numbers help support the fact that the Islanders have been having a very bad season to date. Offensively, the Islanders rank 22nd in the league in goals per game as they are only averaging 2.4 while also struggling on the power play as they are 22nd with a 15.6 percentage on the man advantage.
As far as the defensive play for the Islanders, they are dead last in the league in goals against average as they allow an average of 3.5 goals per game. On the penalty kill they are only successful on 70.4 percent of the time they are a man down. Needless to say they are nowhere despite the play of John Tavares who has scored 13 goals so far this season and has chipped in with 24 assists. All this means that coach Jack Capuano is liable to be relieved of his duties any day which for the Canadiens means that the game on Saturday night represents for them a nice bounce back game to get back to winning ways.
Lucas Carreras is a contributing NHL writer for RantSports.com. Lucas is also a contributing Soccer and San Francisco 49ers writer. You can follow Lucas on Twitter by following him @maldini3fan and you can add him to your network on Google.