All Habs GameDay: Wednesday December 21, 2011
On this day in hockey history… 1979 – Garry Unger’s NHL record for consecutive games played streak ended at 914, when Atlanta coach Al MacNeil benched him during a 5-1 Flames loss to the visiting St. Louis Blues. (The record was later upped to 964 games by Doug Jarvis.)
GAMEDAY: Habs hockey tonight!
MONTREAL CANADIENS (13-14-7) vs. CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS (21-9-4)
Last 10: Chicago (7-2-1); Montreal 3-4-3
United Center, 7:30 p.m. EST
TV: RDS, TSN, CSN-CH
Projected line combinations (updated following morning skate)
MONTREAL CANADIENS
Forwards
Mike Cammalleri – Tomas Plekanec – Travis Moen
Max Pacioretty – David Desharnais – Erik Cole
Andrei Kostitsyn – Lars Eller – Louis Leblanc
Mike Blunden – Petteri Nokelainen – Mathieu Darche
Defenseman
Josh Gorges – P.K. Subban
Hal Gill – Raphael Diaz
Tomas Kaberle – Chris Campoli
Goaltenders
Carey Price – Peter Budaj (will start)
Scratches
Yannick Weber – Alexei Emelin
Injuries
Scott Gomez – Ryan White – Andrei Markov – Brian Gionta
Power-play
Cammalleri – Plekanec – Kostitsyn- Kaberle – Subban
Pacioretty – Desharnais – Cole – Weber – Campoli
CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS
Forwards
Jeremy Morin – Jonathan Toews – Patrick Kane
Patrick Sharp – Brandon Pirri -Marian Hossa
Bryan Bickell – Dave Bolland – Michael Frolik
Andrew Brunette – Jamal Mayers – Viktor Stalberg
Defensemen
Duncan Keith – Brent Saebrook
Niklas Hjalmarsson – Nick Leddy
John Scott – Steve Montador
Goaltenders
Corey Crawford (will start) -Ray Emery
Scratches
Injuries
Dan Carcillo – Marcus Kruger
GAMEDAY: All Habs Headlines
► PM’s hockey book due out in 2012: Whatever their political stripes, Canadians have always appreciated a prime minister with a love for hockey. Some say Stephane Dion’s awkward photo-op playing hockey (seemingly for the first time) was the beginning of the end of his political career. Our current PM Stephen Harper is described as having an “encyclopedic knowledge about the game.” Expect his book about Canada’s national winter sport on store shelves in 2012.
“Canada is known throughout the world as the hockey nation. I meet with many world leaders and representatives of foreign governments and invariably the subject comes up. Many have observed to me that we Canadians are seen as generally a pretty modest, quiet, unassuming-type people — but they notice with Canadians that when the subject of hockey comes up we get very loud and start waving our arms around. It’s a bit of a standing joke. Everybody notices this!” — Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Read more: Harper on hockey: PM set to finish book on Canada’s sport
► Looking for “Hockey Futures?”: Some of you are just hearing the news that we’ve added columnist Robert Rice, also known as @SeriousFan09, to the All Habs team. He’ll join @czechtacular and @EP31 in providing the most comprehensive set of information on Canadiens prospects that you can find. His weekly series will now be titled “Catching the Torch.” You can find it here every Monday.
► We love the bunny!: Yes, we hear that everyday via email, Facebook and on Twitter. Right or wrong you love the game-by-game predictions of Puck the Bunny. Puck even has his own Twitter account now. Follow him at @HabsPuckBunny
For his latest predictions, check out Canadiens vs Blackhawks and Canadiens vs Jets.
