GameDay: Habs vs Panthers Lineups, Price, Gorges, Therrien

Steve Farnham

12 years ago

All Habs GameDay: Thursday February 14, 2013

On this day in hockey history… 1990 – Canadiens’ Stephane Richer scored points on his first five shifts on the ice, and finished with two goals and five assists in a 10-1 Montreal win over Vancouver.

GAMEDAY: A chance to come back home with a perfect record in Florida.

FLORIDA PANTHERS (4-6-2)	vs.	MONTREAL CANADIENS (6-4-1)
	BankAtlantic Center, Sunrise, FL 7:30 p.m. EST TV: RDS, TSN-HABS
Home Record: 2-2-1 Goals For: 30 Goals against: 46 PP percentage: 19.6 (12th) PK percentage: 72.9 (27th)		Away Record: 2-1-1 Goals For: 35 Goals against: 33 PP percentage: 21.2 (9th) PK percentage: 81.0 (17th)

Projected line combinations (updated following morning skate)

MONTREAL CANADIENS

Forwards
Rene Bourque – Tomas Plekanec – Brian Gionta
Max Pacioretty – Alex Galchenyuk – Brendan Gallagher
Brandon Prust – David Desharnais – Erik Cole
Travis Moen – Lars Eller – Colby Armstrong

Defensemen

Andrei Markov – Alexei Emelin
Josh Gorges – Raphael Diaz
Francis Bouillon – P.K. Subban

Scratches

Ryan White, Tomas Kaberle, Yannick Weber

FLORIDA PANTHERS

Forwards

Tomas Fleischmann – Stephen Weiss – Kris Versteeg
Jonathan Huberdeau – Drew Shore – Peter Mueller
Alex Kovalev – Marcel Goc – Tomas Kopecky
Jack Skille – Jerred Smithson – Shawn Matthias

Defensemen

Filip Kuba – Brian Campbell
Dmitry Kulikov – Mike Weaver
Eric Gudbranson – Tyson Strachan

Scratches

Scottie Upshall, Sean Bergenheim, George Parros, Ed Jovanovski, Michael Caruso

PROJECTED GOALTENDERS

Jose Theodore (Confirmed)	vs.	Carey Price (Confirmed)

Record: 4-5-0 GAA : 3.41 Sv%: .890 EV GA/60: 3.28		Record: 7-3-0 GAA : 2.27 Sv%: .915 EV GA/60: 1.59 (7th)

(updated following morning skate)

GAMEDAY: All Habs Headlines

► Confidence Shaken:

The Montreal Canadiens showed signs of a team whose confidence is not quite where it should be right now, as they almost blew a late third period, 3-0 lead against the Tampa Bay Lightning this past Tuesday night. After the Lightning scored their first goal with a little less than six minutes to go in the third period, the Canadiens fell flat on their heels and struggled to hold on, before needing Carey Price to solidify the win in a shootout.
In the past, the Canadiens were known to struggle in Florida but if they can return to Montreal with a perfect 2-0-0 record on this trip to Florida, it could help their confidence and they’ll need it with the Philadelphia Flyers coming to Montreal in the next game on Saturday.
Price had this to say:

“Obviously we need to be winning some shootouts. Davy [David Desharnais] made a good move there and scored and I just tried to be patient on Stammer [Steven Stamkos] and wait him out. At the end of the day, we gave up the lead but the game wasn’t lost yet and we managed to stay focused and won.”

Josh Gorges was quick to defend Price:

“Obviously that wasn’t the way we wanted to win the game. Seeing those goals go in, especially that third one was tough, but we stayed strong. It goes off me in front, then it’s going wide but then it goes off Raph [Raphael Diaz] on the side and, there was nothing Pricey could do on any three of those goals.”

Michel Therrien’s “Don’t worry, be happy” attitude overflowed with positivism:

“We need contribution from everyone if we’re going to win. We spoke about that before the game. They all showed up and played well and it’s what allowed us walk away with the win. They did great work tonight and I’m very happy with the effort they put in. They killed off several penalties over the course of that game. That’s how we decided to use their line tonight and they delivered. Not only that, but they generated offense as well. It was a big plus for us.”

► Tomas “The Passer” Plekanec leads the Habs in scoring:

Known mostly for his passing skills, Tomas Plekanec currently not only leads the Habs in total points with 11 over Andrei Markov’s 10, but he also leads the team in goals with six, while both Brendan Gallagher and Markov trail with four.

► “The Kids” are doing well, but with this ice-time, expect regression:

Alex Galchenyuk and Brendan Gallagher have had a great start to their NHL rookie season with the Canadiens, but with their current average ice-time (Galchenyuk: 12:05, Gallagher: 11:06), expect some regression.
Both Galchenyuk and Gallagher currently have the highest PDO on the team (Galchenyuk: 1105, Gallagher: 1103), and with them both having an on ice shooting percentage above 14 per cent, you can expect both of these stats to take a dip in the long-run. (PDO is the sum of “On-Ice Shooting Percentage” and “On-Ice Save Percentage” while a player was on the ice. It regresses very heavily to the mean in the long-run: a team or player well above 1000 has generally played in good luck and should expect to drop going forward and vice-versa.)

► Scoring Leaders:

Panthers:

Tomas Fleischmann: 4G, 6A
Jonathan Huberdeau: 5G, 3A
Brian Campbell & Peter Mueller both have 7 points.

Canadiens:

Tomas Plekanek: 6G, 5A
Andrek Markov: 4G, 6A
Raphel Diaz: 9A

► Puck’s take:

Need to know who will win tonight? Click the link to watch Puck the Bunny’s prediction.

► Habs Tickets:

With games against the Flyers, Hurricanes and Rangers upcoming, click the link to find the best selection of Montreal Canadiens tickets.

► New at All Habs Hockey Magazine and Hockey Pub:

(Feature Photo: John Morstad)