Montreal Canadiens

[ericdaoust]

Montoya starts tonight.

[Bass56]

According to TSN, both Galchenyuk and Shaw will be back tonight vs the Rangers.

With that, the lines should look like this:

Pacioretty - Galchenyuk - Radulov

Lehkonen - Plekanec - Andrighetto

Byron - Danault - Shaw

Flynn - Mitchell - McCarron

http://www.tsn.ca/1.650250.1484408964

- - - Updated - - -

According to TSN, both Galchenyuk and Shaw will be back tonight vs the Rangers.

With that, the lines should look like this:

Pacioretty - Galchenyuk - Radulov

Lehkonen - Plekanec - Andrighetto

Byron - Danault - Shaw

Flynn - Mitchell - McCarron

http://www.tsn.ca/1.650250.1484408964

[ericdaoust]

That should help. Plus Redmond is back in.

[Bass56]

Nice, I most likely overlooked Redmond's status. He's really underrated!

[ericdaoust]

Nice, I most likely overlooked Redmond's status. He's really underrated!

So did Michel Therrien.

[newfcollins]

So, does Shaw get suspended for last night's late hit? I'm guessing two games (no idea if he is a repeat offender).

[ericdaoust]

I don't think he's getting anything.

[Bass56]

So, does Shaw get suspended for last night's late hit? I'm guessing two games (no idea if he is a repeat offender).

I don't think he's getting anything.

I felt it was a borderline clean hit. It was bad in the sense that Fast didn't see him until the last second so he wasn't able to defend himself. However, if you look closely at the play, when Fast makes that breakout pass, Shaw is almost parallel to him; a fraction of a second later, he is on the same line, coming in hard to finish that hit.

Typically, the player will make that pass and an opposing player will chase the puck unless the breakout pass came from the boards, in which case the opposing player will go in for the check. This hit was just a play where Shaw wanted to play hard and hit whatever he could within the pre-established rules. It's not nice, but I don't see anything illegal with it as it was a shoulder to shoulder hit, from a visible angle and less than 1.5 seconds after the pass was made.

[Bass56]

Plus, I'm having a bit of trouble counting the strides that Shaw made before the hit, but it looks like it's under 3 so no call for charging either IMO.

[ericdaoust]

I love how the NHL tries to be precise about exactly how much time a player has to throw a hit after the puck is gone. It's like they think the players have stopwatches in their pockets.

[Bass56]

I love how the NHL tries to be precise about exactly how much time a player has to throw a hit after the puck is gone. It's like they think the players have stopwatches in their pockets.

Eric, we may be on to something here... Imagine if players were equipped with vibrating sensors in their helmets or jerseys... Once it vibrates, you cannot hit the opposing player as your allocated time has expired... I would think this feature would help decrease the late hits (while increasing the cases of migraines... ok forget it ).

[ericdaoust]

Eric, we may be on to something here... Imagine if players were equipped with vibrating sensors in their helmets or jerseys... Once it vibrates, you cannot hit the opposing player as your allocated time has expired... I would think this feature would help decrease the late hits (while increasing the cases of migraines... ok forget it ).

I don't mind the idea as I like seeing epic fails play out. Sign me up! Or better yet, come up with a more logical rule instead of allowing whatever amount of time to complete a check. I mean, if the puck is gone and you're not already giving the hit you have time to let up or pull back entirely. That should be the expectation.

[Bass56]

Ok so this is a weird stat and I've yet to confirm if it's true but I just heard on SportsNet that Pacioretty scored his 20th goal on January 14 in 2014, 2015 and 2017! That's as consistent as it gets IMO!

[evans334]

Yeah feel like I saw that on twitter too....kind of a crazy coincidence.

[Bass56]

Holy smokes, I just checked it out and it is a true stat! His 20th in 2015-16 was the exception as it came on Feb 7th. He could have pulled off the feat that year as well as he had 17 goals as of Jan. 6th...