The Montreal Canadiens and the Edmonton Oilers meet in NHL action from Rogers Place on Saturday night.
The Montreal Canadiens will look to bounce back after a 5-4 overtime loss to Toronto last time out. Nick Suzuki opened the scoring for the Habs with just over seven minutes to go in the opening period but the Leafs would tie the game at one just 3:07 after that. Josh Anderson would restore Montreal’s lead just before the end of the opening period and Tomas Tatar pushed the lead to 3-1 just over seven minutes into the second period. Toronto would tie the game up by the end of the middle frame, sending us to the 3rd deadlocked at two goals apiece. Anderson would retake the lead for Montreal just over a minute into the 3rd, but Toronto would once again tie things up just after the midway point of the 3rd period. Neither side would find the go-ahead goal in regulation so it was off to OT where Toronto found the winning goal with just 1:36 to go in the extra frame. Carey Price took the loss after allowing all 5 goals on 34 shots faced in the losing effort.
The Edmonton Oilers will look to build on their first win of the season coming in the from of a 5-2 win over Vancouver last time out. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins opened the scoring for the Oilers just under eight minutes into the first period before Connor McDavid doubled the lead at the last second for Edmonton, giving the Oilers a 2-0 lead heading into the second period, Vancouver pulled a goal back early in the 2nd but McDavid would respond with his 2nd goal of the game to restore the two-goal cushion. Vancouver once again pulled a goal back and once again, Captain Connor scored to make it a two-goal game, completing his hat trick in the second period. The 4-2 score would hold until Nugent-Hopkins iced the game with a 5th goal with just over eight minutes to go, sealing the deal for Edmonton. Mikko Koskinen got the win to improve to 1-1 after stopping 38 of 40 shots faced in the winning effort.
Montreal is 1-4 in their last 5 games overall and 7-2 in their last 9 Saturday games while the under is 6-2 in their last 8 road games. Edmonton is 2-6 in their last 8 games overall and 0-4 in their last 4 games following a win while the over is 5-0 in their last 5 home games. Montreal is 1-5 in the last 6 meetings between these two teams.
I’ve gone back and forth on this game, but I think that after the first couple of games I can see that I really like the depth that Montreal has while I still think that Edmonton is the McDavid and Draisaitl show until I see otherwise. I think Montreal’s got a great chance at the win here, so I’ll side with the Canadiens in this spot.