The Montreal Canadiens and the New York Rangers meet in NHL action from Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night.
The Montreal Canadiens will look to rebound from a 5-2 loss at the hands of the Boston Bruins in their last game. Nick Suzuki leads the Canadiens with 14 points including team-highs of 4 goals and 10 assists while Tyler Toffoli has 9 points with 3 goals and 6 assists. Mike Hoffman, Josh Anderson, Brendan Gallagher and Jonathan Drouin each have 7 points with Hoffman logging 4 goals of his own while Anderson and Gallagher each have 3 goals and 4 assists and Drouin has 5 assists on the year. Jake Allen’s seen the majority of Montreal’s work in net, going 4-8-1 with a 2.79 GAA and a .905 save percentage this season.
The New York Rangers will be out to build on a 3rd straight win after a 4-3 win over New Jersey last time out. Adam Fox leads the Rangers with 16 points including 4 goals and a team-high 12 assists while Artemi Panarin has 4 goals with 11 assists for his 15 points and Chris Kreider has 14 points with a team-high 11 goals including 7 power play goals this season. Mika Zibanejad has 13 points with 4 goals and 9 assists and is one of four Rangers with a team-high +3 plus/minus rating this season. Igor Shesterkin’s seen the bulk of the action in goal for the Rangers, going 7-2-2 with a 2.46 GAA and a .929 save percentage this season.
Montreal is 5-17 in their last 22 games overall and 1-10 in their last 11 road games while the under is 4-0-1 in their last 5 games against a team with a winning record. New York is 7-0 in their last 7 games against the Eastern Conference and 9-4 in their last 13 games overall while the under is 8-3 in their last 11 games as a favorite.
I get that the plus money with one of the two finalists from the championship series last year is tempting, but this Montreal team is a shell of the one that reached the cup final last year. I didn’t want much to do with Montreal to begin with, but in their current form, they’re an auto-fade for me. New York’s playing some solid hockey and that road environment at MSG is tough for visiting teams I expect the Rangers to do some damage on home ice so I’ll lay it and play it with the Rangers here.