The (very tough) next ten days of the Canadiens

Dose
Crédit: Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images

The most important game of the season, it was the one on Tuesday against the Senators will be played tonight in New York.

The habs hold the eighth and last rank giving access to the playoffs, while the Islanders are three points behind them. If the logic of Tuesday in Montreal is respected, the team that will play with the energy of despair – at home nonetheless -, it will be Patrick Roy’s team. And the Islanders have a record of 6-3-1 in their last ten games.

Won’t be easy peasy Marty !

But the habs’ grueling sequence will not end soon.

On Saturday, the Avalanche will be in town. The Avalanche is 8-1-1 in their last ten games, Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar are in destruction mode and Gabriel Landeskog’s return could bring the team to a whole new dimension.

On Tuesday, the habs will be in St. Louis to face the Blues, ninth in the West. The Blues have a record of 7-2-1 in their last ten games.

The Canadiens will then play a trap game against the Flyers on Thursday in Philadelphia, before visiting the Hurricanes (8-2-0 in their last ten games) the next day, and then the Panthers two days later in the afternoon. The Panthers are 7-3-0 in their last ten games…

(Credit: habs.com)

The Panthers will come again to start the month of April…

In short, the habs will cross swords with teams as hot as embers (greetings to my boy JT), often on the road and with flights not well placed – often at the beginning of the night – through all this.

The next two weeks will not be a vacation.

Martin St-Louis will need everyone… especially Jakub Dobes. Samuel Montembeault will not be able to hold the fort alone.

Let’s hope the team will be spared from (new) injuries and that Kaiden Guhle will be able to make a return to the game before the end of the season.

Let’s also hope that Joshua Roy will wake up offensively, he who plays on the second line of the team, or that he will be replaced by a guy like Alex Barré-Boulet, Florian Xhekaj, Sean Farrell or Owen Beck.

Note that the month of April will not be a vacation either, with nine games in 16 days. If the habs manage to qualify for the playoffs, it will be a feat in itself.

Each evening, the Hockey Gods will also have to come to the aid of the Montrealers by making the teams that are fighting for the place currently occupied by the habs lose.

I said it and I repeat it: there won’t be an easy one.

But damn it’s fun to follow the habs right now. #Emotions

Will we have hockey in May in Montreal? The next two weeks will give us part of the answer to this question.

Overtime

– According to the Tankathon site, the habs have only the 17th most difficult schedule in the entire NHL until the end of the season. Tankathon‘s mathematical model only takes into account the opposing team’s points in the standings; it does not consider travel, the location of games, recent results of opponents, injured players, and the playoff race. [Tankathon]

– Reminder: The eighth episode of season three of Stanley25 is out. We talk about Joshua Roy and Patrik Laine. Good listening!

– The habs offer their condolences to Brendan Gallagher’s family.

– A machine.

– He found a role this season.

– The habs are in the top-16.