[AP Preview – WashingtonCaps.com Preview]
The Montreal Canadiens were a popular preseason pick to win the Eastern Conference, and almost a unanimous pick to win the Northeast Division. And while they’ve been good so far, they currently sit fourth in the Conference and second in their division, and have lost games to the Isles, Bruins (twice), ‘Canes, Flyers, Leafs and Jackets in the past three weeks, a stretch over which they’ve gone 4-4-3 and have scored more than three goals just once.
Then again, this is a Montreal team coming off a 3-1 win in Detroit thanks to the goaltending of Carey Price, who hasn’t given up more than two goals in any of his last six games, going 3-1-2/1.74/.940 along the way.
The Caps have seen Price just once before – a 5-4 Caps win back in January), which is just 353 times fewer than the Habs have seen tonight’s Caps starter, Jose Theodore, though only one of those came against Montreal (a game JT60 would rather forget).
So Game Two of the Karl Alzner era brings a much tougher opponent to the VC (where the Caps are still unblemished in regulation on the season at 8-0-1) than Wednesday night’s Thrashers squad, even with the couple of injuries the Canadiens are facing… but don’t look for any sympathy from the hosts, with this MASH unit of their own: