All Habs GameDay: Tuesday March 26, 2013

On this day in hockey history… 1919 – In the longest game in Stanley Cup Finals history, the Montreal Canadiens and Seattle Metropolitans played 100 minutes of overtime without scoring a goal. It was the first 0-0 tie in NHL playoff history.
1991 – Mario Lemieux scored his 26th career hat trick to give the Penguins a 3-1 win at Philadelphia. It marked the first time in 75 trips that a Penguins’ player scored a hat trick in Philadelphia.

PROJECTED LINE COMBINATIONS
(Will be updated following game day skate.)

Jeff Halpern will play his first game since being acquired off waivers.

Forwards

Michael Ryder – Tomas Plekanec – Brian Gionta
Max Pacioretty – David Desharnais – Brendan Gallagher
Alex Galchenyuk – Lars Eller – Colby Armstrong
Travis Moen – Jeff Halpern – Gabriel Dumont

Defensemen

Andrei Markov – Alexei Emelin
Josh Gorges – P.K. Subban
Francis Bouillon – Jarred Tinordi

Goalies

Carey Price, Peter Budaj

Scratches

Rene Bourque (concussion), Raphael Diaz (concussion), Yannick Weber (knee), Tomas Kaberle, Brandon Prust (shoulder separation), Ryan White (lower body), Michael Blunden

Brenden Morrow will play his first game as a Penguin.
Simon Despres was returned to the AHL.
Kris Letang will play, back from injury.
Joe Vitale is out of the lineup.

Forwards

Chris Kunitz – Sidney Crosby – Pascal Dupuis
Brenden Morrow – Dustin Jeffrey – James Neal
Beau Bennett – Brandon Sutter – Tyler Kennedy
Tanner Glass – Matt Cooke – Craig Adams

Defensemen

Paul Martin – Brooks Orpik
Mark Eaton – Kris Letang
Matt Niskanen – Deryk Engelland

Goalies

Marc-Andre Fleury – Tomas Vokoun

Scratches

Evgeni Malkin, Trevor Smith, Robert Bortuzzo, Douglas Murray, Joe Vitale

TOP SCORERS

 PROJECTED GOALTENDERS
(Updated following game day skate.)

No updates at this time.

► Habs look to stop the march of the Penguins: 

• The Montreal Canadiens will look to bounce back when visiting the Pittsburgh Penguins Tuesday night, after suffering their second regulation time loss in their past twenty games Saturday night, at the hands of the Buffalo Sabres.
• Things couldn’t be better for the Penguins, who have a perfect record in March, running a 12-0-0 winning streak.
• During this winning streak, the Penguins have outscored their opponents 45-26.
• The Penguins now have a nine game winning streak at home and the Habs will look to put a stop to it with their not-too-shabby record of 11-2-2 on the road.
• Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang remain out of the lineup do to injury.

► Therrien returns to Pittsburgh:

• Tuesday will mark the first time since February 11 2009 that Michel Therrien coached a hockey game at the Pittsburgh Consol Energy Center.
• At the time, he had lead the Penguins to a 2-1 win over the San Jose Sharks.
• As coach of the Penguins, Therrien ended his tenure with a record of 75-44-17 in 136 regular season games.

► Michael Ryder closing in Tomas Plekanec for team lead in goals:

• With Michael Ryder being the lone goal scorer for the Canadiens this past Saturday, he has now moved into a tie for second place on the Canadiens’ roster for total goals on the season.
• Tomas Plekanec continues to lead the team with 12 goals followed by Ryder and Brian Gionta who both have 10. P.K. Subban is right behind with 9.
• Since being acquired in exchange for Erik Cole, Ryder has scored 4 goals and picked up 7 assists for 11 points in 11 games with the Canadiens.
• In twelve games with the Dallas Stars, Cole has 2 goals and no assists.

► Rookie Watch:

• Saturday night against the Islanders, Brendan Gallagher and Alex Galchenyuk were both held off the scoresheet.
• Gallagher totals 9 goals and 9 assists for 18 points on the season.
• Galchenyuk totals 3 goals and 11 assists for 14 points on the season.
• Respectively, they rank third and tied for seventh amongst rookies in the league.

Top 10 NHL Rookies / Total Points

1. Cory Conacher (TBL): 9G, 14A, 23PTS
   
2. Jonathan Huberdeau (FLA): 12G, 8A, 20PTS
3. Brendan Gallagher (MTL): 9G, 9A, 18PTS
4. Brandon Saad (CHI): 4G, 12A, 16PTS
5. Nail Yakupov (EDM): 6G, 9A, 15PTS
6. Justin Schultz (EDM): 5G, 10A, 15PTS
7. Patrick Wiercioch (OTT): 4G, 11A, 15 PTS
8. Vladimir Tarasenko (STL): 6G, 8A, 14PTS
9. Alex Galchenyuk (MTL): 3G, 11A, 14PTS
10. Jakob Silfverberg (OTT): 8G, 5A, 13PTS

Carey Price on the Sabres’ goaltending against the Habs this season:

“They’ve had two really good performances by their goaltenders. Tonight, Ryan really stole them one and last game, Enroth played very well. We had a lot of opportunities but the puck was just out of reach.” said Carey Price following the game. “You have to take the positives out of it. We maintained puck possession for the majority of that game, our puck pursuit was excellent and we had a lot of offensive zone play.”

Brian Gionta on how the Habs were unfortunate:

“We had a lot of chances, we created a lot on our forecheck, we created a lot down low, but they got a 5-on-3 goal then a late one in the second that changed the momentum,” explained Gionta. “Going into the third down two instead of down one hurt us.”

Michel Therrien on his team’s play:

“I thought we played a solid game. We dictated the game, we skated hard, guys were ready to play and I liked our intensity. We were competing hard to the net and competing hard for loose pucks.” said Therrien. “We wanted to make sure we played a solid game from start to finish and that’s what we did. That’s what you ask from your team, but the result just wasn’t on our side tonight.”