Habs vs. Devils Look A-Head

The Rock will be opening its doors on Wednesday night to our neighbors to the north, the Montreal Canadiens. The Devils are 4-1 against the Habs in their last five meetings when Montreal travels to Jersey, so they are a welcomed opponent. On top of a solid home record, the Devs are 7-3 against Montreal, averaging a stellar 3 goals a game against them, where as the Habs average just over 1 against us. Granted, those numbers are from past match ups that will have no deliberate outcome on the game Wednesday night. But, there is an alarming trend between the pipes for the Devils to take into consideration and that is the Montreal native himself. Martin Brodeur always rises to the occasion against these guys; in fact the Canadiens have mustered a feeble 1.25 goals in the last four against Marty. With Montreal in town and the Devils playing as well as anyone in the league right now, there is a little matter of a shutout record to be broken for Brodeur as well. He tied the all time wins mark against Montreal last year, now he has the chance to reach another milestone against them in breaking Terry Sawchuk’s shutout mark.

Beside the fact that recent history between these two teams has shown Montreal struggle offensively, they also rank 21^st amongst the league in overall scoring (Jersey is 19^th). They are also in the bottom of the league in goals against at 23^rd (Jersey is 2^nd). So, in the comparison between offenses, the two teams are pretty even, but what separate them mightily are the goals against, which could be the deciding factor in Wednesday night’s game. Individually, New Jersey will need to hone in on Mike Cammalleri (a personal favorite of mine) who has been red hot as of late with 8 pts in 6 games. If they find a way to take him out of the picture early, then they have seemingly shut down their best offensive option, even though Andrei Kostitsyn has five points in his last two.

Like most games for New Jersey, they will have to come out early and show that they are the better of the two teams. They can do this by peppering whoever the Habs have in net. They have been off since Saturday night so they should be good to go. By dictating what kind of game it is going to be right away, Montreal will play right into the hands of the Devils by forcing passes and looking for Cammalleri a lot (and hopefully he will be tied up). The Devils, by all means, should win this one but who knows, a few odd man rushes here and there and boom, we are trailing. If that happens, that’s alright too. We don’t give up a lot, but Montreal does, so if that happens we can come back in this one. I see a big game from Marty, possibly getting the shutout, but who knows, it is so hard to do that on any given night (which is why 103 is so amazing). For the Devils offensively I would love to see Elias continue his tear, Rolston get a power play goal and Langenbrunner to add to his points total.

Lets Go Devils.

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