Washington Capitals - Montreal Canadiens
Thu Jan 31, 2008 - 7:00 pm EST

Washington Capitals (23-23-5)

We have seen two faces of Washington Capitals.

An extremely bad start under Glen Hanlon and at that time league worst 6-14-1 record. After Hanlon was fired and replaced with Bruce Bodreau Capitals have 17-9-4 score and currently are on 10th place with 51 pts.

Washington went on All Star break in excellent form. Alex Ovechkin is in excelent form and with 39 scored goals he is the best scoring forward in NHL.

(C) Michael Nylander and (D) Brian Pothier are on injured reserve. Nylander was Washington’s big offseason aquisition but his torn left rotator cuff injury will keep him off the ice till the end of this season. Pothier had a very good season with 5 goals and 9 assists till his head injury on Jan 5.

Montreal Canadiens (27-15-8).

Montreal is the most successful team in NHL league with 24 Stanley Cups (second is Toronto with 13). But this team won their last Stanley Cup in season 1992/93.

Since then it’s been period of stugggling and in last season they missed playoffs for only 2 pts.

It seems that this season is different. With only 4 new players,defensemen Hamrlik, Brisebois and Gorges and (C) Bryan Smolinski and improtantly with a healthy Christobal Huet (missing the playoffs last season was mainly because Huet was injured in period Feb 15th – Apr 5th).

Canadiens have excellent road record 17-7-3, 3rd in league behind Detroit and San Jose.They are 4-1-0 in their last 5 away games.

STATS COMPARISON

Washington home 13-11-1 *** Montreal away 17-7-3

Current form (last 5 games)
Washington W-W-L-W-L *** Montreal W-L-W-W-W

GFA
Washington 2.81 (10th) *** Montreal 3.05 (4th)

GAA
Washington 3.06 (25th) *** Montreal 2.58 (9th)

Power Play (%)
Washington 17.9 (15th) *** Montreal 24.1 (2nd)

Penalty Kill (%)
Washington 79.9 (25th) *** Montreal 81.0 (20th)

HEAD TO HEAD THIS SEASON

30.01.2008 Montreal-Washington 4:0
05.01.2008 Montreal-Washington 4:5 OT
21.12.2007 Washington-Montreal 2:5

THE VERDICT

This is second game between these two teams in just 2 days.

Montreal had a 4-0 win on Tuesday night, scoring three goals in 1st period and Christobal Huet and defence did the rest.

I don’t expect that to repeat but the only way for Washington to win is to have high scoring game.

PERCENTAGE ESTIMATE :

Washington 36% – Draw 24% - Montreal 40%

FIXED ODDS BETTING :

Take Montreal on the ML