At first blush, this one should be a classic.
Montreal Canadiens, boasting one of the NHL's best road records, pop into Tampa Bay Thursday night to play a Lightning team that has the league's third-best home record.
Canadiens' goaltender Carey Price was under siege Sunday in a 4-1 loss to the Dallas Stars, which left coach Guy Carbonneau concerned by a lack of effort.
(Matt Slocum/Associated Press)
And it's on Hockey Night in Canada (CBC, 7 p.m. ET).
Such setups can be so easily undermined by recent events, however.
Les Habitants are in the middle of a six-game road trip that has produced one win and a shootout loss in three tries. The most recent was a 4-1 loss to the Dallas Stars on Sunday that had coach Guy Carbonneau annoyed with his team.
"We talked about it before the game," he said. "I can accept losing when you show up and give the effort, but tonight there was only a little bit of that."
Still, Montreal is 11-6-1 on the road, so there is optimism heading into Tampa and then Miami (to play the Florida Panthers) and New York before the holiday trip ends.
Overall, the Canadiens are 17-13-1-5 and sit tied with Boston and the Rangers for fourth overall in the conference. There are seven teams within six points lurking behind, however, so every point counts.
Then there's the Lightning, who have coach John Tortorella's stomach in knots.
At home they're 12-6-2-0, and a blistering 3-13-1-0 on the road. Those blisters are from the coach pacing up and down the hallway wondering what's going on.
Worse, in their last five at their own St. Pete Times Forum they've gone 1-3-1.
"Everybody says 'Don't panic, don't panic,'" Tortorella said. "There had better be some panic going on within this club to get this turned around, or it's going to spiral to where you have no luck at all."
What Tampa needs is some consistent goaltending.
Johan Holmqvist and Marc Denis have been so unimpressive the club recalled rookie Kari Ramo from the minors. He's 1-2 in three starts, including a loss Wednesday to Washington.
But at home, Ramo is 1-1 with a 1.51 goals against.
Vinnie's still hot
Though the Lightning are second last in the Eastern Conference, they do have the NHL's scoring leader in Vincent Lecavalier. He has 25 goals and 30 assists and is on pace for 55 and 66.
He was also last year's Maurice Richard Trophy winner with 52 goals.
Richard, old-timers may remember, had a future Hall of Famer named Jacques Plante behind him for his biggest years. There has been no sighting of a Plante-like backstop recently in south Florida.
With files from the Associated PressRelated
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