Montreal can't stay out of the penalty box, and nobody has scored more power-play goals than Utah. The Canadiens have been shorthanded 60 times in 15 games, four a night and second most in the NHL, and at least three times in every game. Utah has 20 power-play goals, the league's most, converting 36.4 percent, second best. Thursday at Centre Bell answers whether Montreal can keep that unit off the ice long enough for its own strength, five-on-five scoring with Jacob Fowler behind it, to decide the game. We don't think it can.
Both records turn on it. Montreal is 7-0-0 when it doesn't allow a power-play goal and 2-3-3 when it does. Utah is 8-3-0 when it scores at least one on the power play and 2-3-0 when it doesn't. A win would also be Utah's first two in a row since Oct. 15, after nine games of alternating wins and losses. And if Clayton Keller plays, it's his 700th regular-season NHL game, by the NHL's career totals.
Every number here runs through Tuesday, when Utah won 3-2 in Toronto and Montreal lost 5-4 in overtime to Winnipeg. Neither team played Wednesday.
- When and where: Thursday, 5:00 PM MT (7:00 PM ET), at Centre Bell. TV is Mammoth+ and Utah16 and radio is KSL Sports Zone (97.5 and 102.7 HD2), per the Mammoth's week-ahead story; TSN2 and RDS have it in Canada, per the NHL's game data. Full schedule and the NHL.com game center.
- Records: Utah is 10-6-0 with 20 points, second in the Central in the NHL's standings, and 6-4-0 both on the road and in its last 10. Montreal is 9-3-3 with 21 points in 15 games, second in the Atlantic, 4-2-2 at home and 7-1-2 in its last 10.
- Series: First of two; the second is Nov. 30 at the Delta Center. Montreal won both meetings last season, 6-2 in Montreal and 4-3 in Salt Lake City.
- Trip: Game four of six on the road for Utah, which plays at Ottawa on Saturday. Thursday ends a three-game homestand for Montreal.
Montreal wins at five-on-five and gives it back in the box
The Canadiens have outscored opponents 35-27 at five-on-five by our count of the NHL play-by-play, with shots on goal dead even at 302-303. They score on 11.6 percent of their five-on-five shots, sixth in the league, and stop .911, ninth, per the NHL. Fowler carries most of that save percentage: 7-1-1, two shutouts, .925 overall (247 of 267) and .934 at five-on-five by our count (170 of 182).
Special teams are where Montreal leaks. Its power play is 30th at 13.0 percent (6 for 46), and its kill is 12th at 81.7 percent (49 of 60), ordinary for a team that's on it this often. That power play matters at the other end too. Utah's kill is 25th at 70.0 percent (35 of 50), and only two power plays in the league are worse than the one it faces Thursday.
Utah's five-on-five runs the other way. We outshoot teams 374-306 there and get 55.3 percent of the shot attempts, fourth in the league per the NHL, and we're still 31-33 in goals, because Utah shoots 8.3 percent (26th) and its goalies stop .892 (24th). The power play has been covering the difference.
Tuesday was Montreal in one night. Outshot 47-22, it led Winnipeg 4-0 with less than three minutes left, then gave up four goals in the last 2:39 of regulation, the tying one six-on-four two seconds after Alexandre Carrier's tripping penalty, and lost in overtime. "For much of the night the poor effort was covered up by the goal-scoring and Fowler's play in the net," Justin Blades wrote for Habs Eyes on the Prize. Martin St. Louis called the collapse unacceptable and embarrassing, per the Canadiens' Wednesday practice report.
Goalies and lineups
Neither team had named a starter by Wednesday evening. Daily Faceoff's starting goalies page listed Fowler and Karel Vejmelka, both unconfirmed with no source cited, at about 6 p.m. MT. Fowler has allowed nine goals on 76 shots in his last two starts, after two on 101 in the three before. Jakub Dobes is 2-2-2 at .853 (139 of 163).
Chase Beardsley of The Hockey News expects Vejmelka to start for Utah. He's 6-5-0 at .868 (244 of 281) by the shots and goals the NHL lists (NHL.com shows .872). Sebastian Cossa is 4-1-0 at .875 (98 of 112) and stopped 27 of 29 on Tuesday. We said in our Toronto recap we'd start Cossa again, and we still would.
Keller's new line with Barrett Hayton and Anders Lee won its five-on-five minutes in Toronto, per that recap; the Mammoth PR game notes and projected lines for Thursday weren't posted by Wednesday evening, so we don't know if it stays together. Kailer Yamamoto hasn't played since Oct. 29, missing the games in Philadelphia and Toronto, and was day-to-day (upper body) in the team's Nov. 2 week-ahead story.
Montreal captain Nick Suzuki was ruled out two to four weeks with an upper-body injury on Oct. 22, per the Canadiens, and Montreal is 5-0-1 in its six games since, Oct. 23 to Nov. 3. Suzuki skated with the team Wednesday, and St. Louis said his status for Thursday is uncertain, per the practice report.
Our pick
Utah 3, Montreal 2. Start with the power play. Montreal has been shorthanded 4.0 times a game, and at Utah's 36.4 percent that's about 1.5 goals a night. Montreal's kill has allowed 11 in 15 games, about 0.7. Split the difference and it's one, which Utah has scored in 11 of its 16 games. At five-on-five we have it 2-2: Montreal has scored 35 there in 15 games, Utah has allowed 33 in 16, and Utah has scored 31 in 16. That leaves the power-play goal as the difference. The recap will count the power-play chances and goals each way.
We're wrong if Utah's power play gets shut out. Utah is 2-3-0 when that happens and Montreal is 7-0-0 when it kills everything, and at five-on-five Montreal has been finishing its chances while Utah hasn't.
Tusks up.
Sources: NHL.com standings, team stats and percentages, club and goalie stats, game-by-game power-play and penalty-kill numbers, box scores, play-by-play and career totals. Records by power-play goals, five-on-five shot and goal counts and five-on-five save percentages by goalie are our counts from the NHL's data; goalie save totals are shots minus goals. NHL.com game center; Catherine Bogart, Utah Mammoth: the week ahead, Nov. 2-8; Canadiens: updates from practice, Nov. 4, Suzuki out 2-4 weeks, Jets game recap, Nov. 3; Justin Blades, Habs Eyes on the Prize; Chase Beardsley, The Hockey News; Daily Faceoff starting goalies; Mammoth PR game notes; our Toronto recap.