Canadiens vs. Golden Knights: Game preview and how to watch
Start time: 7:00 PM EST / 4:00 PM PST
In Canada: CityTV, Sportsnet East/Ontario (English), TVA Sports (French)
In the Golden Knights region: SCRIPPS
Streaming: ESPN+, Sportsnet+
On Monday, a shutout of the Edmonton Oilers allowed the Montreal Canadiens to move within three points of a wild-card spot. After four additional nights of NHL action while the Habs got a long break, they sit five points back of the Boston Bruins — who have since made a coaching change — for that eighth and final position.
Montreal is also last in the Eastern Conference, and one point up on a couple of teams in the west for last place in the league. At this point, with one-quarter of the season played, there are still many paths the 2024-25 season could take for the team. Perhaps they won’t make any progress and hang around in these bottom positions until the end of the season when they claim a high draft pick. Or perhaps the positive mood around the team after three recent wins and reports of an imminent return for Patrik Laine will see them steadily leapfrog the teams ahead of them over the next 63 games so they can at least be in the playoff conversation come April.
In the past four games, the Canadiens have beaten two of the teams they’ll need to pass, the Buffalo Sabres and Columbus Blue Jackets, shut out the Edmonton Oilers, and played a much better game versus the Minnesota Wild than the 3-0 final would indicate. Now, after a few days of working on individual deficiencies, the Canadiens face their next test, the Vegas Golden Knights.
As they usually have been in their history, the Golden Knights are one of the top teams in the Western Conference, even if they do play in the weakest division. They currently hold a one-point lead over the surprising Calgary Flames for the first seed in the Pacific and are sixth in the overall standings.
Canadiens Statistics Golden Knights 7-10-2 Record 12-6-2 47.6% (25th) Scoring-chances-for % 47.4% (26th) 2.84 (19th) Goals per game 3.75 (4th) 3.68 (31st) Goals against per game 3.10 (16th) 21.5% (11th) PP% 30.8% (3rd) 81.8% (10th) PK% 76.2% (25th) 0-1-1 Head-to-Head Record (23-24) 2-0-0Mark Stone is healthy and looking like an elite two-way player once more, Jack Eichel already has 29 points and is on pace to blast past the career high of 82 he set back in 2018-19, and Tomas Hertl is settling in after injuries derailed his campaign last year.
Those three players are generating much of their offence on a power play clicking above 30%. That’s where Hertl has really been shining with six of his seven goals scored on the man advantage. Things aren’t as rosy for one of the newest Golden Knights at five-on-five however as he sports a -7 goal differential, and that can be said about the team in general. Las Vegas ranks below Montreal in terms of scoring-chance share and has an expected-goal share well below 50%. Their penalty kill also ranks close to the bottom of the league, so as much as they’re able to generate on their own advantages, they have been allowing teams to get back in games when they take penalties.
The prospect of having some success on the power play is one reason for optimism on the Habs’ side. Another is that the Golden Knights have seen very different fortunes when they’ve roamed outside of T-Mobile Arena. They’ve lost just two of the 10 games played in front of their own fans, but are 4-4-2 in the same number on the road.
Goal-scoring is the main explanation. At home, they average a league-best 4.70 goals; on the road, that number is 2.80 (in Montreal’s case, the split is 2.80 at the Bell Centre and slightly better at 2.89 elsewhere). The power play is still hot at 28.6%, but their even-strength goals drop off significantly when head coach Bruce Cassidy can’t control the matchups.
Las Vegas has won the past six meetings in this series — since Montreal beat them to claim the Clarence Campbell Bowl in 2021 — but the last five have been decided by one goal in the Golden Knights’ favour. Perhaps the Canadiens’ current form and the targeted tweaks to each player’s approach will be what allows the home team to stand as the victor on Saturday night.
