Tonight at 7:30 p.m. ET, the Edmonton Oilers (2-6-1) and Montreal Canadiens (5-3-0) faceoff live from Bell Centre. The game can be live streamed here. Edmonton fans can hear all of the bone-crunching action by turning their dials to CHED-AM 630 while Montreal fans can access it by adjusting their radios to TSN Radio 690 AM.
In the second and final meeting between these two teams, Montreal enters having bested the Oilers in Edmonton on Oct. 10 by a 4-1 margin, and the Oilers will look for some retribution tonight. The Canadiens enter play in fourth place in the Atlantic Division, just four points behind the first place Detroit Red Wings while the Oilers enter as one of the NHL's worst teams, sitting in dead-last in the Pacific Division with just five points on the season, a whole 12 points behind the first place San Jose Sharks.
Both of these teams are depleted by injuries and the latest casualties for Montreal are the loss of Brandon Prust and Daniel Briere, while Edmonton announced that it will be without Taylor Hall for four weeks after he went down on Saturday. Hall is tied for the team lead in goals (three) assists (five) and points (eight) with Jordan Eberle.
The Canadiens are depleted by injury, and will look for their young forward line of Lars Eller (team-high five goals with three assists for eight points), Brendan Gallagher (4-2-6) and Alex Galchenyuk (1-6-7) to carry the load. Defenseman P.K. Subban has paved the way with a team-high 10 points on two goals and a team-leading eight assists.
The young Canadiens are up for the challenge.
"We're a young line, but we're trying to go out there and have fun," Gallagher told NHL.com. "There's a lot for us to learn, we have a great group of veteran players to look at, learn from and use as role models. That's where our mindset is every day."
The Oilers, meanwhile, have the task of trying to turn around a terrible defensive showing thus far this season as the team ranks 29th in the league in goals-against by averaging a total of letting four pucks in their net per game. They also sit at 13th in goals-for per game with an average of 2.78.
Losing Hall could be a big blow to this scrappy youthful bunch, but the team has many of young guns ready to prove themselves and Eberle has three goals and three assists in his last five games but has also been banged up and may miss Tuesday's game.
"You can argue [Eberle's] been our best forward and a big part of our team," Oilers coach Dallas Eakins said after practice Monday, according to the team's website. "Just running practice without him isn't for the faint-hearted. We'll cross our fingers that he's good for [Saturday] but we've got to be careful with that too. We don't want to rush him and make it turn into something bigger."
Another problem for Edmonton has been its goaltending as Devan Dubnyk has posted a 1-4-1 record with a sky-high 4.19 GAA and a .877 save percentage while Jason LaBarbera has posted a 1-2-0 record with a 3.22 GAA and a .871 save percentage. The Canadiens turn to Carey Price in between the pipes, and he's posted a 4-3-0 record with a 2.01 GAA and a .940 save percentage.
Two banged up teams go at it as Edmonton looks to dig its way up from the Pacific Division cellar and Montreal looks to improve on its standing in the Metropolitan Division when the puck drops at Bell Centre tonight.
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