Tonight at 7:00 p.m. ET, the New York Rangers (45-31-5, 95 points) and Montreal Canadiens (45-28-8, 98 points) hit the ice at the Bell Center in Montreal for the third and final meeting against each other this season. The game can be live streamed here. New York fans can hear all of the action on 98.7 WEPN while Montreal fans can do the same on TSN 690.
The Rangers close out their season looking to win their third straight game while Montreal will look to avoid its third straight loss and go out on a high note. These teams each have a win in the season series.
The game doesn't mean much to the Rangers, as they've clinched the No. 2 seed in the Atlantic Division standings and will host Games 1 and 2 of a playoff series next week.
"We want to be in the playoffs," center Brad Richards told the Bergen Record after the game Thursday. "I think everybody, deep down, wishes we could start tomorrow. You've got to be professional and play these games, but you also start the season for one reason, and that's to try and compete for the [Stanley] Cup."
The Canadiens will be looking to play strong on home ice to close out their regular-season.
"We want to go in there and do what we can to get home ice; it's something to strive for," defenseman Josh Gorges said per NHL.com. "But our focus should be on the way we're playing, make sure that going into the playoffs, whether we have home ice or not, we're playing the right way, we're playing at the top of our game, we fine-tune the details and make sure there are no holes."
The Canadiens have been led by Thomas Vanek (27-41-68), Max Pacioretty (39-21-60) and P.K. Subban (10-43-53) while Martin St. Louis (30-39-69), Mats Zuccarello (19-40-59) and Derek Stepan (17-40-57) have paced the Rangers.
Cam Talbot will start in net for New York and is 12-6-0 with a 1.67 GAA and a .940 save percentage. He'll likely be opposed by Peter Budaj, who is 10-8-3 with a 2.51 GAA and a .909 save percentage.
The Rangers and Canadiens clash in their regular-season finales when the lights come up at Bell Centre tonight in Montreal.
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