Despite losing five games in a row, the Montreal Canadiens continue to be among a handful of teams in the hunt for the final wild-card spot from the Eastern Conference.
The Canadiens will try to keep pace when they visit the Florida Panthers on Sunday afternoon in Sunrise, Fla.
Montreal (33-30-9, 75 points) lost 4-1 to the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday in the third stop of its four-game trip. The Canadiens also lost the night before, 6-4, to the Philadelphia Flyers.
The string of losses has kept the Canadiens in a three-way tie with the Columbus Blue Jackets and New York Rangers for the final wild-card spot.
“You can’t dwell on it,” Montreal forward Cole Caufield said. “To say we’d be in this position at the start of the year, we’d grab that and do whatever it takes to be in this position. We can’t take it for granted. Every game matters. Every game counts. The next one is the most important.”
The Canadiens, who beat Florida, 3-1, in Montreal on March 15 behind 21 saves from Sam Montembeault, will turn around and host the Panthers again on Tuesday.
The Canadiens will then face three straight non-playoff teams, the Boston Bruins, Flyers and Nashville Predators.
Montreal defenseman Kaiden Guhle, who returned against Carolina after missing 21 games with a quad injury, said the team needs to get back to the style that made it successful during stretches this season.
“Our forecheck is our DNA,” Guhle said. “When we’re suffocating teams, I feel like we have the best forecheck in the league, and we have some really good skaters, some big bodies that get in there and make it really hard for their D to make clean plays, and I think that’s something that we’re struggling to get consistency with right now.”
The Panthers (44-25-3, 91 points) have won two in a row after posting a 2-1 overtime victory against the visiting Utah Hockey Club on Friday.
That win came five days after a 4-3 shootout victory against the Pittsburgh Penguins in the opener of the three-game homestand.
Florida has won seven in a row at home.
The Panthers went 4-for-4 on the penalty kill against Utah to improve to 35-for-39 this month.
“I think it’s been pretty solid the whole year,” Florida defenseman Niko Mikkola said of the penalty kill. “(Our opponents) have gotten some late goals, and that’s probably been the issue. We need the whole two minutes and to clear the puck. The last month, it’s been working.”
Brad Marchand played his first game for the Panthers on Friday since he was traded from the Bruins on March 7 and then needed time to recover from an upper-body injury. The 16-year veteran forward had the primary assist on the overtime winner by Sam Bennett.
“He hasn’t played for a month now and he steps right in and is dominating and controlling the game,” Bennett said of Marchand. “That’s tough to do in your first game back, especially on a new team. I think he’s going to fit here real, real nice.”
-Field Level Media
