Two defeats in their past three domestic fixtures take the Montreal Canadiens (8th in Atlantic Division) to a home outing against the Detroit Red Wings (6th in Atlantic), who have triumphed in two of their previous three overall matchups.
The Detroit Red Wings (20-18-8) bagged their second victory in the past three outings (2-1-0) after edging out the San Jose Sharks with a 3-2 overtime count at Little Caesars Arena on Tuesday. Adam Erne (6 goals, 14 points this year) and Michael Rasmussen (8 goals, 22 points) gave the Wings 1-0 and 2-1 leads respectively in the second period before the visitors equalized on both occasions in the same frame, only for Andrew Copp (5 goals, 26 points) to snatch the win 25 seconds into the extra session. With that, Detroit improved to a 2-3-1 record in its previous six contests.
Goalie Ville Husso stopped 28 shots on Tuesday and has now gone 16-11-5 for the season with a 3.00 GAA and a .902 save percentage. He has picked up a 1-0-2 previous tally versus Montreal with a 1.61 GAA and a .946 save percentage, while Magnus Hellberg (3-3-1 o n the year with a 2.70 GAA and a .897 save percentage) has never faced the Canadiens before. The Red Wings, meanwhile, are scoring the 11th lowest number of goals per game this season (3.04), while giving up the 12th highest amount defensively (3.30). They are 20th in power play (20.3%) and 21st in penalty kill (75.8%).