Boston Bruins at Montreal Canadiens
I fear that the way the first two games have gone might be giving some DFSers an inflated sense of the true talent of the Montreal Canadiens.
Through the first two games, the Bruins have managed over 60-percent of the possession when the score has been close, out-shooting the Habs 98-53, or a 64.9-percent rating. For a bit of context, over the course of the season, the Bruins were the best Corsi team in the East at 54.1-percent. The difference in the series has been Carey Price (.918 save percentage) and the power play (4-for-9). The ratings were close during the course of the regular season between the two teams but the Bruins are really stepping on the throat of the Habs.
One concerning problem for Montreal, at least in the underlying numbers, is that none of their players has played consistently solid through all two games thus far. That makes it hard to identify value plays because there isn’t any real pattern developing with how their players play and are used besides Tomas Plekanec getting all the hard minutes. I would look for the top line to get away from Zdeno Chara in this game, though.
The Bruins haven’t been able to slow down Montreal’s power play so that makes me nervous about relying on Tuukka Rask. On the flipside, there’s potential that Douglas Murray dresses for the Habs and he’s pretty good at bringing the whole team down. I expect emotion and goals in this game so I will just avoid the goalies and look for good match-ups for 50/50s.
| Top RW Value | Top LW Value | Top C Value | Top D Value | Bargain Bin |
| Reilly Smith(BOS)
$8736 |
Max Pacioretty(MON)
$10,850 |
Lars Eller(MON)
$7173 |
Johnny Boychuk(MON)
$7443 |
Daniel Paille(BOS)
$4784 |
