THE RIGHT COMBINATION
Habs experiment with forward lines
The Montreal Canadiens are not yet on life support, but the for-now faint beeping of their ICU monitor will sound considerably louder Thursday night should they not beat the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden to halve the Blueshirts’ 2-0 Eastern Conference final series lead.
Habs head coach Michel Therrien blended some interesting lines for the late-morning session skate, for which all hands were on deck save injured goaltender Carey Price.
Thomas Vanek, who on too many nights lately hasn’t been the offensive threat the Habs figured they had acquired at the trade deadline, was rotating in and out of the fourth line with Michaël Bournival, flanking centre Daniel Brière with Brandon Prust on the other wing.
Maybe, it was suggested postpractice to Max Pacioretty, Therrien merely was trying to spread his offensively capable skaters around, and maybe this was a way of reuniting former Buffalo Sabres teammates Brière and Vanek.
“Those two players have had a lot of success in this league, especially offensively, and they’ve played together and had success together in the past,” Pacioretty said, admitting the Sabres connection hadn’t occurred to him.
“That would probably be a dangerous line for us. This is a team game and we need everyone to contribute. The coaches feel we’ll get the best out of everyone. Obviously, we have to trust in that and go out there and just worry about what we can control.”
It’s not one or two potent lines, Pacioretty said, that will extricate the Canadiens from the hole in which they find themselves.
“Look at the teams that load up their top two lines in playoffs and they don’t have success,” he said. “The teams that are left are playing four lines, with four lines contributing. It’s nice to have huge numbers in the playoffs, but look at teams that are rolling right now and they’re the teams that have balanced scoring with everyone contributing. I don’t know what’s going to happen (with the Canadiens’ lineup for Game 3) but it’s nice to have four lines you can trust at any moment.”
If all of Montreal is melting down with Vanek’s spotty production — he has five goals on his 22 shots in 13 playoff games, zero points in his last three — Pacio- retty isn’t losing sleep over his former linemate’s scoring slump or his ability to break out of it.
“( Vanek) is a veteran. He’s been around the block, he’s had success,” Pacioretty said. “Guys like that have success by trusting their instincts, their teammates and the coaches.
“I’ve talked to ( Vanek) a lot since he’s been here. A guy like that, I don’t think something like this really bothers him or affects him. I’m not worried about it at all.”
Still, it would be nice to get some offence from the career-productive, impending-unrestricted free agent who might wind up being a quickly forgotten ‘what-if? rental’ should he, as most believe, sign elsewhere on or after July 1.
The Canadiens were far from awful in Game 2, a 3-1 victory backstopped by Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist’s masterful 40-save performance.
There is no secret, Pacioretty said, to solving King Henrik.
“We have to take away his eyes and get second and third chances. No goalie can be great if he can’t see the puck,” Pacioretty said.
“There were the rebounds there for us. We just weren’t able to put them away.
“We have to bear down on our chances.”