NHL Playoff Odds: The Eastern Conference Finals have the Montreal Canadiens a small favorite against the New York Rangers. The Montreal Canadiens will have the home ice edge and that is the only reason they are favored. They are listed as a -125 choice to win Game 1 on Saturday with the total at 5 under -140. The Montreal Canadiens finished the season with 100 points while the New York Rangers had 96 so there is not much difference between the two teams. Each team had to win a Game 7 on the road in their last series to get here as the New York Rangers won in Pittsburgh while the Montreal Canadiens won in Boston. Let’s look at the series between the New York Rangers and Montreal Canadiens and NHL playoff predictions.
Lundqvist vs. Price
The focus in this series between the New York Rangers and Montreal Canadiens will be on the two goaltenders, Lundvist and Price. You may not remember but Price led Canada to the gold medal at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. And he beat Lundqvist and Sweden in the process. If the Montreal Canadiens are to win this series he will have to at least match Lundqvist in goal. Lundqvist was great in the series against Pittsburgh but he has struggled in his career against the Montreal Canadiens with just a 13-11-2 career record against them and a 4-5-2 record with a 3.87 goals-against average in Montreal.
Season Series
These two met three times in the regular season and each game was close and low scoring. The Montreal Canadiens won two of the three with one win coming in overtime. The teams combined for a total of four goals in the three games. All three games were shutouts one way or the other. The Montreal Canadiens won 2-0 in New York and 1-0 at home. The New York Rangers won 1-0 in Montreal.
NHL Playoff Predictions
The Montreal Canadiens have owned the regular season series winning 12 of the last 16 but these teams haven’t met in the playoffs since 1996. And they have split their 14 previous playoff series. I think this will be a low scoring series that the New York Rangers will ultimately win.
