Everyday I’m Hustling Leafs V Habs Preview

Since the start of the season some two weeks ago, the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs have each struggled significantly. The one dilemma both teams share is their inability to get consistency through the lineup when it comes to scoring on their opponents. In each team’s most recent game on Thursday October 20, neither team could muster much offense against powerhouse teams. Montreal lost a three to one decision to the Pittsburgh Penguins, while Toronto got lit up like a Cheech and Chong film by the Boston Bruins six to two.

What’s most intriguing about Canada’s most prolific teams losing, is that neither lived up to their moniker as teams that “hustle” and never give up. To quote the great Rick Ross, “It ain’t no coincidence that my age is kilo”. As two of the younger teams in the NHL, the Habs and Leafs have constantly struggled with consistency. In fact, you could make the argument that if neither the Habs nor Maple Leafs had amazing goaltending from starters Carey Price and James Reimer, neither team may have won a game by now.

Entering Saturday night’s action at the Bell Center in Montreal, the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs will need to get back to what’s made them each unbeatable in the past. That is to say, they have to hustle real hard and somehow anyway at all get off to a fast start. The Achilles Heel for the two original six franchises is they are each notoriously slow starters.  In their first encounter, to open the season back on October 6, neither team really got off to a fast start. With this being the case, that opening night game has dictated how each team has played thus far in the season.

In my opinion, Saturday night’s game on CBC at 7pm couldn’t be more important to either team. Entering Saturday’s game, Toronto has collected points in five of six games, while accumulating a record of four – one – one. At the same time, Montreal has only collected points in two games while going one – four – one in that stretch. If Toronto loses, it could start another long losing streak that the team may not recover from. Similarly, if Montreal continues to lose, they may need to hit the panic button, as building a hole early is never easy to climb out of.