Need to Know: Bruins at Canadiens

MONTREAL - Jim Montgomery admits that back in the day he was rooting hard against the boys in Black & Gold. As a Montreal native, Montgomery was all in on the Canadiens, attending a game or two a year at the old Montreal Forum.
"My best memory was the [1976] Finals, I got to go to Game 1," Montgomery recalled. "Guy Lapointe scored the game-winning goal to win, 4-3, against the Flyers with about four minutes left."

Nearly 50 years later, Montgomery will be back at the home of the Canadiens, this time in a much different circumstance.
"It will be special," Boston's bench boss said of his first game in Montreal as the Bruins' head coach. "Two Original Six teams. I watched so many of these rivalry games when I was young growing up. Obviously, at that time, was not cheering for the Spoked-B, but now I'm cheering hard for the Spoked-B. It will be fun.
"I'll have a lot of family and friends here. Unfortunately, my 90-year-old mom doesn't want to deal with the stairs, so she'll sit at home and critique me after."
Bruins captain Patrice Bergeron, who grew up about three hours from Montreal in L'Ancienne-Lorette, Quebec, has played at Bell Centre 49 times (regular season and playoffs) over the years, but the chance to suit up in his home province never gets old.
"It's always special," said Bergeron. "I get to come into my home province and being able to see some family members and friends, but also we all know the history behind both clubs. It's always special to be here at the Bell Centre."

Unfortunately, the longtime rivals do not see each other much anymore with just three meetings on the docket this season, a sharp drop from the 6-8 meetings the teams used to play against each other as divisional foes in previous scheduling formats.
"It is unfortunate…you get to January, you'd hope you'd already play the Canadiens a couple times," said Montgomery. "Five or six games would be ideal, but everybody wants to see everyone. Everyone wants to see [Connor] McDavid, everybody wants to see [Sidney] Crosby and all the great players in the League, including our great players."

Opposing View

The Canadiens are coming off a 3-2 overtime win over Toronto on Saturday night and have won four of their last six games. Montreal is 20-24-3 and tied with Ottawa with 43 points, the fewest in the Atlantic Division.
Nick Suzuki paces the Canadiens with 38 points (16 goals, 22 assists) in 47 games. Cole Caufield, who leads the club with 26 goals, was recently ruled out for the season due to a right shoulder injury.
Per the Canadiens, Sam Montembeault will get the start between the pipes. He is 10-8-2 with a 3.15 goals against average and .911 save percentage in 20 games this season.

Wait, There's More

Tuesday's Projected Lineup

FORWARDS
Brad Marchand - Patrice Bergeron - Craig Smith
Pavel Zacha - David Krejci - David Pastrnak
Taylor Hall - Charlie Coyle - Trent Frederic
Nick Foligno - Joona Koppanen - A.J. Greer
DEFENSEMEN
Matt Grzelcyk - Charlie McAvoy
Hampus Lindholm - Brandon Carlo
Derek Forbort - Connor Clifton
GOALIES
Jeremy Swayman
Linus Ullmark