Saturday night in the NHL can mean only one thing; Hockey Night in Canada and tonight the spotlight is on the Montreal Canadiens as they head out to California to take on one of this season’s surprise teams, the LA Kings.

Montreal Canadiens @ Los Angeles Kings

For the Montreal Canadiens every game is must win at the moment. Currently in tenth place in the Eastern Conference, they are equal on points with the eighth placed Atlanta Thrashers and only one point behind the seventh placed Boston Bruins. The Canadiens are on indifferent form coming into tonight’s action going 5-4-1 in their last ten and have won two of the last five on the road and were leading in going into the third against San Jose on Thursday but gave up three goals in the final period to leave empty handed. Montreal are neither on fire offensively and are not playing badly on the defence but they are allowing a lot of shots on goaltender Carey Price, 36.2 shots a game in their last five on the road. The Canadiens power play has been good over that period converting 30% of their chances and their penalty kill has been respectable at 82%. Montreal do come into the game with four players missing. Maxim Lapierre picked up a four game suspension in San Jose for a hit on Scott Nichol while Paul Mara, Mike Cammalleri and Marc-Andre Bergeron are all missing through injury.

The Los Angeles Kings are on the brink of their first postseason in eight years and will be looking to maintain their momentum as the season draws to a close. The Kings are on good form at the moment going 7-2-1 in their last ten games while winning four of their last five at the Staples Centre. During that five game stretch the Kings have scored an average of 3.40 goals a game while only conceding 2.00 goals a game. The Kings have been especially strong defensively, allowing only 22.2 shots a game on goaltender Jonathan Quick and stopping 93% of the power plays they have faced in the last five home games. On the injury front the Kings will be missing forwards Justin Williams and Andrei Lokitonov who are both out with injuries.

While the Montreal Canadiens are playing well at the moment, as their display against the Sharks proved the Kings are playing just that little bit better and I fancy them to maintain their momentum tonight.