The Montreal Canadiens have virtually no shot at making the playoffs this season, but give them credit for still playing hard, and last night at the Bell Centre the Habs kept the Anaheim Ducks from clinching a spot in the playoffs with a 4-3 win.
Montreal got goals from Lucas Lessio, Torrey Mitchell, Alex Galchenyuk and Mike Brown in the victory. Jakob Silfverberg tallied twice for the Ducks and Corey Perry added another to hit the thirty-goal plateau for the season. The Ducks get another shot at clinching a playoff spot when they skate against the Maple Leafs in Toronto tonight. This was an interesting contrast of teams that had very different narrative arcs to their seasons. The Ducks stumbled out of the gate and were mired in last place for much of the first half of the year before turning it on after the all-star break to get back to contender status, while the Canadiens went super-nova in the early going, winning their first nine games and holding on to first place in the Atlantic for much of the first half and then nose-diving out of playoff contention after their number one netminder Carey Price went out with a season-ending injury.
The Boston Bruins have lost three games in a row and they can ill afford to see that streak go to four. The Bruins went winless on their recent west coast road trip, a fruitless stretch that followed a surge of wins that saw them defeat some of the best teams in the eastern conference. The Bruins have a date with one of those teams tonight when they take on the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden. The B's have nine games left in the regular season and they need to secure points in most of those to make sure they don't miss the playoffs for a second straight year, and while they're currently in third place in the Atlantic, they're separated by just three points from the final wild card slot currently held by the Philadelphia Flyers and they're just one point ahead of the New York Islanders for the first wild card berth. The Flyers let two points slip away when they blew a two-goal lead against the Columbus Blue Jackets last night and lost in an overtime shootout, but with one point for the regulation tie they did move just ahead of the Detroit Red Wings for that last wild card berth.
The University of Vermont mens' basketball team can reach a milestone tonight, and one that would have them on the verge of accomplishing a first in the program's history. UVM takes on Nevada tonight in the semi-final round of the CBI tournament and if the Catamounts win they'll get a shot at something new, the team's first-ever post-season championship title.
Congratulations to St. Michael's mens' basketball player Matt Bonds, who was named to the Eastern College Athletic Conference division two All-Star first team, the first Purple Knight to gain the honor in fifteen years. The junior forward turned in career highs in scoring, averaging sixteen points a a game, and he led all division two players in offensive rebounding.
Finally, some hot stove baseball news, and it's not good for Red Sox fans. Carson Smith, the hard throwing reliever who's been tapped to be a set-up man for closer Craig Kimbrel, will start the season on the disabled list after an MRI showed a strain of the flexor mass muscle in his forearm. With starting pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez also starting the season on the DL with an injured knee, the optimism many in Red Sox Nation felt with the moves made in the off-season by new head of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski may be morphing into the more familiar refrain of how they Red Sox will go about ruining our summers, but that's probably just me. If you've got the faith, please, by all means keep it, and don't hesitate to let me know why I should be looking forward to something far better than a third straight year of locking down last place in the east.
