Gästearea / Bannertausch » The Montreal Canadiens will be looking

for their third win a row over the Ottawa Senators when the teams conclude their season series Saturday at Bell Centre.After losing their first meeting Oct. 20 in Ottawa 4-3 in overtime Authentic Cooper Kupp Jersey , the Canadiens (16-11-5) defeated the Senators in a home-and-home series Dec. 4-6 by the same 5-2 score.The Canadiens are coming off a 6-4 win against the Carolina Hurricanes at Bell Centre on Thursday and hold the second wild card position in the Eastern Conference. The win came after the Canadiens most lop-sided loss of the season, 7-1 against the Minnesota Wild as they wrapped up a week-long road trip Tuesday.Article continues below ...“We wanted to bounce back from that loss in Minnesota and I think we did that by playing a solid game altogether,” Canadiens goaltender Carey Price told montrealcanadiens.com. “I thought that we played a good game. We skated well. Things opened up a bit in third, but you have to keep in mind that the guys have traveled a lot this week.”The Senators will have to be wary of the offense the Canadiens are getting from their blue line. Veteran Jeff Petry had two goals in the win against the Hurricanes and has seven points in his past six games. Captain Shea Weber, who made his season debut Nov. 27 after off-season ankle and knee surgery, has three goals and three assists in eight games.“I was getting tired of hitting posts,” Petry told the team’s website. “Sometimes you can put too much pressure on yourself to produce, but I knew that eventually they would start going in.”The Senators will be looking to win two games in a row on the road for the first time this season after they defeated the Detroit Red Wings 4-2 in the Motor City on Friday. The win was the Senators fourth on the road this season (4-10-1), one more than the New Jersey Devils, who have the fewest wins on the road in the NHL this season.“This was a good one because it was on the road,” Senators coach Guy Boucher said Cooper Kupp Jersey Elite , according to the Senators Twitter account. “It looked a lot like what we do at home. A lot of it is because guys are maturing … tonight we didn’t fade away. They had a pushback, but we had a pushback after that.”Forward Chris Tierney, who had one goal in his previous 27 games, scored twice against the Red Wings. Craig Anderson made 26 saves against the Red Wings.“I thought it was a pretty complete game for us. I thought from start to finish we did an outstanding job in all three zones,” Anderson told the Ottawa Sun. “I thought our D did a great job; the battle in our defensive zone was great just boxing guys out.“That’s what you need to do to have success.”Anderson will get a break Saturday as backup goaltender Mike McKenna will start against the Canadiens. McKenna, 35, has earned three out of four points for the Senators in his past two starts, a win against the Philadelphia Flyers on the road Nov. 27 and an overtime loss to the Boston Bruins in Ottawa last Sunday.The Senators, who have been missing forwards Matt Duchene and Jean-Gabriel Pageau and defensemen Dylan DeMelo, Mark Borowiecki and Christian Jaros, had veteran forward Bobby Ryan back in the lineup against the Red Wings. He missed three games with a concussion he sustained against the Canadiens a week ago Thursday.The Senators could get some more help Saturday against the Canadiens with Jaros close to returning.“I’m praying every day and I’m lighting up all kinds of candles http://www.losangelesramsteamonline.com/cooper-kupp-jersey ,” Boucher told the Ottawa Sun. “I get ready for the worst, I get ready for, ‘No,’ and if there’s one, two or three (players returning), but three is dreaming a little bit.“If we get one (back), that would be big. We had six regulars missing before Bobby came back. He’s back and now we’ve got five (players out). Getting one less (Saturday) is huge for our lineup and for our situation it’s gigantic, so hopefully we get one back.” LAS VEGAS (AP) The bookies in this gambling city have to be getting a bit nervous.Hockey fans, though, are nothing short of ecstatic.They screamed, danced and cheered as the goals came one right after another in a first period blitz Thursday night as the Vegas Golden Knights remained undefeated in the playoffs by dominating the San Jose Sharks 7-0 in the opening game of the Western Conference semifinals.The hottest show on the Las Vegas Strip got even hotter as the Knights – who were 200-1 at many sports books to win the Stanley Cup before the season began – opened their second playoff series with a rout of the Sharks that was over before the Zambonis hit the ice.This had nothing to do with the so-called Vegas Flu that has overcome some visiting teams who might have not resisted some of the pleasures on the Las Vegas Strip. This was a simple beat down Authentic Jared Goff Jersey , by a group of players who had never been together on the ice before the season began.”It’s not going to be like this every night,” Knights goalie Marc-Andre Fleury said. ”We’re going to enjoy this and move on.”Once again, the Knights played like no expansion team ever before. Once again, they showed that perhaps the fantasy of bringing the Stanley Cup to the Las Vegas Strip may not be such a fantasy after all.And once again, 18,444 fans sang ”Viva Las Vegas” and went home happy – but not before watching Fleury join them in doing the wave in the closing minutes.”It’s a great home crowd,” Vegas coach Gerard Gallant said. ”We like them a lot.”There’s a lot to like about a team that a year ago was nothing more than an expansion project with an uncertain future. Now the Knights are tearing through the playoffs like a hot dice thrower at the craps table.That might be a problem at the sports books, which are on the hook for possibly millions if the Knights should win it all. But it’s playing out nicely around the rest of Las Vegas, which is awash in Knights merchandise as the city that has never had a major sports team eagerly embraces one that is its very own.If getting to the playoffs was seen as almost impossible before the season began, the Knights are 5-1 in sports books on the Strip to win it all, just behind Nashville and Tampa Bay as favorites.With good reason. The Knights are the only remaining unbeaten team in the playoffs Jared Goff Jersey Elite , and have the hottest goalie around. Fleury, picked up from Pittsburgh in the expansion draft, got his third shutout of the playoffs and has allowed only three goals in five games.He didn’t allow any against the Sharks, stopping 33 shots to record the shutout.”I don’t go looking at my stats,” Fleury said. ”A win is a win and I’ll try my best to get my team a win. That’s what it’s all about.”The team that proudly declares itself Vegas Born thrilled a raucous crowd at the T-Mobile arena, scoring three goals within a span of 1:31 in the first period to pretty much put the game away early.Against a team that – like the Knights – swept their opening series, they turned the game into a rout early. Seven players scored goals, though with Fleury in net there was no way seven would be needed.”You don’t get extra points for winning by a touchdown like they did,” San Jose coach Peter DeBoer said. ”We just have to be better.”Earlier, Knights general manager George McPhee talked about how good the team he put together might be. But even he had to be surprised at the ease the Knights, coming off a nine-day layoff after sweeping the Los Angeles Kings Authentic Brandin Cooks Jersey , won their second-round opener.”We think we’re a pretty good club but we’ll keep trying to do what we do and see where it takes us,” McPhee said. ”We haven’t really looked at the season in its totality before it started, or the playoffs in its totality.”The formula for the Knights has been as simple as it has been effective. With some top talent there for the taking in the expansion draft the Knights combined a fast, swarming attack with stellar work of Fleury to win their division.Nothing changed in the opening game against the Sharks except the goals came early and often.”We play fast, we play quick, we play direct hockey,” Gallant said. ”So far it’s worked for us.”The Knights have done all of that, and more to move into the serious conversation about what teams can win the Stanley Cup.If any more proof was needed, even the bookies are believers now.—-Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlberg(at)ap.org or http://twitter.com/timdahlberg