You will often hear coaches and hockey analysts talk about home ice as it pertains to last change, allowing teams to ultimately control match ups.
Randy Carlyle and the Anaheim Ducks strongly believe in matching line and do whatever it takes to roll out the likes of Sami Pahlsson, Rob Neidermeyer and Travis Moen - that shutdown line against the Dallas Stars' best, as a counterbalance.
Now, it may not have worked in the opening game of their series with the Stars, but there is little chance that Carlyle will abandon this philosophy. That's the way his team is designed and structured.
Detroit Red Wings' head coach Mike Babcock says all teams match in the quest to try and run the other team's bench this year. However, in Detroit's case, Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg are also considered very strong defensively. So they are not stuck on the bench in favour of a shutdown guy like Kris Draper.
The Montreal Canadiens and the Detroit Red Wings are power-on-power teams - less concerned about matching player versus player. This was evident during the Canadiens opener versus the Boston Bruins on Thursday. Guy Carbonneau, armed with the benefits of last change, chose to throw his best up against the Bruins' best, namely star defensemen Zdeno Chara. Alex Kovalev, Tomas Plekanec and Andrei Kostitstyn lined up in a showdown with Chara. They quickly established, at least in this game, the 6'9" behemoth wasn't going to be the deciding factor.
Montreal's top line made that clear early in Game 1 when Plekanec teed up Kostitsyn for a 2-0 lead, at the expense of Boston's captain, who seemed almost caught by the Canadiens' swiftness. Chara averages almost 27 minutes a game, so yes, it's impossible to entirely avoid him. Instead, Carbonneau employed a tactic other coaches say they have used when facing him: speed and quickness, rater than muscle and strength.
When it comes to speed, Boston is no match for Montreal.