Mike Boone's Online Eeee-mail

If the Canadiens can win their sixth straight in NYC tonight, they almost certainly will make the playoffs.

A W would open up a seven-point lead on the ninth-place Rangers, who would have 12 games to play, including eight on the road.

And as Arpon Basu points out in his daily analysis, if Ottawa and Philadelphia lose, the race for fifth and sixth places heats up.

A lot of ifs ... including what if Tomas Plekanec can't play?

Pleks travelled to New York with the team and his status probably will be a game-time decision. Ben Maxwell has been recalled, just in case.

I'm wondering if this is a late-developing consequence of that Matias Ohlund knee hit in last week's  game against Tampa Bay.

Regardless of Pleks's participation, this is going to be a tough challenge.

The Rangers need a win to keep their playoff hopes alive.

Puck drops 7:30ish. Check back later for live blogging.

First Brooks Orpik slams Steven Stamkos with a perfectly legal check.

Then when the play swings up ice, Steve Downie tries to slam Sidney Crosbie down and then lands on his knee.

This league won't be happy until all its stars are in wheelchairs.

Nothing to do with hockey, but a great commercial (tip of the HIO tuque to chief video scout Jarred Friedman).

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Final word on the Subbanators:

Either bar those schmucks from the building or rename it the Jolson Centre.

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Either we've got technical problems or I totally suck:

Comments on a Thursday night game against the worst team in the NHL: 1,018

Comments after a Saturdanight HNIC game against the haterd Bruins: 647

Feeling good with your Montreal Canadiens four points clear of those not-so-big, not-very-bad-anymore Boston Bruins?

Want to feel even better?

May I suggest a short stroll down memory lane.

A year ago, this team was in disarray.

Kovalev vs. Koivu for leadership of the room. Off-ice scandals. On-ice garbage, most nights.

Guy Carbonneau, who was in the Hockey Night in Canada booth last night, had been fired on the day the Canadiens returned from a road trip o which they'd lost two of three games.

The team won Bob Gainey's first game behind the bench, then lost the next five beforte scraping out enough wins to ride four losses into the playoffs.

We remember what happened in the postseason: El Sweepo at the paws of the dastardly Bruins.

That was then.

And while there are still a dozen regular-season games to play and several rivals alive for playoff spots, I think we can agree this now is much more gratifying than that then.

Five of six against the Bs this season

Six of eight possible points on the road trip.

Three straight at home, five straight overall.

The Canadiens are officially hot.

Friend and colleague Patrick V. Hickey summed up the mood of the media succinctly as we boarded the elevator to head down to the Canadiens' dressing room:

"A game like that," Hickey sighed, "and now we have to interview the Kostitsyn brothers."

I didn't stick around the room long enough to hear clichés tumble out of the mouths of Sergei and Andrei in halting English.

What could they or anyone else say about a game in which the Canadiens were lucky to take points from the worst team in the league? 

This one won't be in the Second Century Classic DVD collection.

Against the worst team in the NHL.

Plekanec: Esay save

Potulny: Four great moves and Jaro saves

Gomez: Save

Horcoff: Save

Gionta: Backhand wide

Brulé: Post!

Pouliot: Save

Nilsson: Save

AK46: GOAL!

Gagner: Wide

Now that we know the Canadiens MVP didn't have his knee destroyed by Mattias Ohlund last night, let's get back to the math problem:

Will the team sign Tomas Plekanec?

And for how much?

As befits the team's hottest player, Scott Gomez offered the most succinct analysis of your seemingly-playoff-bound Montreal Canadiens:

"We're starting to look like the team we should have been all year."

And they're still missing two important players: sniper Mike Cammalleri and power-play specialist Marc-André Bergeron.

Despite their absence, the Canadiens are playing like the team Professor Gainey may have envisaged when he started stitching components together last summer.

Gomez and Gionta aren't as young as they were when they broke in with New Jersey. But energized by the addition of Benoit Pouliot, the former Devils are playing their best hockey of the season.

And they picked a good time to peak.

And crucial, as it drops Tampa Bay seven points back and makes their three in hand less threatening.

The Canadiens have 15 games left in their regular season: nine at home, six on the road.

A fan offers this analysis of why the Canadiens (for whom he uses the first person plural) are in the catbird seat for a playoff spot because of a favorable schedule:

Of the 15 games we have left, six are against teams currently in playoff position (40%). The average point total of the teams we face going forward is 65.4, a total below the Canadiens'.
 
Rangers: 16 games left, eight against teams currently in playoff position (50%). Average point total of opponents: 67.4
 
Lightning: 18 games left, 10 against teams currently in playoff position (56%). Average point total of opponents: 72.5
 
Thrashers: 18 games left, 12 against teams currently in playoff position (67%). Average point total of opponents: 73.3
 
Thrashers have the toughest schedule going forward. In their last five games, they face the top three teams in the Eastern Conference: Penguins twice, Capitals twice and the Devils.

The Canadiens, by contrast, end their regular season against the Conference bottom-dwellers: Leafs, Islanders and Hurricanes).

Plan the parade.

It wasn't quite the 0-5 comeback against the Rangers.

But a week after The Game, this was quite a game.

Down 3-1 on the road with 110 ticks left in the second game of a back-to-backer ...

The Canadiens kicked open the door of the hurt locker and maybe offered an avatar of what we'll see in the regular season's last 15 games.

OK, last desperate try for an Oscar tie-in.

I promise.

The winner was ... the Canadiens, and the improbable W lifted them into seventh place.

Trailing 3-1 with less than two minutes left, the Canadiens tie the game and win it on Tomas Plekanec's shootout goal.

Six of eight points on the road trip. Seventh place.

Unreal.

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Hands up everyone who thought this would get to a shootout.

Perry: Save

Markov: Miss

Getzlaf: 5-hole Goal

Gomez: Save

Selanne: Miss

Gionta: Dribbles through Goal! Crazy!!

Wisniewski: Miss

Plekanec: GOAL!!!

Jarred Friedman found this video of two Finnish friends, talking about how much they love each other.

It's a given that Scott Gomez's contract is ridiculous.

Glen Sather is the Santa Claus of the NHL – Wade Redden: $6 million – and found an elf in Bob Gainey.

But what was Gomez supposed to do? Become the first person in the history of capitalism to decline a raise?

(Detroit Tigers star Al Kaline did once, but I digress.)

Last night in L.A., we saw the skills that bedazzled Sather and Gainey.

Gomez played is best game of the season, centring the only dangerous line wearing white.

Two dominant shifts, at the beginning of the first and third periods, put the Kings back on their royal heels and set the tone for an outstanding team effort that lifted the Canadiens back into eighth place.

Equally impressive was Gomez's play in his own end. 

Never forget this is a player who broke in with the New Jersey Devils.

We saw a cum laude graduate of Lou U. last night.

Huge night for the Scott Gomez line, and a heroic effort by the D.

Tip of the tuque to video scout Jarred Friedman for this L.A. Kings commercial.

Always fun with Chris Lee, eh?

Is there a Montreal fan alive who doesn't wish the ref got a lift back to the hotel ... from Dan Heatley?

Seven minors called on each team, most of them in the second period, several of them bizarre and woefully inconsistent.

The parade to the box disrupted the flow of the game and prevented Jacques Martin from rolling the lines to the extent he was able to in Boston.

The result: Single-digit minutes for Glen Metropolit, Tom Pyatt and Mathieu Darche.

The result of that: fatigue in the third period – and two unanswered goals by the home team.

San Jose took over about midway through the middle period, and then it was just a matter of time before the number two team in the league, with a goal differential of +51, beat the number 23 team, which is -10.

Sean F. Avery

He's a jerk, but he understands show biz.

No, that guy in the Leafs jersey wasn't Mike Komisarek.

Colton Orr gave Milan Lucic all he could handle last night.

Of course, BGL couldn't fit that into his busy schedule last season.

Canadiens blow a third-period lead and waste a strong performance by Carey Price.

San Jose is a Cup contender ... and looked it.

The Canadiens are in ninth place ... and looked it during crunch time.

The San Jose Sharks sell hockey to northern Californians.

Habs I/O chief video scout Jarred Friedman found this commercial featuring Joe Thornton as a ventriloquist.

But my favourite is coach Todd McLellan.

There are others with Joe Pavelski, Rob Blake,  Ryan Clowe and Dan Boyle.

This music video is amazing.

Something to entertain Habs fans until the puck drops hours and hours from now.

Zenon Konopka?

Nope. No Alpha-Omega trade day for your Montreal Canadiens.

Pierre Gauthier must have liked what he saw in Boston.

A quiet day all around that saw the movement of mostly role players and depth Dmen.

16 deals, 29 players, 12 draft picks ... with maybe a few more reported after 3 p.m.

Bruins got Dennis Seidenberg.

Washington toughened up with Scott Walker and added Eric Belanger.

Jeff Halpern to L.A.

Peter Mueller went to Colorado for Wojtek Wolski.

Raffi Torres to Buffalo.

And surprisingly, considering the needs, no major goaltender moves.

So, buyers, sellers or innocent bystanders?

The consensus prediction from radio guys and the Antichambre crew is a quiet Trading Day for the Canadiens and their fans.

Nothing we saw in Boston changes that scenario ... except a win makes a stand-pat trade day easier to accept.

All credit to the Canadiens for a very solid effort ... against a very bad hockey team.

What's happened to the Bruins?

No one can score, the D is pathetic and Tim Thomas is signed to watch Tuukka Rask for four years.

But enough about them.

Boston sucks. The Bruins have not won in the TD Banknorth Centre this year. They're about to go on the road for seven games.

The Canadiens are in seventh place, and the team we saw last night  â€“ trailing after two periods, then scoring four unanswered – looked like a playoff club.

Four unanswered goals in the third period.

Three by the third and fourth lines.

Carey Price made saves when he had to.

Outstanding team win.

Something to chase your post-Games Blues:

During the Montréal-Québec TV series, Patrice Brisebois gets into with Bob Hartley.

I won't provide a full translation, but several "shut your face"s, a couple of Stanley Cup ring citations and Breezer told Hartley "you have trouble finding a job."

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Best line on the Games ceremonies from my great and good friend Josie Gold, the Photo Shop wizard of Four Habs Fans:

"Giant penises to open the Games, giant beavers to close them."

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Damien Cox on Twitter:

A reader says the 3 biggest goals in Canadian hockey history are from Paul Henderson and 2 guys who live in the same house in Pittsburgh.

Some quick-hit observations:

• If Canada lost, there wouldn't be enough alcohol and meds in this country to deal with it.

• Our Montreal Canadiens have NO ONE as good as Toews, Doughty, Kane, Keith ... well, I could go on, but we don't have enough alcohol and meds.

• I was among the second-guessers on Niedermayer when the tournament began. Too old. Too slow. As usual, I was wrong.

• This tournament will define the career of Rick Nash.

• Mike Babcock is as smart a guy as my alma mater ever produced.

• Two words for the Sid skeptics: B--- me.

• My friend and Gazette colleague Don Macpherson points out the best part of this for a Montrealer: We are spared the Réjean Tremblay "humiliation" column whining about Martin St. Louis and Vincent Lecavalier not being on the team.

• Hey, Reggie: Brodeur and Bergeron were great, eh? The best franco in the tournament was Zach Parise.

• Given a mulligan on the 2003 draft, I'd have taken Ryan Getzlaf or Zach Parise or Corey Perry or Mike Richards or Dustin Brown or Shea Weber.

• Did anyone miss fighting?

• Are the Hawks loaded or what?

• Are the Kings loaded or what?

• Man, Parise ...

• Can we bag the Burke-bashing, please?

• Is Ryan Kesler's locker beside Roberto Luongo's?

• How can we get excited about the NHL after this?

And who wins it?

The greatest F. hockey player in the world!!

Stanley Cup. Gold medal

Props to Iginla for the feed.

Was Ovechkin watching?

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Nick Kypreos: "(Crosby) didn't need to have a great tournament. He needed a great moment."

Paul Henderson for the 21st Century ... and a much better hockey player.

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We have health care and we have TWO hockey gold medals!!

Props to the U.S. for a superb effort.

A fast, young, excellent team. Well-coached by that sourpuss.

But the McGill tie wins again.

This feels so good!

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Men of the Match: Crosby, Toews, Nash, Niedermayer

• We are two sleeps closer to the month in which Spring begins.

• Regardless of what happens in the Bronze medal game, Jaro Halak has buttressed his status as a Number One goaltender in the NHL.

• There is no danger of complacency in the Gold medal game. Team Canada got the scare of their lives last night.

• Sidney Crosby is due for a big game. And he will have one against the Americans.

• At 3 p.m., we will know where our children are. Also our parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, colleagues, friends, enemies and total strangers.

• Joannie Rochette.

• Speedskaters with dreads.

• We may not own the podium, but we're renting with the option to buy: Canada has won more Gold than any host country ever.