About last night ...

Problem #1: The right point.

Canadiens survived the loss of Sheldon Souray and thought they could get by without Mark Streit. With all due respect to Bob Gainey, I'm starting to suspect he was wrong.

Streit told Pat Hickey the Canadiens had made him an offer during the season a year ago: about $1.2 million per in a two-year deal. They were offering to double his salary. But en route to a 62-point season in which seven of his 13 goals were scored on the PP, Streit knew there would be a better offer out there.

He was right. The Islanders signed him for five years at $4.1 per. Through 30 games, Streit has seven goals – six on the power play.

The Canadiens have tried moving Andrei Markov to the right point with Alex Tanguay on the left. They've used Patrice Brisebois, Josh Gorges and Sergei Kostitsyn. Only Breeze – who, BTW, has done all the team's scoring in the last two games – has displayed a hard, accurate shot reminiscent of Streit's (but not of Souray's).

Last night, Carbo tried Alex Kovalev at the right point. The coach is running out of ideas.

Francis Bouillon? Good, hard shot. Yannick Weber? Probably not ready for The Show, but these are desperate times.

Problem #2: Faceoffs

New rule this season. When a player is penalized, the ensuing faceoff is in his team's defensive zone.

Great if you win the draw. You're set up and right into the PP. Not so great if the faceoff is lost. The defenders clear, and the attacking team has to retrieve the puck and move it 200 feet. They have to gain the blueline and set up their PP formation. It all wastes valuable seconds of man-advantage time.

Last night, Tomas Plekanec went 0-for-3 on offensive zone faceoffs. Robert Lang won one in six tries. This has been a season-long situation. And the most effective centre on power play faceoffs is Saku Koivu.

Problem #3 is a corollary of #2:

The Canadiens have a difficult time gaining the offensive zone. The only player who can carry it in on a consistent basis is Kovalev. But because of the way he plays, the other four attackers wait to see where he's going and what he'll do when he gets there. That limits flow and the PP becomes static.

The Canadiens also try shoot-ins. But their forwards have difficulty chasing the puck down and/or digging it out of the corners.

Problem #4: The power play has become a Sergei Samsonov tribute band.

Everything is on the perimieter. Penalty-killers adjust their box to keep the puck to the outside. The absence of a point threat allows the PK to collapse and key on Kovalev, taking away his cross-ice feeds and forcing him to take low-percentage shots from bad angles.

Boston and Philadelphia did it in the playoffs and everyone is doing it this season. The PP includes great skaters like Andrei Kostitsyn and great passers like Alex Tanguay. But no one – with the notable and courageous example of Koivu – drives the net. No one sticks his big *** in the goaltender's face, like Tomas Holmstrom.

Problem #5: Nerves

As the power play becomes more futile – and non-existence is pretty much the ultimate in futility – players press and become jittery. They make ill-advised passes, wildly inaccurate shots.

It's called squeezing the stick, and you see more of it on the Canadiens' PP than in a porno movie.

Problem #6: Fear Factor

In the absence of an effective power play, opponents take liberties. Elbows are thrown. Cross-checks administered. Goaltenders jostled and –in one disgraceful instance last night – run.

Don Cherry is not wrong about everything. Hockey is a tough, physical game in which fear is a factor. The best deterrent to intimidation – short of playing Georges Laraque 60 minutes a game – is a power play that makes 'em pay.

Unless the PP gets untracked, physical teams are going to run the Canadiens out of the rink. I fear we'll see it when Philadelphia is at the Bell Centre on Thursday.

A depleted Canadiens lineup played a decent game against a very good team last night. They outshot the Caps 33-26 and pushed back against a bunch of young studs who like to bang.

But the team that led the NHL in scoring last season has fewer goals than Boston, the Rangers, Washington, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, TORONTO!!!!! – and six teams in the Western Conference.

Kovalev has gone 19 games without scoring – matching the longest drought of is career. The last three Canadiens' goals have been scored by defencemen. Guillaume Latendresse had one shot last night. Sergei Kostitsyn none.

The only player in double figures on the season is Robert Lang with 10 goals. I doubt he was signed to lead this team in scoring. Meanwhile, Tomas Vanek has 24 goals, Jeff Carter 21, Phil Kessel 19. The guy wearing number 8 last night has 17 goals and threatened to make it 18 every time he touched the puck.

Not to put too fine a point on it, your Montreal Canadiens couldn't hit an elephant's *** with a banjo.

They're sitting fifth in the East, nine points behind Boston. I know: it's only December. But barring a Canadiens' surge coinciding with a Bruins' collapse, I'm starting to ramp down my expectations toward a loer-four playoff seeding.

A positive last night: Ben Maxwell. He began with three horrible shifts and was 2-7 on faceoffs. But the kid has wheels and flashed some moves that suggested he'll be with the team before too long.

Negatives: The Black Aces. Isn't time in the pressbox supposed to make players hungry? Sergei and Gui! did nothing, and Ryan O'Byrne played one shift in the third period.

OK we can't end on a downer.

So  René Descartes walks into a bar.

Bartender says "Care for a beer?"

Descartes says "I think not."

And he disappears.

Like the power play.