About last night ...

I think I'm going to spend a cloudy Saturday in Montreal trying track down a taste of what Guy Carbonneau is smoking.

The Canadiens' coach, in the portion of his post-game scrum that aired on RDS's l'Antichambre, said he liked his team's 60-minute effort. The Canadiens, Carbonneau added, played better and were "less demoralized" than in Buffalo.

It was a fairly tight camera shot so I couldn't see whether Carbo was tugging on his ear lobe to indicate he was kidding.

Because if the "60-minute effort" line wasn't a spoof or a specific reference to Carey Price, who was great for 59:18, the coach is seriously delusional.

Does the second period count as part of the 60 minutes? The Canadiens needed more than seven minutes to get their first shot, en route to a grand total of five.

Do the last 33 seconds of the first period count toward the total? That's when the Canadiens, having just surrendered the game's first goal, had a 5-on-3 man advantage. The coach, in his wisdom, had Glen Metropolit on the power play.

Yes, Metropolit is a right-handed shot – and he's used it to score four goals this season. Andrei Kostitsyn, with 22 goals, and Alex Tanguay, who has 10, watched from the bench.

I mean .... c'mon. Glen Metropolit? This is getting too psychedelic, even for a survivor of the 1960s.

Danny Ozark, who managed the Philadelhia Phillies back in the day and was famous for malapropisms, once was asked if a losing streak had affected team morale.

"At this point," Ozark replied, "morality is no longer a factor."

So the Canadiens are less demoralized?

Maybe it's time for Carbo to wake up, smell the coffee and become seriously demoralized. Maybe it's time for he and his friend the general manager to dial up YouTube and watch a former Canadiens coach offer this candid assessment of his team.

Like most members of the media, I'm a Guy Carbonneau fan. His press briefings always feature intelligent, highly quotable comments.

One year removed from 104 points and celebrating 100 years of the most storied franchises in hockey, Carbonneau can't pull a Therrien.

Carbo can't blithely admit:

"We suck, we're going to miss the playoffs and I have no answers."

Late last night,I got an e-mail from a fellow Canadiens fan:

I don't know about you, but I'm kind of looking ahead to the summer already, and if Gainey picks the right guys, he can completely rebuild on the fly.  He'll have a ton of space and manouverability most GMs don't have...especially when added to a young core.  There are no playoffs this year.  Even if they squeak in, they'll be murdered.  But I'm optimistic next year will be better.  And, when you think about it...there's an argument to be made that NEXT season is actually the hundredth year...
I've got my doubts about Carbo though.

Here's what I wrote back to her:

Grim. They don't deserve to be in the playoffs. And they give every indication they've quit on Carbo.

Re the summer: Who would want to play here? The team is constantly rebuilding, the media scrutiny is relentless, every cab driver is an expert, etc. ad nauseam.

I respect Gainey but I'm starting to wonder whether he's in the same league as Lamoriello, Wilson, Burke, Shero, Holmgren, Sutter, Lombardi.
I'm not including Holland because there's nothing to wonder about there.

Does Gainey blow up the team? I'm comfortable with Price as a cornerstone, but the D is awful. Two more seasons of Hamrlik? Komisarek is a mess. Gorges tries, but he's not a Top-4. Do you rush Webber and Subban and McDonagh up hoping one or two of them is Luke Schenn or Drew Doughty?

Forwards?
Keep Max-Pac, Lapierre, Latendresse, D'Agostini and hire a Belarusian psychiatrist for the brothers. Give Koivu two years if he'll sign cheap. Everyone else can walk. Maybe hit a home run with a free agent.

OK, my rant was a bit extreme. I was tired and a few beers to the good. E-mail has become the 21st century version of Drink and Dial.

But the Montreal Canadiens are breaking my heart. And in a city that lives and dies with its hockey team, there aren't enough cardiologists to go around.

I can't even bring myself to dissect last night's loss. The Canadiens played lazy, undisciplined, clueless hockey for long stretches of the game.

A team sitting 14th in the conference had eight power plays. And even during  5-on-5, it looked like Atlanta had an extra man.

Saku Koivu, Alex Tanguay and Christopher Higgins were reunited and played well. They didn't score, but it wasn't for want of trying.

Max Lapierre's line always tries – and never scores.

Our ertswhile number one line? They're starting to remind me of the darkest days of Sergei Samsonov.

Gregory Stewart landed a few good ones on Cliff Thorburn. Ryan O'Byrne beat up an 18-year-old kid. 

The D? Softest in the league. Mike Komisarek and Roman Hamrlik each had one hit last night. Josh Gorges, Mathieu Schneider, Andrei Markov and Ryan O'Byrne had none.

As a team, the Canadiens had FIVE hits.

Steve Bégin will have more than that in the first period tomorrow. And he'll be coming hard for 60 minutes.

Buffalo is in Ottawa and Carolina plays at Tampa Bay tonight. The Rangers are home to the faltering Bruins and surging Pttsburgh visits stumbling Washington tomorrow.

Anyone looking forward to perusing the Eastern Conference standings on Monday morning?