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About last night ...
posted by Mike Boone at 8h45 EST on Dec 19
La Presse's François Gagnon came up with some telling numbers: in Detroit on Saturday night, Florida gave up 46 shots. In Chicago on Sunday, the Blackhawks had 45 shots against the Panthers.
In the first period last night, the Canadiens had three shots. Roman Hamrlik and Francis Bouillon had two of them.
That's pathetic.
Shall we chalk it up to growing pains? Ten players dressed last night were 25 and under. Maybe they learned something.
My friend's father, who believed corporal punishment builds character, used to say "kids' ears are in their asses." Presumably Guy Carbonneau will be on their butts all through the holiday road trip.
And the kindly old coach should reserve a few cat o' nine strokes for his veterans, none of whom distinguished himself last night.
Cristobal Huet will start in Washington Thursday night. That's a no-brainer.
I'd like to see Sergei Kostitsyn and Josh Gorges stay in the lineup.
Guillaume Latendresse should be back, probably at the expense of Ryder or Tom Kostopoulos.
I think the fourth line should be kept intact. Maxim Lapierre was one of the few Canadiens who skated and looked interested last night.
This was the point last season when the team began to tank.
The six-game road trip will be interesting.
• • •
A lot of talk about booing on the radio phone-in shows after the game last night.
Are Montreal fans too demanding?
I don't think so. Yes, many fans remember the glory years. But they're realists who recognize that in a 30-team league with some very sharp general managers – oh, why can't they all be Mike Milburys and Bobby Clarkes, like they were in Sam Pollock's day? – it takes time to build a winner.
All those years of glory, however, produced sophisticated hockey fans who can tell chopped liver from chicken droppings. And when they pay upwards of $125 a ticket, the very least they expect is 60 minutes of high-octane hockey from the home team.
Too often this season at the Bell Centre, the Canadiens' effort has fallen wel short of that expectation. And when that happens, the team has a boos problem.
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I missed last night's game entirely and I'm feelin' great! Sounds like it was a real cracker.
you were not the only one, twenty of your most important friends also missed most of the game as well.
You must have been at Abe's joint again.
Here is the solution to all of the Habs problems.....Lets trade Ryder for Samsonov....What do we have to lose?????
Well, as Mike says, it was about this time last year that the wheels came off. I like to hope that this bunch is younger and more resilient. I also like to think that everyone is taking their vitamins and echinacea and washing their hands- you can never be too careful during flu season. If we stay healthy and carry on our trend of playing well on the road, who knows- maybe we come into the new year swinging instead of dangling. Maybe we make the playoffs. But the truth is that this team has already performed better than most analysts expected. And we can all sense that this team always seems to be hanging on the edge of cataclysm. I'm literally touching wood as I type this: factor in an injury to anyone on the Kovalev line, or to Hamrlik and/or Markov, and the wheels fall off again.
Huet said it best with his 'fragile between the ears' comment. I wish he'd gone into more detail about why this team is so fragile, so easily thrown off its game.
Shall we chalk it up to a lack of leadership? Hello Saku, one game does not a captain make.
Check this out, not very classy:
http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/news_story/?ID=225539&hubname=nhl
Agreed.
Huet has to play thursday!!
He's gotta re-up his value and pass Brodeur in all-star voting again.
Does anyone else find it fishy that BOTH markov AND huet were leading allstar votes. I understand Markov is amazing, but Huet? I'm not convinced that Huet is considered an All-Star league-wide, 1 great year, 1 good year, and a decent start to this season...I can name a couple of goalies in the East that are more tantalizing choices.
Which raises the question, which of yous spend their time on NHL.com clicking Huet/Markovs and koivu/kovalevs names all day?
The all-star voting is a farce! They should be chosen by esteemed sportswriters such as Mike Boone and of course the LLSJ. Not to mention that the game is a bit of a lame duck but what all star game isn't? Maybe baseball where there is no hitting involved and the winner get's home field advantage in the world series. Make it mean something to the players other than a schmoozfest. That being said, it would be good for Huet to be showcased at the ASG in that it would increase his trade value in this UFA season.
Yeah, I could be wrong, but if I am not mistaken it used to be that way. Isn't it Bettman who altered the format for selection, giving it to the fans for selection instead of the hockey writers?
There are many very knowledgable hockey fans out there, but I dare say there are even more less knowledgable hockey fans out there. There is no distinguishing between the two types when it comes to all-star voting, and multiple voting makes it even more of a farce.
As far as Huet goes, well, God bless him but he has not been all-star material this year, and if you go back to last year, he spent the majority of the time following the All-Star Game rehabbing an injury. He came back just in time to lose the last game of the season against the Leafs. So how can anyone seriously call him an All-Star? Also, if I am not mistaken, Huet was not voted to the team last year. If anyone can correct me on this go ahead, but was he not "named" to the All-Star team in order that the Canadiens would have a representitive, as is the custom of each team having at least one player present?
souray was on the team last year too
i think the league picks the all-star team
but the starting line-up is voted on by the fans.
you know the all-star voting is a joke when wayne gretzky comes out and says rory fitzpatrick shouldn't go.......
The All-Star game is a waist of time. It was great to see Fitzpatrick make a mockery of it (as if it wasn't ridiculous enough already).
leaving it in the hands of the so-called esteemed sportswriter would turn it into even more of a farce.
no offense intended to either sportswriter who may read this
Tired from using their tractors to snowplow all the snow?
I'll try to give you my take, but I'm a native New Yorker. They are the most inconsistent group of players I have ever seen. Some nights they look like world beaters, the next night they look like crap. Unless they get better-than-average goaltending, they'll probably lose. Moreover, when their kicker let's in a howler like the second one last night, they just fold. As far as leadership, they have some, but it is by no means strong leadership. With perhaps the odd exception like the game against the Leafs Saturday night, Koivu's performance this year has rendered him unable to give the other guys "the look" in the room. Hell, they'll just give him "the look" back. We are a very long way from number 25. Beyond fabulous goaltending, the teams that did it in '86 and '93 had not only more leadership, but also more ability and certainly more heart.
I think Markov showed up. Don't you?
I think Kovalev showed up...for a few minutes. Maybe something was wrong, because it looked like when they wanted to play last night, they got the pcuk down deep. Mayeb they were sending a message to someone...
After all he did have the only two goals.
Mike,
I think you're being too hard on them, after all they did play a solid two minutes of hockey at the end of the third.
You got half your wish, Price was in the peartree for the second goal.
And his head was up his own butt for the third... ;)
That second one was just woeful, absolutely woeful. I have to have Price as a guest on a public access show I plan doing some time in the future "What Were You Thinking?"
I gather he was thinking how to help his defenceman out, and I'd rather see mistakes made from trying, than from not...give him a break already..let's move on.
If you watch the game again, watch for the number of times penalties were not called against FL for holding and interference. It made me sick. The refereeing is inconsistent. If you hold the stick horizontally against the body of an opponent, it's practically an automatic penalty, but everything else seemingly was allowed in this game.
I think we have to just ride this out and have some patience I cant see this team winning the cup this year but the building of the team looks good for the future, a lot better than it has in the past.
Well young kids do need a hard-ass. Just like in the old days - I'm thinking of Ruel barking..."check, check, skate, skate..."
A major boo-boo by Price on the 2nd goal. The 3rd Pather goal was a BB that Price got a small piece of.
After the first goal I could see it was a done deal. The Panthers played very well, as usual, in Montreal. With a few minutes left in the game they were exhausted.
I'm unimpressed with Carbs. He's definitely not a Scotty Bowman. I don't know what's going on with Ryder. He seems slow. Perhaps he's had it with Montreal or the staff.
Quite frankly, I think the Habs need more Russians or Europeans, in general, on the team. Markov comes to mind. These kids come over here having eaten potato soup all of their lives and probably grew their own vegetables. Now their grateful for steak.
It will be interesting to see if any trades are made. Unfortunately, not too many players want to play in Montreal anymore.
Last night's game was a comedy of errors. One thing that is consistant with them is I can tell within the first five minutes what kind of game it will be. Actually I'm being generous, at 17:28 in the first, I said out loud they're going to stink tonight. It's always the same, if they come out hard they have a good win. If they come out soft, they usually lose or squeak by with a tie.