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About the last night ...
posted by Mike Boone at 10h23 EST on May 4
Let's review the situation to that point:
Canadiens had scored the first goal for the first time in the series. They were 1-for-2 on the power play and had killed three penalties, including 55 seconds of 5-on-3. They were playing at home, with the crowd in a frenzy.
Under these conditions, a superior team locks up a W. They had the Flyers by the goolies and should have squeezed – hard.
It didn't happen. With all the momentum on their side, Canadiens gave up three goals in three minutes.
The Flyers had 20 shots on goal in the second period. That's how many Nashville got in the third period on Dec. 1, when the Predators erased a 4-1 Canadiens lead and won 5-4 in a shootout.
The shootout happened in regulation time last night. Philadelphia was coming in waves, zipping around the Canadiens' zone, sowing confusion and consternation among the D-men and firing from all angles at a sub-par Carey Price.
Gorges was to mention later that he couldn't second guess himself in terms of positioning or shots that should have been blocked because the Flyers' assault wasn't coming off set-piece plays. They were just hitting, working, buzzing and firing in the general direction of Price.
The Flyers played like they wanted it more. And, suprisingly, the less-desperate team won the game.
I'm feeling a bit drained and not really up for finger-pointing this morning. Let's accentuate the positive:
• Tomas Plekanec played his heart out last night. A goal, an assist, 14-4 on faceoffs.
• Andrei Markov played his best game of the series and was plus-2 in a losing cause.
• Mike Komisarek had five hits and three blocked shots.
• Sergei Kostitsyn made some brilliant passes, even though a couple of them were picked off by Flyers.
• Carey Price was great on the Daniel Brière breakaway.
• Guillaume Latendresse made a honey of a move to get himself open for the shot that rang off the post.
Look, let's not spend the summer agonizing over what might have been if Gui! had scored. The Flyers were full value for their win, last night and on the series.
They had the better goaltender. They had better depth at centre. How many Canadiens power plays began with either Mike Richards or Jeff Carter winning a faceoff and Philly icing the puck?
In Richards and Braydon Coburn, Philadelphia has two emerging superstars. The latter played 24 minutes last night. Coburn and Kimmo Timonen did as good a shutdwn job on Alex Kovalev as we've seen this season.
The Pittsburgh Penguins knew what they were doing when they sat out Sidney Crosby for that fial regular-season game against Philadelphia. Had Pittsburgh won it would have pipped the Canadiens for first overall and faced the Flyers in the opening round. Instead, the Crosby-less Penguins lost, finished secod and drew Ottawa in the quarter-finals.
Maybe that wil come around and bite the Penguins in the ass. We'll see. Canadiens fans are on the outside looking in at how karma plays.
As to our own mojo, let's hear no whining about bounces and breaks and goalposts and refereeing. That's a loser's chorus.
Your Montreal Canadiens are not losers.
They gave fans a great season, far better than any but the most delusional among us expected when training camp convened last September.
The team has an enviable core of talented young payers with more in the pipeline.
There is every reason to expect good things in 2008-'09.
But the wait will be long.
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Regardless of the outcome, I think it is safe to say that no one thought we'd be here in May talking about the
latest game. So... huge kudos to the Habs for at least allowing us to dream again. Also, big thanks to Dave Stubbs,
Pat Hickey, Kevin Mio, and Mike Boone for providing the best, and I really mean the BEST N.H.L. hockey site
on the planet. I look forward to doing this all over again in October.
look. i am so sick of everyone bashing josh gorges. the 5th goal of that game was not his fault. if you look at the replay footage, it was clearly bouillon standing alone by himself not checking his man. the "boi-gorge" line consistently was to blame throughout this series. we must however remember that gorges is in his first season. what is franky bouillon's excuse. time and time again i watch and listen to habs fans berate every player on the team except for bouillon, latendresse, and begin. these 3 players are the direct cause of montreal losing this series. now i know everyones gonna say that begin played his heart out. i dont care. how many times have we watched him mess up in the mostg pivotal moment of the most pivotal games. dont even try to forget about his horendous screw up in the last game of the season last year against toronto. bottom line. im so sick of french canadien hab fans dissing every player that isnt french when in actual fact, the french canadien players on the habs have consistently been the worst players on the ice for the canadiens all season. the boi-gorge line is one of the worst defensive lines in the nhl. its time to get rid of bouillon. comeon guys, hes a joke. hes tiny. he cant win the battles. brisbois is a peice of crap and i dont need to say anything about him because all of u are thinking it. how many give aways did he make. latendresse is the laziest player on the canadiens. begin plays with alot of heart and ill give him credit for that, BUT....he has constantly been a liability for the canadiens. i do beleive that lapierre will be good some day BUT...he is still making bad turnovers and often is unaware of his own positioning on the ice and its relation to the pucks location. dont even try to diss on mark streit. how many times was he flipped around from position to position. its only natural that it would be hard for him to find a groove. the bottom line is this. bouillon and begin need to go! dismantle the boi-gorge line. crucify brisbois. start injecting latendresse with steroids so that maybe next year he will have alittle more jump to his stride. begin can be replaced by any number of the tough guy "impact" players that are available out there. in closing...bouillon has been the worst player on the habs for 2 years in a row.
Luck is for losers! Teams rarely lose or win on luck, they lose or win on skill and desire. In the Habs case, Philly was hungrier and even though I hate to admit it possessed more skill in this series. If all the Habs played with the sheer desire of their Captain, they would have won the series. Let it be said for the last time, Koivu is the heart and soul of the Habs, and to trade him for someone that may score a few more goals is lunacy.As for skill, the Habs were outskilled on special teams,5 on 5 and goal.
That being said the Habs are looking good for the future.
Sorry - I'm also in the camp that disagrees that Philly is the better team. Montreal definitely has the better team, but Philadelphia played better in key areas over 5 games.
- Price was absolutely horrendous for most of the series, but it wasn't close to being all his fault. The defense in front of him was nothing short of farcical for most of the series. Markov ended up getting better as he went along (I'm sure he was injured earlier), but how many times did Hamrlik get burned by speed down the wings? How many times did Gorges lose his man (the 5th goal on Saturday night, for example...that was his guy and he was off in the center somewhere)? How many times were we caught running around in the defensive zone? Yeah, Price lost his confidence, but part of that confidence is being able to trust the people in front of you to help even a little, but what he got was a defense that ranged from barely adequate at best to absolutely disgraceful at worst.
- I'm a fan of Arsenal in the English soccer league, and it's stunning how alike they are to the Habs. Pass, pass, pass, pass, pretty turning circle, pass, pass, pass, lose the puck, concede terrible goal to a team that isn't anywhere near as good. It wasn't even Kovalev to blame here, the Kostitsyns and Plekanec over-elaborated on just about everything, and some of the others were guilty of this as well. It's very pretty to watch but at this time of year, you have to bang the front of the net and we didn't do it. It's too bad the Begin-Smoke-Kosto line didn't have thiiiiiiiiiiiiis much more of a scoring touch.
- You can have 100 shots in a game, but if 98 of them are shoveled into the goalie's pad or fired into the logo on his chest, chances are you're going to lose.
- Why didn't we collapse on Umberger and Upshall and Briere and Hartnell, and let their other guys beat us if they were going to beat us? Look, if Derian Hatcher wants to shoot from the point, you'd be smart to let him do that all day. But, leaving Upshall unmarked on the back post? DREADFUL. Allowing Umberger time and space, time and time again? DREEEEEEEADFUL. Maybe they would have stuck a shadow on him if he had gotten a 15th goal in the series.
Sorry if I come across as bitter, but this was just not good enough from a team that was very much capable of winning it all.
seanswift.blogspot.com - Swift on Sports
We were never going to win it all. We never had the team to beat a Western team. The most I would have gone is 3rd round.
As for our chances. We are quick to blame our team for not banging them in but if only a few more posts go in, we are still in it. Carbo said it best... To win the cup you have to be lucky and lady luck was not on our side.
Players win games, teams win championships.
- Bill Taylor
Okay, using ebk's spreadsheet, I put together this potential roster for next year. It assumes Streit and the other UFAs are gone.
1.) A. Kostitsyn Pleks Kovy
2.) Latendresse Koivu S. Kostitsyn
3.) Higgins Chipchura D'Agostini
4.) Begin Lapierre Kostopoulos
Markov Komi
Hamrlik Bouillon
O'Byrne Gorges
Valentenko
Price Halak
Press box rotation/trade bait
Dandenault
Stewart
I've slid Higgins down to the third line, hoping that will generate some scoring through 3 lines. Hopefully Latendresse continues to mature and earns his place on the second line. We are still small down the centre. A trade or FA signing could improve that. D'Agostini obviously is unproven. Stewart should either play fairly regularly or go to back to Hamilton. And I don't know if Dandenault would be willing to sit most of the year again. He might request a trade. I haven't figured out where that leaves us with the salary cap and if there is room for a UFA signing. Anyway, just some things to think about.
Bill - If this is the team we ice next year then I think we will all be disappointed again come May 1, 2009.
The Original 24 Cups
There is no way we will not pick up a free agent. D'Agostini will not make the Canadiens in any sort of permanent way. Dandy is gone.
We would be in deep trouble if that was our 3rd line going into the season.
Bill H - I like your approach to this issue, wise. It's a template that we can improve on and Grabs is missing in the press box. IMO Higgy is a smart move , Hamy and Bouillon did not click while on PK? , Lapierre would have to play much smarter defensive hockey and less gong ho if he's going to replace Smols and his success on that line , Valentenko (green/raw).
Emelin is missing as well. Perezhogin?
"We will win the Cup only with Carey Price in the nets"
Of all of the post game comments and analysis from players coaches and media I think the most telling comment was Carey Price saying "It feels like I've been playing for two years straight."
To me this sounds like a young man who was physically and mentally drained. And who can blame him? He had an incredible 2 seasons with a short summer in between. The rigours of an NHL schedule were new to him, and the media crush potentially overwhelming.
The time off will give him some much needed rest and time to reflect on a season that he, the team, and Habs fans can all be pround of.
I don't wholeheartedly subscribe to the idea that the Flyers are/were the better team, but there is merit to Boone's analysis.
There are a lot of factors involved in winning a game or a series. One of those many factors is the intangible of bounces and breaks. I think Philly had them in abundance. Montreal couldn't buy them! On the other hand, Philly scored when they needed to, owned Montreal's PP, and got into Price's head.
Summary:
Philly had better bounces
Philly had better goaltending
Philly had better o-zone positioning
Philly had better PP & PK
Philly had better coaching & game plan
Montreal had better playmaking
Montreal had better puck possession
Neither team had good officiating!
Overall, Montreal couldn't solve the Flyers, and Philly found ways to win... and did.
I agree with your summary. And I conclude that Philly was the better team. Not for all time. Just for this play off series. We were the better team during the regular season. And we will be the better team next year.
Well I have recovered from Saturday finally. The silver lining on the end of the Habs season is that I can get back to cycling in the evenings rather than the 6 pack and a game. I dare not think of how fat I'll get when the make a run to the final in a couple of years!
for you armchair GM's out there.
an excel sheet that has the Habs 2008/2009 Salary info
http://scmbl.net/Habs08.xls
anyone that needs an explanation of how it works, email me.
ebk- This is awesome. Did you do it yourself?
numbers are from nhlnumbers.com
ebk - thanks for sharing the info.
not a problem.
Thanks ebk. Excellent spreadsheet. It makes things much easier to see. I'll be spending some time there thinking about salary cap. Oh, I believe Lahti has signed with a team in Finland, so his name should not be under prospects. Things just didn't pan out for him here. Too bad.
Dandenault is listed under the salary part, but not on the positional chart.
thanks and I think not listing Dandenault was a Freudian slip.
Boone is correct - the better team won. So, does that make Holmgren a better GM than Gainey? Holmgren was able to turn the Flyers from league doormats to a better team than the Habs in 1 season - and this was not due to free-agent signings but to shrewd talent evaluation and decisive action. In contrasct, Gainey has done a bit too much in the way of shuffling deck-chairs to accomplish as much in the last 3 years.
Well, while I'm not among those who agree that the Flyers were a better team than the Habs in this series, let alone in general, I think that the Flyers' record from last year needs to be put into perspective.
In terms of personnel, the Flyers were a much better team last year than their record indicated. There was a lot of talent, but it was badly used; the players were asked to play a style that really did not suit their game, mostly due to Bobby Clarke, I feel. Flyers also faced a lot of injuries to key players, notably Peter Forsberg, and were simply not the same team with him in the lineup as without. Theirs was an underachievement of epic proportions.
So they really weren't starting from rock bottom, standings notwithstanding. That said, turning Forsberg into Hartnell and especially Tinomen was a very good move... although to be fair both were really free-agent signings, as they were slated to become UFAs. So was Briere, for that matter. Holmgren was also able to fleece a desperate Don Waddell for Coburn, which was great for Holmgren.
The pain of seeing the Habs out of the playoffs has started to ebb a bit....
Just wanted to put a word in for S. Kostitsyn. Boone, you mentioned his passes (and a few that were picked off) but what really struck me about his play (particularly upon reviewing the last game) was his ability to consistently enter the Philly zone with speed.
I counted no fewer than 4 times he led a rush along the right hand boards that gained the zone and allowed for his linemates to try and set up an offensive chance.
His speed and offensive aggression are fantastic. It makes the D back off giving both his linemates and him time and space. Next season if he can have his wingers consistently be able to keep up, watch out!
He was the shining, happy spot in an otherwise crushing game for me. I hope he keeps contributing for years to come.
Waiting for October.
Good analysis of the game and series Mike B. Its nice to read something that is realistic, rather than the standard "Philly got all the lucky breaks and we outplayed them" mantra. I agree with you. The better team won.
There were a number of reasons we didn't quite put it together during the playoffs. Grit and traffic in front of the Philly net is one reason. An underperforming PP was another. But when you can't keep the puck out of your own net, you are going to have trouble winning. Look at the last 4 games - 4 straight losses to the Flyers and a 4.25 GAA. Price had difficulty with the playoff pressure and let in some soft goals, while Biron had a stellar series, true. But Price wasn't responsible for the turnovers and weak defensive play. 'Nuff said.
I am not going to dwell too much on the playoff loss. I'm already looking over the list of UFAs and RFAs, thinking about the salary cap and possible trades.
UFA
Streit_______________What will Bob do?
Smolinski____________Probably gone.
Ryder________________Gone.
Brisebois____________Probably gone.
RFA
O'Byrne______________Resign.
Grabovski____________Gone.
Gorges_______________Resign.
Lapierre_____________Resign
A. Kostitsyn_________Resign
Halak________________Resign
Young up and comers
Chipchura____________Replaces Smolinski
d'Agostini___________Does he have the right stuff?
Stewart______________We could use his toughness.
Valentenko___________Will take Brisebois' place.
Question marks
Dandanault___________Trade bait?
If I am right, that would make some space on the roster for a C, R and D, plus some space on the press box rotation list. While Bob is not known for his bold moves, he could land a top 6 forward or a puck moving defenceman in the free agent market or through a trade.
Thanks for all your hard work, insights and funny comments right through the season Mike. I'm looking forward to the off season.
a few comments on your analysis:
UFA
- given his strong presence in the playoffs and veteran status, Brisbois will likely stay for another year
-got a feeling Streit is on his way out, despite having a good season. but, he was a bomb in the playoffs, so not sure about him
RFA
- Gorges needs a good contract for at least 3 years: he's good and will improve and become a stalwart on D
Young up and comers
-don't know if Valentenko will be ready, but it's possible. heard/read he was still adjusting to the NA game
-we know very little about Stewart (besides his one NHL game) and therefore not really sure of what he can do or what role he would play
-dAgostini showed signs of speed and good hands in pre-season, but he's small and Habs need bigger forwards [notice how small CH players looked in the hand-shake line opposite the towering Flyers]
Players to consider removing from roster [somehow]:
-Ryder: despite previous successes, obviously at odds with Carbo, had a poor season, and not a well rounded player [bit of a one-trick pony]. Always wondered why Gainey only signed him to one year deals - I think he saw past the "one trick" but saw value in having a 30 goal scorer on the roster.
-Dandenault: often not a contributor in any element of the game
-Smolinski: decent on faceoffs, but is slow and not really a strong grinder
-Grabovski: quick with decent hands, but just too small
-Latendresse??? has the size, but speed is lacking and doesn't use the body enough
-Streit??? versatile and valuable on special teams, but seems to crumble under pressure and is not a strong physical presence
UFA
Streit_______________Not a chance of us resigning him.
Smolinski____________Probably gone.
Ryder________________Gone.
Brisebois____________Prosibly resigned for little money
RFA
O'Byrne______________Resign.
Grabovski____________Gone.
Gorges_______________Resign.
Lapierre_____________Resign
A. Kostitsyn_________Resign
Halak________________Resign(probably will refuse though)
Young up and comers
Chipchura____________Replaces Smolinski
d'Agostini___________Does he have the right stuff?
Stewart______________We could use his toughness.
Valentenko___________Will take Brisebois' place.
Streit - you might be right. He sure disappeared when it counted. If we are going to win the Cup, we need guys who are going to show up. But will Bob chalk it up to a learning experience and put more weight on what he brought in the regular season? Tough to say. Certainly his market value has gone down as a result of his playoff play.
Halak - he is a RFA, not a UFA. Montreal has an option of matching any offers he gets from other teams. I think BG got rid of Huet to make room for Halak. If that is the case, Halak would have to get a top offer for Bob to let him go. The bigger the offer for Halak, the more compensation that comes back to us. If BG lets him go, it will be because he can pick up a backup goalie on the FA market, and he likes the compensation he gets for Halak. But then, why would another team pay big compensation for Halak if there are lots of goalies available on the FA market?
Halak might receive a decent offer to go to the Russian Super League ala Perezhogin.
Bill - I don't see Valentenko replacing Brisebois/Streit on defense. He doesn't bring the offensive tools necessary to fill the role, especially on the PP. I'm not saying he won't be a Hab, just not in the way that some people think. He might even need another year in Hamilton. It's now or never for D'Agostini, although I would see him basically being in the role of a sub that only makes $500000 a year. Stewart? He's only played one game and some guys are ready to hand him the keys to the city. The big question there is, would he be better off getting tons of ice time in Hamilton or being in the pressbox in Montreal waiting for someone to get injured? The best bet might be to let him start in Hamilton, gain some more experience, and then get called up near the end of the year.
THe Original 24 Cups