3P 00:13:
Daniel Paillé gets an empty-netter.
Canadiens got no shots with the extra attacker.
3P 2:00:
Fourth line?
I don't get it.
3P 3:23:
Price plucks one out of the air. Time to shorten the bench.
3P 5:45:
Not a great night for the zebras, eh?
The Komisarek call was a joke. Gaustad got away with a slash on Plekanec.
Conspiracy theory, anyone?
3P Commercial break:
Plekanec plays well when he's annoyed ... and the linesman really pissed him off in the faceoff circle.
3P 7:00:
Buffalo will shut this sucker down tighter than Toby's. The game has turned on a very dubious penalty call.
3P 11:40:
A really good PK falls apart. And Thomas vanek cashes a rebound from close in. Buffalo is 2-for-3 on their power play.
3-2
3P Commercial break:
This will be tough. Komisarek goes for an inadvertent trip on Derek Roy.
3P 10:00:
Shots are 7-2 Canadiens this period.
3P Commercial break:
Some excitement generated by the second wave of the PP. Kostitsyn's line demotion woke him up. But Kovy is still in a bit of a fog.
And poor Pierre Houde is losing his voice.
3P 15:00:
Wow! I was just set to blog how crappy Kovalev looks tonight when Kostitsyn sendss Plekanec away for a spectacular goal.
3P 16:40:
Markov saves another goal by catching up to Vanek.
3P 19:00:
Kostitsyn is back on the second line.
3P 19:20:
Scary 2-on-1, foiled by Markov's speed and Price's alertness.
Between periods:
Christopher Higgins has five of Caadiens' 22 shots ... Another tough night in the faceoff circle: Canadiens have won 18, lost 28 draws. Plekanec is 2-9 ... Benoit Brunet says Buffalo excels at getting bak the second they lose the puck in the O-zone. This clogs the neutral zone and makes it very hard for canadiens to get into the Sabres' end with speed or odd-man advantage.
2P 00:00:
Should be a honey of a third period. Miller made a great leg save on Higgins to keep it 2-1.
2P 00:40:
Latendresse is on the second line and Kostitsyn on the third.
2P 2:00:
Why did Kostistyn try a pass, 20 feet from the net ... to Tom Kostopoulos?
2P 5:00:
Markov lifts Afinogenov's stick in the slot, belts Gaustad off the puck behind the net.
What a player. Best on the team ... by a lot.
2P Break:
Higgins seems to have a hand injury. That would be a disaster. And Miller makes the save of the game on Latendresse, who's really working tonight.
2P 7:30:
Not the best night of Roman Hamrlik's career ... or atrice Brisebois's
2P Second break:
Signs of life. The white-jerseyed corpse is stirring on the slab. And as always, I buried them too early.
So maybe the metaphor should be Uma Thurman bashing her way out of the coffin in Kill Bill II (or was it I)?
2P 10:00:
Now Price has to step up. Lindy Ruff is REALLY pissed about Koivu knocking Miller down just before the goal.
2P 10:17:
Briliant move and shot by Christopher Higgins.
2-1
That's three in three games for CH
2P Commercial break:
Another PP.
If the Canadiens don't score ... well, this has been a fun Friday night.
2P 12:21:
That was inevitable. Tim Connolly buries a rebound in an open net, off some sustained Buffalo pressure.
It's only 2-0, but this is looking totally over.
2P 14:30:
Carbo is livid – again – with the refs. He was not allowed to make a change.
2P 15:00:
Sabres just want this more. There's such a disparity in hustle. And Kovalev goes for a neutral-zone slash.
2P 17:00:
Afinogenov faked out the cameraman. The puck-carrier was not in the frame. Weird.
2P 18:02:
Kostitsyn is hustling tonight. But the line has defensive problems.
2P 19:43:
Good start. Offside. Wake up, guys.
2P 20:00:
All those PPs accomplished was screwing up Carbonneau's ability to roll four lines. The third and fourth lines each played fewer than four minutes. It's hard to get into the game.
Between periods:
I'm not an Xs and Os guy, ut I'd like someone – Pierre McGuire, are yout there? – to explain why the Sabres break up so much of what the Canadiens do on offence. And then their transition game takes off and usually ends with a decent shot on Price. Is this superior strategy by Lindy Ruff, or are the Sabres this much better?
The only good thing I saw in the first period was Andrei Markov getting up off the ice.
1P 1:34:
vanek for a dumb slash. Canadiens PP has no movement and they're second to the puck.
1P 2:45:
Brian Campbell just blew by so fast he scared the pigeons off a statue of Guillaume Latendresse. And Price stops Daniel Paillé on a breakaway.
1P 4:30:
Lydman jumps up and gets a great shot from the slot. Canadiens' coverage keeps breaking down ... which has been a problem lately.
1P 5:30:
Price robs Vanek, who is alone on the lip of the crease. Sa.bres forwards are buzzing in the Canadiens zone
1P Commercial break:
That PP was pathetic. Carbo has to make some in-game adjustments to Sabres' defensive scheme. And there has to be some movement in front off Miller.
1P 10:19:
A four-minute PP that starts horribly. Streit is playing SO tentaively. I don't know what's with him lately. Ryder offside. What a mess. Miller is having a very easy time. Canadiens just throw the puck around the outside of the box
1B 12:24:
Kostopoulos for slashing. Anxious moments on the PK. And a perfect deflection of an Afinogenov pass by Derek Roy. Price had no chance.
1-0
1P Second break:
Another solid start for Canadiens. Playing smart, getting some chances, not letting Buffalo run wild in front of Price.
1P 14:00:
Now Bégin is hurt. I think he was hit by a Komisarek shot.
1P 16:27:
First PP. Nice passing. A good chance for Higgins that Miller plucks out the air. And Ryder lays out Derek Roy with a terrific check.
1P 17:00:
Why are Ryder and Higgins both playing LW on this shift.
1P 18:30:
Buffalo is cutting off everything in the neutral zone. And getting o-zone sequences eerily reminiscent of last Friday.
1P First commercial break:
Woof! He's up. That was the season right there, Habs fans.
1P 19:00:
Scary. Markov goes into the borads awkwardly ... and he's still down..
1P 20:00:
Mathieu Dandenault says forwards getting back will be key against a fast, aggressively forechecking Buffalo team.
1P 20:00:
Happy birthday, Captain K: 33 today.
Pre-game:
On La Ligue en question, some thoughts at the one-quarter point.
Jacques Demers, who picked the Canadiens to finish ninth, is beginning to think they'll make the playoffs.
Benoit Brunet says Roman Hamrlik has brought defensive stability and the team has two scoring lines.
Bertrand Raymond highlights three early-season surprises: the play of Andrei Markov and Mike Komisarek (whom he compares to a young Larry Robinson), the inspired and enthusiastic play of Alex Kovalev and the goaltenders, in the way they've been used and how they've reacted to the system.
Demers points out how smart Bob Gainey was in preferring Markov to Sheldon Souray.
On the goaltending situation, they say Gy Carbonneau will have to find a number one. Demers thinks it will be Price, but he also predicts Huet has the intelligence to deal with it.
They also talked about Michel Therrien's situation in Pittsburgh. He may be losing his veterans – Mark Recchi, Daryl Sydor, gary Roberts – and that, Demers knows from experience, is dangerous.
Were the Penguins overrated in pre-season assessments?
Possible. Unrealistic expectations.
Sympathy for fired Washington coach Glen Hanlon, one of the good guys in the NHL.
Atlanta, which had been winless in six, has won 11 of 15 since Don Waddell took over from Bob Hartley. Ilya Kovalchuk seems to have liked the change.
The Ryan Getzlaf and Matt Carle signings came up. Should Bob Gainey sign Higgins and Komisarek long-term.
(He will, next year. Five years, $25 million for each of them. You read it here first.)
• • •
Pierre McGuire, on Melnick's show, said it will be interesting to see if Lindy Ruff plays Tony Lydmann and Henrik Tallender, his best defensive pair, against the Kovu or Plekanec line.
McGuire is "shocked and bewildered" that the Minnesota Wild claimed Todd Fedoruk off waivers. "There's not a lot of game or fight left in him," McGuire said. Miche Bergeron has said, however, that Jacques Lemaire always has fighters in his lineup.
"If you dress one, he'll dress two," Bergeron added, on CKAC. "And if you dress two, Lemaire will dress three."
McGuire also talked about the challenges of the salary cap and the necessity of having a capologists who can crunch numbers and realistically assess talent. Let's hope Julien BriseBois fits the bill.
McGuire says the great GMs of the pre-cap era were Lou Lamoriello in Jersey, Ken Holland in Detroit and Pierre Lacroix in Colarado.
Lacroix was ousted. Lamoriello has seen his team decimated by free agency. Only Holland has masted cap-era management.
• • •
Enough Already!
If the NHL schedule-maker were the cook in a maximum security prison, there would be riots by now:
"What? Shepherd's pie again? We're bustin' out of here."
Tonight in Buffalo, Canadiens play the Sabres for the second time in
eight days. It's their fourth meeting of the season, and the fifth is
tomorrow night at the Bell Centre.
I like the Sabres. They have a great small-market organization led by
Darcy Regier, one of the smartest general managers in the NHL.
I love Brian Campbell, prototype of the smart, slick-skating defencemen good teams need in the New NHL.
Maxim Afinogenov is worth the price of admission ... which in my case,
watching RDS and live-blogging in the basement, is $0.00.
The Sabres play an up-tempo game that complements the style of your
Montreal Canadiens. We should see some good end-to-end action.
That said, I'm suffering Sabre Sickness ... to be followed on
Tuesday, when Canadiens are at the ACC to play the Leafs for the fourth
time, by Toronto Torpor.
Is there any truth to the rumour that the NHL has a Western Conference where they play really good hockey?
Detroit Red Wings visit the Bell Centre next month. Nashville
Predators are here Dec. 1, when the city will be abuzz with Welcome
Home Radek Bonk fever.
Chicago Blackhawks are at the Bell Centre in January, Columbus Blue
Jackets (Welcome Home Ron Hainsey) in February and St. Louis Blues in
March.
And that's it. No Vancouver Canucks. No Calgary Flames.
No Welcome Home José Theodore. No Welcome Home Sheldon Souray. No Welcome Home Craig Rivet.
No Welcome Home (Visiting) Stanley Cup ... although the Canadiens play the Ducks in Anaheim on their March West Coast swing.
George Gillett use to own the Harlem Globetrotters. I wonder if he
persuaded the NHL to adopt a schedule inspired by the Washington
Generals.
Share the agony and ecstasy of Habs fandom and read live blogs from every game with Gazette columnist Mike Boone.
Habs Inside/Out main RSS feed
The mock clapping by carbo the officials at the end of the game isn't gonna do us any favours either. But i can understand carbo's frustration and quite frankly i don't know how he has kept his composure this long. You can pretty much guarantee the officials are gonna remember it for next time those bums officiate a habs game.
i recorded the game and i just finished watching it and i was absolutly disgusted by the call on komi which essentially cost us at least a point. Then the refs put the whistle away and then let everything go for the rest of the game. Imagine that, kimmerly (ontario ref) sticks it to us in the third. I do agree with boone's comment about conspiracy theory, i've said it for years. Any coincedence that about 40% of the leagues refs come from ontario and it always seems to be these guys who give us the dry hump.
I met craig rivet over the past summer at the brian savage charity classic, along with mike johnson and craig told me that the one thing that he wasn't going to miss about montreal was the way they were treated by the refs, especially the ontario ones, these were his words exactly
Fine we didn't have a very good start, but in no way did we get outplayed like last friday. We had alot of good chances but couldn't capatilize. Lets hope for a rebound game tommorow night.
for a laugh
I was on the SI site a few minutes ago. Their Habs' segment features among others---Sergei Samsonov, Rafek Bonk, and Craig Rivet. Check it out! A website on the go!
If the Komisarek penalty was a trip (it wasn't) then why did Afi not get a trip for taking the legs out on Markov at the end of the game? Markov had him beat to the puck, Afi takes Markov down from behind, no penalty, and Buffalo cashes the empty netter.
Brutal, simply brutal.
Mike is right - Montreal was not the better team this night. But still - they had the game tied, were dominating the play in the third, and then the refs take it away with a bad, bad, call. The only way that Komi is guilty of tripping is if he doesn't touch the puck. And if he missed the puck, how did it get out of the zone so fast?
There's too much emphasis on the bad call by the ref and not enough on the Hab's slow start and lacklustre effort in this game. The reality is you lose a few that way over the course of the season and you win a few exactly the same way. Get over it. There were way too many passengers tonight. That's the real reason the Habs lost the game.
you sure your 13, nice comment.
When the NHL was created back at the turn of the century, the rink was made to be 200' X 85'. The players were 5'8" tall & weighed 165 lbs.
As the game evolved the players have gotten so much bigger & faster with the average height being around 6'2". There are even players who are tipping the scales at 250 lbs. and measure 6'7" to 6'9" in height.
There is very little room out there anymore and many teams are playing defensive systems designed to shut down skating & passing lanes. With the size of the players & the complicated systems instituted by defensive teams there is precious little real estate left.
What has the NHL done to alleviate this problem? They introduced another official into the game. They get in the way more often than not and are second guessing themselves much more frequently than before the lockout.
I'm not blaming the officials, I'm blaming Butthead Bettman for having no vision and being a piss poor salesman of OUR GAME.
I think they should go back to one ref instead of two as I feel that sometimes they try to outdo each other when it comes to calling stuff.
I have never blamed loosing hockey before on the calling of a game by the refs. But with the two ref system and the 0 talerence rules that are in place, it is getting pathetic out there. It is very frustrating for the paying public for every game to be decided on the volume of penilties called.
The game to day is not decided by the play or which team was out coached, it is decided by the refs of the day.
I have been embarrest this year on many calls, some in our favour. The best games to watch are when you hardly notice that the refs are out there. But when they become the show it is absolutly brutle, and the flow of the game is destroyed. Also they should have enough pride in there work to at least ware there name on there back.
Buttman's NHL
I wish the referees would stop trying to "not miss any calls". I prefer to let the players decide the games. I'm not blaming the officials because they have been instructed to call everything.
I don't think anyone in the building came to see the officials tonight or any night. So, why are they, like on so many other nights, standing front & center in determining the outcome of games?
I say, go back to leaving the calls to the discretion of the officials. Butthead Bettman should go back to the NBA and destroy that LEAGUE. Leave the NHL alone. This guy is supposed to sell this game in the STATES. He couldn't sell snow to an eskimo. Forget it!!!!!!!!!!!
At least Hamilton beat Toronto 3-0 tonight, with Lapierre and Halak getting the 1st and 2nd stars.
I would play Josh Gorges tomorrow. The NHL has to get it's bloody act together and do something about the horribly inconsistent officiating. It's a complete joke. Did you see Carbo clapping his hands as he left the bench? I felt the same way.
Seems we have to have a 3 goal lead to keep the brutal reffing a non-factor. I don't mind so much when you see a blatant hook or hold against the Habs go unpunished, but to make those calls against us like Komisarek's phantom trip (read your goddamned rulebook, refs!) and Kovalev's one-handed tap they call a slash, it raises eyebrows.
When will the league start over with a policy of transparency in it's officiating? Does the Board of Governors have to push for a rule change so a challenge can be made against a call, or to pressure a review to get a call made?
As for Mike Boone's conspiracy comment, I've seen it clearly this year, last year, and in many years past. The Canadiens get the short end of the stick in over 50% of their games by the officials. It's just more obvious when it results in a game winning goal. But by all means, everyone, keep your heads buried in the sand and delude yourselves into thinking the game is fair.
Seriously... Every year it's the same, Montreal should be used to terrible calls by now.
But it's gotten to the point where the refs are like the bounces -- they favor a team completely at random. Any thing may or may not be called, regardless of whether it's a penalty.
It's a joke, it's like a complete roulette now.
I'm afraid were going to make the playoffs alright, but we won't do better than win one, loose one, tie one, blame the refs for one, and frustrate us all to hell. We will get better as the chemistry improves.
My tendency would be to focus on some key fundamentals, like picking up players floating through our slot.
Oooof .... that sounds a little weird.
didnt you guys think that their should have been a penalty on afinagenov for tripping on markov and then buffalo scored the empty net goal. the officiating goal was very frusturating tonight. but the habs have to play sixty minutes to win so i guess we cant completly blame the officiating.
I keep waiting for Price to blow my mind in some way. It hasn't happened. NOT saying this was his fault, it wasn't, just wondering why some people are so eager to dump Huet for him. 7 goals in his last two starts, outplayed by Miller tonight. I still say too much, too soon for him.
Exactly Bill, that's why he's only playing "x" amount of games. Huet is not going anywhere anytime soon,
I agree ... I think 20 - 25 games should be about right for him this year. Then take the "hot hand" into the playoffs. (god willing)
I don't think Carbonneau will want his -8 in 15 games.
http://stats.theahl.com/stats/statdisplay.php?type=skaters&subType=5&sea...
Perhaps we can learn from this and play a whole game tomorrow...
I like this club this year, but we have a long way to go yet to take a run at the top. Better grab 2 points tomorrow, or i'll have to make a phone call.
Saw that coming, is there any freakin' chance they can win two in a row??
Montreal Loses to the refs and the sabres get the 2 points to show for it!
Post game press conference highlights: Yeah, I didn't see the replay, but I didn't think that was a penalty. It's tough to play your game when you get calls like that. - Carbo.
This game was lost in the first period ... not by the refs.
You're right again Girth, one thing that sticks in my head, Ottawa vs Habs a couple of weeks ago, brilliant hockey, where did it go. Get it back, please.
Err it was 1-0 after the first, in a period that the Habs outshot the Sabres and carried the play for much of the period. So im confused...
They carried it for about 3 minutes.
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