Blues

Seems about right: Play one period, get one point.

Your Montreal Canadiens sleepwalked through 40 minutes, trying their darnedest to make the St. Louis Blues look like the San Jose Sharks.

Different saints, though, and the masquerade ended for the final 20 minutes and the first three minutes of overtime.

That's when the Canadiens played with the urgency that they should be displaying from the opening whistle, considering the perilous state of their playoff hopes.

The point – along with a loss by Florida – allowed the Canadiens to leapfrog over the Panthers into 11th place.

Glass half full view: The Canadiens are only five points behind fifth-place Ottawa.

Glass half empty: The night after the Senators looked great in beating mighty Chicago, the Canadiens were crap for two periods and lucky to salvage a point against the not-so-mighty Blues.

Too little, too late

The feeling at 8:48 last night recalled 11 p.m. on Nov. 4.

Alex Kovalev goes top shelf with a shootout backhand.

Barack Obama is elected.

In both cases, what a relief!

Because if your Montreal Canadiens had lost that ridiculous game in St. Louis, a great sadness would grip our gray, overcast city like a John McCain presidency.

Grand Prix: Gone

Canadiens: Going ...

Pass the Paxil, and do you have Dr. Kevorkian's phone number?

And we're not talking big pigs, Habs fans.

Man, did they need that one.

The shootout:

Boyes: Miss

Koivu: Save

Perron: Save

AK46: Post (third tonight)

Tkachuk: Great save

Kovalev: GOAL!!!

Can that guy drive you nuts or what?

Two hard-earned points 

And Bouillon is not seriously hurt 

We know who the starting goaltender will be in Boston.

As to which Canadiens team will show up ... well, we'll see.

Off what we saw at the Bell Centre, the rest of Canadiens'  season could be a hairy and scary 16 days.

Playing on home ice against one of the worst teams in the NHL, the Canadiens could not establish their game until it was almost too late. And it ultimately cost them a valuable point.

I don't know why this team plays such poor first periods. If you've been to the Bell Centre and heard Michel Lacroix boom out "Accueillons nos Canadiens!" as the players skate out and the joint goes bananas, you know that winning conditions are in place even before the national anthems.

Then the visitors come out skating and hitting and the energy drains out  of the team and the building.

That's what happened last night. After 20 minutes, the score was 1-1 but St. Louis had 11 shots by 11 players and 15 hits by nine players. Comparable totals for the home team: six shots by four Canadiens, eight hits from five. 

Guy Carbonneau, in his post-game remarks, lamented Canadiens' lack of intensity in the early going. But isn't firing them up the coach's job?

Maybe you can't keep a straight face while making pre-game motivational speeches about a team that has 20 fewer points than yours.

Let's hope there's more stirring oratory and a greater sense of urgency before the home-and-home games against Boston – and preceding upcoming divisional games against Ottawa, Buffalo and Toronto.

Links updated Wednesday 8:08 am

Canadiens' Christopher Higgins celebrates his first-period goal against the St. Louis Blues.
Dave Sidaway, Gazette

Lineups | AP Preview | Game Summary | Event Summary | Boxscore | Gazette Preview | Boone | Carbo Press Conference | Koivu Higgins Halak

The Canadiens again find themselves atop the Eastern Conference, sort of, despite tonight’s 4-3 shootout loss to the allegedly lowly St. Louis Blues.

Brad Boyes’s backhand goal on Canadiens goalie Jaroslav Halak was the only one of six shootout pucks to find the net for either team, lifting the Blues to their victory. Halak, who had a perfect 8-0 Bell Centre record heading into the game, stopped Sherbrooke native David Perron and Paul Kariya, while the Blues' Manny Lagace stymied Saku Koivu, Andrei Kostitsyn and Alex Kovalev.

Still, Montreal moved into a 90-point tie with idle New Jersey at the East summit, though the Devils have two games in hand.

The Pittsburgh Penguins remained in fourth place in the East at 89 points, 5-2 losers tonight to the Rangers in New York. The Rangers now have 85, just two points behind idle, fifth-place Ottawa, Montreal three ahead of the Senators who have one game in hand.

Not the best game of Jaroslav Halak's career.

Not that he got much support. Frustrated for 40 minutes by the master game-planner, St. Louis coach Andy Murray, Canadiens came alive with a 13-4 shot barrage and the only goal of the third period.

But Mannny Lagace stopped Saku Koivu. Andrei Kostitsyn and Alex Kovalev in a shootout and Brad Boyes, who had scored St. Louis's third goal, beat Halak to give the team with 69 points a well-earned win over the team with 89 points.

"It's pretty disappointing," said Christopher Higgins, who had a goal and an assist. "These are games where you're supposed to get the two points.

"You look at the standings, those guys are struggling. But they're not going to just give us the game. They have a little more pride than that."

Playing for pride, St. Louis outhit Canadiens 25-21 and had 32 blocked shots to 14 for the home team. Murray devised a scheme that had his team continually frustrating the Canadiens' passing game through the first 40 minutes.

Higgins thought Canadiens were trying to be too fancy. Drop passes, criss-crossing at the blueline: fan-pleasing hockey ... when it works.

Asked what the team could take away from the game, Saku Koivu said "we can take the point."

"We didn't play for 60 minutes," the captain added. "It wasn't a consistent three periods tonight. And they came out hard."

"They showed up tonight and wanted to win," Higggins said. "They've got guys who want to prove themselves."

It's a cliché, but on any given night ... 

"You don't know which team you're going to play against," Higgins said. "Guys who throw their sticks out there and wait for the end of the season or guys who play like they did tonight."

A mild surprise at the Bell Centre: Canadiens head coach Guy Carbonneau announced today that Jaroslav Halak will get the start in goal Tuesday night vs. the visiting St. Louis Blues.

Halak made 30 saves to blank the New York Islanders Saturday at the Bell Centre, and Carbonneau said that effort has earned the 22-year-old Slovakian a second start in as many games.

Dave Stubbs and Pat Hickey check in from the Bell Centre post-practice, at which time Carbonneau said he'd use the same lineup vs. the Blues as he did against the Islanders, with the following audio:

Guy Carbonneau, English
Guy Carbonneau, French
Jaroslav Halak
Josh Gorges