Capitals

The Canadiens are undefeated in the Pierre Gauthier era.

Hit it, Count!

"Vun vin, ah-ah-ah ..."

And wasn't it nice of Bob Dylan to sing about the Montreal management shakeup when he visited the White House this week.

OK, we've had our fun with the new general manager.

Gauthier had to like what he saw from his team.

And so did fans at the Bell Centre, who saw the most entertaining game since that wild comeback against the Rangers two years ago.

A genius!!!

Guest commentary from my great and good friend Josie Gold, Photo Shop wizard:

I hate this team. It's like a guy that can't decide if he wants to commit or not. Either step up or get lost already. It hurts too much.

Well, there wasn't a whole lot to love in that loss.

The 4-2 score flattered the Canadiens.

They got their butts kicked in all important aspects of the game, with the arguable exception of goaltending.

I had never seen Michal Neuvirth, And I still haven't.

The young guy who has made José Theodore about as useful in Washington as a lobbyist with a conscience had a quiet night against the Canadiens.

4-2

Not that close

If you get two points for an overtime or shootout win and one point for an OT or SO loss, what do you get for heroism and overachievement?

From this corner, nothing but praise.

Your Montreal Canadiens played their hearts out last night.

As has been the case in every one of the 26 games they've played this season, there were no passengers on the bus.

Non-passengers included:

Tom Pyatt, Ryan White and Sergei Kostitsyn, who were in the AHL when the season began.

Roman Hamrlik and Jaro Spacek, a couple of old geezer defencemen playing too many minutes.

A Dman turned forward, Jay Leach, whose ToI, through 65 minutes, was 1:11.

James Wyman, another AHLer, whose night's work was 2:50.

But no one – not even the guys who barely were on ice long enough to break a sweat – gave less than everything there was to give.

And we go to shootout, with Vladislav Tretiak watching Semyon Varlamov

But not matter how this goes, heroic effort by the Canadiens.

Cammalleri: Easy save

Fleischmann: Save

Lapierre: High

Ovechkin: Save (and the place goes berserk)

Pleks: Save

Backstrom: Goal

Whaddaya gonna do?

Welcome to the NPL: the National Parity League.

"On any given night" is an old cliché – doubtless coined by a television sports executive, trying to boost ratings for an ostensible mismatch.

But it describes the hockey season to date.

Check summaries in the paper every morning. Count the games that go to OT and Shootouts.

Chock it up to a couple of factors – the salary cap and the absence of Mike Milbury, which means every general manager in the league knows what he's doing.

Teams like Chicago and Pittsburgh draft well.

Others trade well and shop judiciously for free agents, the best example being Philadelphia.

Talent is fairly well distributed around the NHL.

That said, there are better players in Washington than in Montreal.

But the better players don't always win – not when the underdogs play with some bite.

What a downer!

Marc-André Fleury stopped Alexander Ovechkin ewarly and Pittsburgh took over.

Total domination.

How dominant?

Six goals, 18 hits, forced 19 giveaways ... and NO PENALTIES. 

Props to Dan Bylsma for having his team ready to play a great game.

And in the Clash of the Titans, Round 1 to Sidney Crosby. 

Will the early game be another classic?

 I can't imagine anything better than Game 5 in Washington. And I think the Penguins are going to stomp them tonight.

I also think my man Gino is about to take over the series.

We'll run this the same as last night. I'll throw up a few Comments and everyone can join in.

I'm thinking of reviving the live-blog format for the final series.

Superb hockey game by both teams.

Spectacular Overtime. 

Caps win the shootout:

Semin: Goal (Price got a piece of it, high glove side)

Pleks: Save

Backstrom: Goal

Markov: Save 

 

Now that was some crowd-pleasing hockey.

Don Cherry and his loyal neanderthals may have enjoyed the Junior B nonsense we saw in the Leafs game, but I'll take the European-style hockey on display last night against the ridiculously talented Washington Capitals.

Speed.

Skill.

Goals ... by both teams.

And after Sergei Kostitsyn sent his coach to the All-Star game with barely 21 seconds left, 21,278 fans went home happy.

A lot happier, certainly, than they were a month ago.

Playing without Carey Price and a forward line – Saku Koivu. Christopher Higgins and Alex Tanguay – that was expected to be the team's best, the Canadiens completed the first half of their season with 56 points.

They've won 25, lost 10 in regulation and another six in OT or shootouts.

After Game 41 last season – a 5-4 overtime loss to the Caps – the Canadiens were 20-13-8.

They're 10 points behind the Bruins with a game in hand and a date, Tuesday night, in Boston.

Canadiens finish the first half of their schedule with one of the most entertaining games of the season.

Sergei Kostitsyn – whose penalty opened the door to Washington's tying goal – scored the winner with 22 ticks left on the clock.

Post-game audio: Sergei Kostitsyn  Tomas Plekanec  Jaroslav Halak  Guy Carbonneau

Maybe René Descartes should play the right point.

Guy Carbonneau describes the Canadiens' power play as "non-existent".

The PP went 0-for-8 last night, including a full four-minute opportunity while Alexander Ovechkin was off for high-sticking.
In almost 13 minutes with the man advantage, the Canadiens mustered six shots.

Last season, this team had the NHL's most efficient power play: 24.2 percent.
To date, the PP is "clicking" at a woeful 13 per cent.

The Canadiens have gone from first in the league to 29th.

Descartes, the French philosopher, wrote: "Je pense donc je suis" and, in a later work, "Cogito ergo sum."

Translation: I think, therefore I exist.

So on this fine Sunday morning, let's put on our thinking caps and analyze a PP that doesn't exist.

Guy Carbonneau descrbed his power play as "non-existent".

Great.

A goaltender and five imaginary skaters.

If the coach has no answers, what are fans supposed to think about this maddening hockey team?

This is a translation of what a seething Guy Carbonneau said in French moments after your Montreal Canadiens – fresh off what we thought was a season-defining conquest of the Stanley Cup champions in Detroit – played 12 minutes of hockey against José Theodore and an AHL defence in Washington.

"I'm very disappointed. I don't know what's going on with this team. The guys seem incapable of being prepared. 

"We knew they had many injured players. We also knew they hadn't lost at home this season. We warned the team before the game. But it goes in one ear and out the other."

The scary phrase that jumps out at you:

"I don't know what's going on with this team."

Hello!

Houston (or maybe Hamilton), we have a problem!

If Carbo doesn't know, who does?

José Theodore hangs a shutout on the team he broke in with.

Missing four defencemen and three forwards, the Washington Capitals win 3-0 against a team that seems to be missing at least six hearts. 

 

 

Cristobal Huet, a Forum ghost on his mask now partially covered by the Capitals logo, is ready for action against New Jersey.
Bruce Bennett, Getty Images

It's nice when good things happen to good guys.

Former Canadiens goalie Cristobal Huet, traded Tuesday to the Washington Capitals, earned an 18-save shutout tonight – the 16th of his career and third this season – in his debut with his new team, a 4-0 decision over the New Jersey Devils.

Huet's performance surely didn't hurt the Canadiens, who beat Buffalo 6-2 Friday night. Montreal faces New Jersey Saturday at the Bell Centre, and with a victory will pass the Devils for the Eastern Conference lead. An action photo of Huet is below.

Former Canadiens goalie Cristobal Huet, now a Capital, reacts this afternoon to the trade that sends him to Washington. Apologies for the low volume.

There was a time – within the living memory of some of us – when supersatrs wearing the red, white and blue of the Montreal Canadiens would go out and smoke their hapless opponents.

That was then.

Alexander Ovechkin is now.

Last night, the Canadiens were the smokees.

Hey, stuff happens. Ovechkin is a monster. Four goals, crushing hits given and taken (apparently the Francis Bouillon check broke his nose).

It's too bad the most dynamic player in the NHL has to weave his magic in a half-emty arena.

Great seems somehow insufficient.

Four goals – including the winner in overtime.

Canadiens came back from 3-0 and 4-2 to steal a point in a game Washington dominated.

The Brothers K scored in the same game for the first – but not the last – time in their careers.

Guillaume Latendresse had two.

But on this night in his home rink, the NHL's most exciting player was not to be denied. 

Over men and horses hoops and garters

and lastly through a hogshead of real fire

In this way Mr. K will challenge the world

Coach Guy  Carbonneau said you could count on the fingers of one hand the number of bad games Alex Kovalev has played this season.

Actually, you could probably count them on the sore (but, let us pray, not broken) thumb of Mr. K. He is having a career season, and Kovalev has become the darling of the Bell Centre.

For all the car races and kissing contests and lame-ass promotions the Canadiens run to keep 21,273 fans amused, the crowd reachest fullest and most authentic frenzy when Kovalev has the puck.

And he has it a lot. If the NHL kept Time of Possession stats, Kovalev would lead the league's forwards.

Although he shrugged off the notion of cranking it up because Alexander Ovechkin was in town, you'd best believe the aging superstar – snubbed by the Russian hockey federation for its national team – wanted to show the young pup he's still got some game.

(My God, that sentence ran longer than one of Kovy's shifts!)

Links updated Wednesday at 6:58 am

Canadiens' Sergei Kostitsyn converts a Tomas Plekanec pass for a first-period goal against Washington Capitals goalie Brent Johnson.
Christinne Muschi, Reuters

Lineups | Preview | Game Story | Game Summary | Event Summary | Boxscore | Boone | Carbonneau Post-Game Audio | Players Post-Game Audio (from RIS)

Those fans hoping the Canadiens would pick up where they left off last week – a marvelous come-from-behind victory over the nearly invincible New Jersey Devils – are not disappointed tonight.

The Canadiens returned to action following the NHL's annual all-star break with first-period goals by Mark Streit, Sergei Kostitsyn and Saku Koivu, then shut down Washington superstar Alex Ovechkin with perfect Cristobal Huet goalkeeping until Alex Kovalev netted a final-minute goal to record a 4-0 triumph over the Capitals at the Bell Centre.

Alex Kovalev had a request for the horde of cameras, microphones and notebooks surounding him in the winning dressing room.

"Don't ask me about Ovechkin," said the Russian sniper, whose 22nd goal capped a 4-0 Canadiens win.

"Talk about our team. We played great."

He had a point. The Canadiens got a solid effort from all four lines, the defence was outstanding and Cristobal Huet was brilliant, earning his 15th career shutout with 35 saves.

Ovechkin – OK, we have to talk about him a little – had four shots. But he was controlled in one-on-one situations by Mike Komisarek and Josh Gorges, both of whom contributed to a team defensive effort.

"I know he's scored a lot of goals, but we do our job and it doesn't matter who they have on their team," Kovalev said before he declared a moratorium on Ovechkin assessment.

Kovalev was impressed by Canaadiens' effort in the second period, which has tended to be a team weakness this season.

"We're learning from the past," he said. "We had a good second period, played 60 minutes and it paid off."

Kovalev said he may have sustained a broken thumb, but "I still have four fingers left."

Canadiens scored two power-play goals, one shorthanded and another at even strength. Kovalev said the team has taken "a long journey to get to the point where the guys are more confident with the puck."

"Sometimes we have to dump and chase," he added. "But I see a lot more guys who are comfortable, moving the puck around, making passes and making plays.

"When you have to skate hard for 60 minutes, you can get tired annd make mistakes. If you control the puck 60, 70 per cent of the time, it's definitely a lot easier to play the game."

A brief post-mortem today because I'm still reeling from the sudden, if not unexpected, passing of my beloved Pittsburgh Steelers.

Ben Roethlisberger's season is over. Carey Price will soldier on.

I'm not going to crap from great heights on a 20-year-old goaltender. But Price was not good against Washington, and his poor performance raises some interesting questions, the most basic of which is – drum roll, please – should he be in Montreal?

Links updated Sunday 6:50 a.m. 

Canadiens goalie Carey Price dives in vain for the overtime goal of Washington's Mike Green, bottom right.
Christinne Muschi, Reuters

Lineups | Preview | Game Story | Game Summary | Event Summary | Boxscore | Boone's Blog

On the day last January that Canada was winning its third consecutive world junior hockey championship, goaltender Carey Price was on his way to victory and being named the tournament's most valuable player.

Chances are Price wouldn't necessarily have minded being in the Czech Republic today, wearing a Team Canada sweater as his country again won gold.

The Canadiens, with the 20-year-old rookie in their Bell Centre net, dropped a 5-4 decision in overtime to the Washington Capitals this afternoon, defenceman Mike Green taking advantage of confusion in the Montreal zone to whip home the winner at 1:27.

Not with a bang but with an OT winner by Washington defenceman Mike Green.

5-4 Capitals in a ding-dong game in which Canadiens blew a 2-0 lead, then fought back from 3-2 and 4-3 deficits to earn a point at the halfway pole.

When it was over, Carey Price sat at his cubicle waering a baseball hat, his white goalie pads and the doleful expression of a man-child who's had better days in his short career.

"I had to play better than that," Price candidly admitted. "The guys played hard in front of me. They earned a point."

Price was asked if rust was a factor. He hadn't played since the Dec. 23 Dallas Debacle.

"A little bit," Price said. "But that's not an excuse. There's no excuse for not being ready and not playing well."

There were scattered boos after Capitals' goals, and Price heard them.

"It's deserved," he said. "I wouldn't be happy if I was watching that.

"I got my chance and I blew it," Price added. "That's what's disappointing. Definitely we had a good game as a team. We should have won it."

"I don't think he had a good performance," Guy Carbonneau said of his goaltender, "but he's not the only one."

The coach said gaining a point was the only positive he could derive from a game in which his team stopped working after the first period, as had been the case against Tampa Bay.

"We talekd about it before the game, we talked about it after the first period," Carbo said. He lamented too many plays that were "lazy" and listed a litany of sins: "penalties in the offensive zone, not covering the guy, losing faceoffs."

Questioned about his decision to play the Kostitsyn brothers in OT, Carbonneau pointed out that five seconds before Green's winner, Andrei K had nearly converted a pass from his brother at the other end.

"I would have been a genius," Carbonneau noted, with chagrin.

• • •

Captain Saku Koivu, assessing the last 41 games, said there had been "a lot of good things" during the first half of the season.

"We've been pretty consistent," Kovu said. "We have a lot of young players, and their adjustmen has gone fairly well.

"But the first half is behind us and we have the same number of games in front of us. The real battle starts now, and every point counts."

With two games to play before Dec. 25, it might be too early to dust off the hoary "Christmas came early" cliché.
But you had to think that a fat guy with a white beard made a pre-emptive stop in Washington last night.
Your Montreal Canadiens scored on their 5th, 6th and 8th shots. By the time the chost Capitals built a 22-8 shots advantage, Canadiens led 3-1.
Good goaltending, a few lucky bounces and what the heck, the road trip starts with a W.
Last season't holiday road trip produced one win in four games. The season before it was one in five.
So to be 1-0 heading to Atlanta ... hey, we'll take it.

And there were some positives. Cristobal Huet came back very strong after a seven-game absence. Guillaume Latendresse had two goals and worked hard all night. Sergei Kostitsyn got the first goal of what should be a really good NHL career. Maxim Lapierre played another strong skating game.

It's a young team. Every win is a character-building exercise. So is every loss.
But as bad as things were in early December, maybe a Christmas swoon can be avoided this season.

Canadiens are sitting in fifth place in the Eastern Conference, one back of those amazing Boston Bruins. With the exception of Ottawa, no one looks capable of pulling away.
That early Christmas gift – two points Canadiens didn't deserve last night – could be crucial in early April.

Links updated at 6:58 am ET

Canadiens' Guillaume Latendresse (centre) celebrates the second of his goals with teammates.
Molly Riley, Reuters

Lineups | Preview | Game Story | Game Summary | Event Summary | Boxscore | Boone's Blog

Guillaume Latendresse returned to the Canadiens lineup with a vengeance last night, and in so doing got his team’s six-game road trip off to a winning start.

Latendresse, a healthy scratch the past two games, scored his eighth and ninth goals of the season to help lift the Canadiens to a 5-2 victory over the Washington Capitals at the Verizon Centre.

Big marks, too, to goalie Cristobal Huet, who made 35 saves while making his first start in the last seven games. And a tip of the helmet to Canadiens veteran Mathieu Dandenault, who earned an assist in his 800th NHL game.

Latendresse got the Canadiens on the scoresheet first with a power-play goal at 18:15 of the first period, converting a pass from behind Capitals goalie Olaf Kolzig’s net off the stick of captain Saku Koivu.

At the beginning of the week, Cristobal Huet and Guillaume Latendresse weren't happy about not starting against Florida at the Bell Centre.

In Washington tonight, Latendresse scored twice and Huet made 35 saves as Canadiens began a six-game road trip with a 5-2 conquest of the Capitals.

 

It was a good night for the Kiddie Corps: joining Gui! on the scoresheet were Tomas Plekanec and Sergei Kostitsyn.

And Mark Streit's third-period clincher came off some industrious play by Kyle Chipchura.

A dozen Canadiens figured in the scoring, including Maxim Lapierre, who won a draw cleanly back to Gui1 for his second goal.

With a W in the bag, Canadiens have matched their total on last season's holiday road trip.

Next stop: Atlanta on Saturday night.