Flyers

After the Canadiens lost in Philadelphia last Friday, About last night ... began with my hate-on for the Flyers, a loathing that dates back to the Broad Street Bullioes of the mid-1970s.

I compared the revulsion I feel in watching Philadelphia play hockey to seeing German athletes march into the Berlin Olympic stadium in 1936.

This admittedly over-the-top metaphor did not sit well with Flyers fans.

A sampling of e-mails:

Kommandant Pronger didn't take off your "star is born" Subban's head. Tell the fans to keep booing Briere, maybe he'll show up for a few more games this season. What a wimpy team up there.

Basically,  the  Habs and their gutless fans have always been nothing more than a bunch of whiny pussies.  This includes you.   I don't  care how many cups your franchise has won.   You guys will always be a pussies.   Keep up the crybaby routine. It is hilarious.

You really shouldn't be giving your opinion about the NHL.   You are an idiot.   The Habs are a team of cowards.   You should be angry with  the Canadians management, for putting a bunch of f-----ts on the ice. As long as idiots like you make statements about Nazi hockey players  the league will only get worse.  Don't you see all of your crying is making things worse?   So a couple of players pushing  each other is cause to make Nazi analogies?  What do you want, figure skating?

A Flyers' fan site, www.broadstreethockey.com, invited me on for a podcast.

Anyway, I still think the Flyers are thugs who play ugly hockey.

But judghing by the cover photo, it was Philadelphia magazine, back in the day, that thought at least one of them would look cute as a Nazi.

•  •  •

My two cents after watching Andrei Markov play against Latvia:

I love the guy and respect Markov's love for his country.

The patriotism and blood of the Russian people defeated the aforementioned monsters in World War II.

But there are 5.75 million good reasons why the best player on the team should maybe have played against Philadelphia

if Tampa Bay beats the Rangers on Sunday, your Montreal Canadiens will be out of a playoff spot for 16 days.

And maybe longer.

Much longer.

Like maybe until the 2011 playoffs, by which time the team might have:

• a number-one goaltender

• a captain

• 18 healthy first-stringers; and

• players capable of standing up to the Philadelphia Visigoths for 120 minutes.

As things stand, there is one player who will, at some point in his career, see playoff action in the bleu-blanc-rouge uniform of the Montreal Canadiens.

Number 76 in your program and number one in your battered heart if you watched the last two games:

Pernell Karl Subban ... P.K. to his 21,273 friends.

Canadiens dig themselves a deep pre-Olympics hole, dialing up a stinker against the Flyers.

The better team won, with ease.

Book your mid-April tee time

There's not a franchise in sports I hate more than the Philadelphia Flyers.

Not the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Not the New York Yankees.

Not the Dallas Cowboys or L.A. Lakers.

No, you'd have to have an Olympic Games flashback to 1936 and watch the pride of Hitler's Germany marching into the Berlin stadium to match the feeling of revulsion I experience every time I see the Flyers play.

Especially against the Canadiens.

Nice comeback.

PK was great.

Those ***holes come to Montreal now.

"I have heard from a reliable source that there may be a deal brewing between Montreal and Philadelphia. Pleks, Gill, and Halak for Carter and Boucher." – 24 Cups

Well, what do you think?

The Philadelphia-Montreal rumours have been swirling for the past week or so. Jaroslav Halak wants out, Jeff Carter is available… let’s make a deal, right? We ship out our number one center for their number one center. They get a real solid 5/6th defensemen who gets the job done on the PK. We give them a guy who wants to be a number one goalie for a guy who’s lucky to be a backup.

In today’s world of “my capspace is bigger than yours”, GMs have a tough time orchestrating any impact trades until February or March. This season’s deadline is March 3rd and we might see a flurry of activity this year if there are any major injuries during the Olympic Winter Games. Most teams have very little wiggle room right now. They’re up against the cap and can’t make any major moves. Our trades this season have so far involved a contract-for-contract swap (Guillaume Latendresse / Benoit Pouliot) and moving Kyle Chipchura’s minimum contract of $500 000 (or what someone like Vincent Lecavalier made while you were reading this sentence).

What do you get when BOTH teams play Jacques Martin hockey?

Certainly not a game tape that they'll be forwarding to the Hall of Fame.

At the end of the first period, the Flyers had four shots and the Impact .... uhh, I mean the Canadiens had ONE.

Believe it or not, that wasn't a team record. In the third period of a game against Hartford on Dec. 11, 1985, the Canadiens had no shots.

They won that one 3-1 also.

On the game, shots were 15-13 in favor of the Flyers. The total is a record for fewest by both teams, the previous mark being 31 in a 5-2 win over Calgary on the last day of 1993.

OK, enough history.

This was the weirdest game of the season, but it goes down as a W ... and those two points might prove very valuable in April.

Canadiens had 13.

Three went in.

More than enough

Here's what we learned last night:

Philadelphia desperately needs Jay Bouwmeester. Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren will move heaven and earth – as well as some young forwards – to get the best puck-moving defenceman available.

Trader Bob?

Gainey being Gainey, the Canadiens probably won't pull off a blockbuster before the trade deadline.

On the other hand, Gainey has made a brilliant acquisition that's transformed the club and another deal that looked pretty good last night.

As we say in Quebec, jamais deux sans trois.

So maybe after landing Mathieu Schneider and Glen Metropolit, Gainey will pull off a third trade to get your Montreal Canadiens geared for the stretch run.

Mathieu Schneider.

Any arguments? 

Man, I would have bet my house on the lead-pipe certainty that Philadelphia Flyers was going to beat your Montreal Canadiens last night.

In fact, I did.

This edition of About last night ... is being filed from a park bench in downtown Montreal where the dog and I spent the night, sleeping under a pile of m erroneous predictions.

Fortunately, there's WiFi.

And I understand they're serving humble pie for breakfast at the Salvation Army.

Do the Canadiens play to the level of their competition?

That's the way the season is unfolding.

Check the main site for post-game audio.

The sweaters were the same, but the team that Bell Centre fans found occasion to boo last night was not the 1945-'46 Montreal Canadiens.

Those Canadiens won the Stanley Cup and were led by Toe Blake, Maurice Richard and Elmer Lach, the legendary Punch line.

The team wearing vintage white sweaters last night was the No-Punch lineup:

25 shots on goal in a home game?

Seven in the second period?

A power play that failed to score in four opportunities, running the futility streak to 0-for-10 in the last three games and 2-for-26 in the last five?

Maybe they should be wearing the vintage sweaters of the 2007-'08 Montreal Canadiens, a team that had the best power play in the NHL, led the league in scoring and finished first in the Eastern Conference.

Guy Carbonneau says his players have to stop dwelling on the glories of last season.

But I hope fans are exempt from the coach's ban on nostalgia, because the current Canadiens are not creating too many magic memories.

Blake and Richard have passed, but I wonder if Elmer Lach can apply his golf stroke to the right point on the power play.

That's four of the last five.

The Lipizzaner Stallions take over the Bell Centre on Sunday, but  the horsebleep showed up early during a disastrous second period for your Montreal Canadiens.

Guy Carbonneau said the middle period has been a problem since the beginning of the season – as is the team's 2007-'08 scrapbook.

"We play on what we did last year, as a team and as individuals," said a subdued coach. "It's time to forget about last year."

Audio:

• Guy Carbonneau

• Saku Koivu

• Josh Gorges I and II

Guy Carbonneau has given the lads a day off today to spend some time with their loved ones after being away from home since last Thursday.

Canadiens deserve it.

Three games on the road: two wins and an overtime loss, capped by a come-from-behind conquest of the team that knocked them out of the playoffs last spring and, after 40 minutes, nearly knocked them out of the Wachovia Centre last night.

The Canadiens roar back from a 2-1 deficit with four third-period goals: Roman Hamrlik, Mike Komisarek, Robert Lang and a Steve Bégin empty-netterto take the opening battle of what will be a war this season.

The season begins with five of a possible six points on the road.

Boston at the Bell Centre on Wednesday. 

The preliminaries are out of the way.

On to the main event.

Tonight in Philadelphia, the Canadiens will play a team that is, like they, a bona-fide Eastern Conference contender.

Some previews:

• Canadiens have playoff loss to avenge. 

• Carey Price is confident. 

• François Gagnon's take. 

• Flyers hurting on D. 

• Philadelphia Bulletin looks at the Flyers 

• Boone's live blog

• At least we'll be spared Sarah Palin 

• Globe and Mail feature on Canadian teams subsidizing weak U.S. franchises.

• Stephen Brunt on the NHL's shaky finances. 

• Don't hold your breath on seeing this in Montreal: Florida Panthers ticket giveaway. 

Canada vs. Russia for the International Ice Hockey Federation Championship.

Flyers – Penguins V. 

Does it get any better than this?

Two great games are in prospect, and I'm not even going to whine about being indoors on a sunny afternoon.

I haven't watched the Worlds at all, but this game should be a corker. I'm looking forward to seeing Andrei Markov: it's been a while.

Markov is wearing number 52. He has three shots on goal, one assist, four minutes in penalties and is even in plus/minus. 

Later it's the Flyers trying to stay alive in Pittsburgh. Kimmo Timonen will be back and maybe Braydon Coburn, but I think the game will come down to whether Martin Biron can do what Marty Turco did yesterday in Detroit.

I doubt it. The best team in hockey may be in trouble heading back to Dallas, but the best team in the East should end it today. I think Michel Therrien will have the Penguins ready to rumble.

•  •  •

The buzz is that Pittsburgh can't afford to sign Marian Hossa. Primary suitors, come July 1, are the Canadiens and New York Rangers.

I'm still hoping for Mats Sundin. I think he'd solve more problems – size, grit, top-line centre – than Hossa would. 

Get out the brooms – maybe the ones that weren't used in Dallas last night.

Can the Flyers emulate the Stars by avoiding a sweep?

Do-able ... but not easy.

Pittsburgh is firing on all cylinders. And Philadelphia is not as good as Dallas.

Maybe the zebras will make things interesting by cocking up a goaltender interference call.

Whatever, it's just postponing the inevitable:

The Red Wings and Penguins will play for the Stanley Cup.

And the sooner they start, the happier we'll all be ... if only because CBC might be smart enough to assign Jim Hughson and Craig Simpson to the final.

Bit of a late post because our Gazette boss took the Habs I/O crew – me, Stubbs and Hickey (Mio was MIA), plus photographers and copy editors who work on the print pages – to lunch at The Keg.

I ate like a pig (as I always do when it's free), and I'm sitting here in a fair degree of gastric distress, waiting for the game to start. I think dinner will be a Bloody Caesar and some peanuts.

Setting up the post early today so I can go spend some time with my dear 91-year-old mother.

Mike Ribeiro: Phone home. Whatever she tried to teach you didn't take.

Maxim Talbot will be back in the lineup for the Penguins for Game 2.

Hey, if Pittsburgh wins topnight can we proceed directly to the Penguins-Red Wings all skills/all the time final that we want to see?

That way hockey will be over before the end of the month and we can can get out and enjoy the sunshine. 

Same deal as last night: feel free to vent if you're watching the game.

Let's hope the zebras do a better job. Bill McCreary was brutal. The 5-on-3 was ridiculous, the Holmstrom goal should have been disallowed.

That said, Dallas was exhausted and Detroit was .... well, Detroit.

Pittsburgh will be Pittsburgh tonight. But can Philadelphia, sans Timonen, be Philadelphia?

Pierre McGuire thinks the Penguins will go right after Braydon Coburn and R.J.F. Umberger.

Hope it's a decent game. I was watching a movie by the end of the second period last night.

We'll have a whole summer to get used to the idea, and it may take that long:

The beter team won the series.

Not the luckier team. The better team.

Because as Christopher Higgis and Josh Gorges have been saying, you make your own luck. The great golfer Ben Hogan put it another way:

"People say I'm lucky. But it's funny: the more I practice, the luckier I get."

Philadelphia's superiority manifested itself during the second period last night.

After Christopher Higgins beat the suddenly-beatable Martin Biron with the kind of short-side laser that had been eluding Carey Price, the Canadiens led 3-1. Minutes later, they killed off a 5-on-3 Flyers power play and everyone in the Bell Centre was thinking the same thing:

"Back to Philadelphia!"

Everyone, that is, except the guys on the visitors' bench. They were going back to Philadelphia, all right – but not for Sunday night hockey.

From the Canadiens' PR department:

Translated: "We expected more. We went  deep into the playoffs and acccomplished many things. Sometimes when you lose a game, a series like this it helps you make progress."

Translated: "We would have liked our goaltenders to be better, but in a few weekks there will be 29 teams saying the same thing."

Translated: "You have to give the Flyers credit. They took advantage of their chances, the bounced and the breaks." 

“The
fourth (goal) really hurt us. Actually, every goal hurt us. We played
five games against them. They took advantage of all their breaks.”

“They took care of their business, and we didn’t get a chance to take care of our business.”

“This is probably our worst game in the playoffs against Philly.”

“Umberger… Everything he touched turned into a goal.”

Courtesy of the Canadiens PR department:

“It’s
pretty rewarding for us to see our players be that excited, to see
everyone in our organization moving on against a team like Montreal.
What a great team, and a great year.”

“Wow…
(Umberger) was a possessed man. We moved him around and he didn’t even
bat an eye. He just wanted to play. He went from right side to left
side… He’s just been a force.”

“It was a pretty
intense environment coming out there. The crowd here is terrific. We
had the ability to settle down and get things back on track. I think
our guys really wanted this game.”

“Our leaders led the way and our young players grew up in a hurry.”

Now or never. (THE GAZETTE/John Kenney)Carey “I’m Rested” Price is getting the nod.
Alex “Something to Prove” Kovalev is going to be reunited with linemates Andre Kostitsyn and Tomas Plekanec.
The Montreal “Must-Win” Canadiens return to the friendly confines of the boisterous Bell Centre for Game 5.

But maybe most importantly – Guy Carbonneau will sport “the tie”.

Take the flags off the cars.

Wash the red, white and blue out of your hair.

No more Olés.

No more hockey in Montreal, until the Canadiens' centennial season begins in the autumn.

"Daddy, you're all done with the season," said one of Bryan Smolinski's kids, walking into the Canadiens' somber room on either side of their Dad.

"All done," said Smolinski. "You guys want a drink? Let's get you a drink."

Let's all have a drink. It was helluva ride, from read-leaved October to the darling buds of May.

Canadiens fans saw more hockey than we thought we would when the season began. So let's not mope unduly about aa fairly igominious exit by the hometown heroes.

"Obviously, I'm disappointed," said captain Saku Koivu, who described the five-game loss to Philadelphia as "frustrating."

"I thought we outplayed them, definitely in the first four games," Koivu added. "To come up with one win, you hav to give a lot of credit to their team. They did a lot of things right and found ways to win games."

This they did. The Flyers came back from a 3-1 deficit wih three unanswered second-period goals, then took conntrol of the game after Andrei Kostitsyn briefly brought the crowd to life by tying it early in the third period.

looking at the season in perspective, Koivu said "you have a lot of ups and a lot of downs, but you always remember the last night."

Koivu said the season had produced "a lot of great things, a lot of positive meoments" to be savored once the pain of tonight's loss diminished.

That will take time.

"For the next little while it's going to be tough," said Josh Gorges. "These things happen. Only one team can win every year, and this year it's not us. We have to learn from our mistakes.

"We got a young group of guys. We'll soak up a lot of what we went through together in these playoff series. In a month or so when we're at home we'll think about this series and what we could have done diffrently and what we can do differently next year."

Christopher Higgins, who was devastated after the final-game loss knocked Canadiens out of playoff contention last April, said tonight's loss felt worse.

"We got a taste of what it was like after winning one series," Higgins said. "After you win one it's kind of addictive. You want to go on and on and see how far you can take this thing." 

Gorges said Carbonneau told the team he was proud of them, that no one had given the Canadiens a chance this season but they'd stuck together from Day One and played hard for each other.

"I think we grew as a team," Gorges said. "It's a tough time because not everybody will be back next year. You never know. Hopefully everyone is back because we have a great team, a good group of young guys. We'll learn from this." 

 "We proved a lot of people wrong," Koivu said. "We were really consistent as a team and that's something to be proud of.

"I strongly believe especially in the NHL you don't become a winner overnight,"  Koivu added. "It takes a lot of work, huge steps. It's not going to be any easier next year. But we can keep improving as a team and the future will be good for us.

"That's the mentality I hope everyone takes home for the summer and gets ready for the next training camp." 

Four Habs Fans, one of the best Canadiens sites around, has a fan's harrowing account of his visit to the Wachovia Centre.

Parental discretion is advised.

•  •  •

I've been on Michael Ryder's case and I think I've cracked it.

Those weren't paper airplanes he was floating out of the pressbox during Game 4.

They were CV's.

OK. have another drink and start posting.

He's rested.

He's ready.

Carey Price has a new glove, a new blocker – and a seemingly carefree atitude toward his biggest start of the season.

"Three broken fingers, on each hand," Price grinned, waving his digits at the media horde after a late-afternoon practice today.

But seriously folks ...

Price is fine. And he's known for 48 hours that he'd be the Game 5 starter.

"Coach told me after the last game," Price said. "He said prepare for the next three games. It's going to be a war."

It better be. Canadiens, down 3-1 in the series, are fighting for their lives.

Does Alex Kovalev need new linemates who were his old linemates?

Canadiens' leading regular-season scorer has done squat since Game 1 of the Philadelphia series. There are suggestions that as a player who needs the puck, Kovalev cannot function on a line with Saku Koivu.

Kovy was at his best this season when playing with Tomas Plekanec and Andrei Kostitsyn. A renuon may be called for – except Plekanec and the Brothers Kostitsyn  were Canadiens' best line in Game 4.

One thing Guy Carbonneau can do, with last change tomorrow night, is try to keep Kovalev away from the Flyers' shutdown defensive pairing of Kimmo Timonen and Braydon Coburn.

•  •  •

François Gagnon of La Pressse reports that while his teammates were losing Game 3, a seemingly carefree Michael Ryder was chatting on his cellphone in the pressbox.

Then during Game 4, the Canadiens' erstwhile 30-goal scorer amused himself by making paper airplanes and floating them down into the Wachovia Centre stands.

He is so out of here.

•  •  •

The unsung hero of the playoffs is a guy you've never heard of:

Hakan Andersson.

He's director of European scouting for the Detroit Red Wings.  Based in Sweden, Andersson has found a succession of gems,  including Johan Franzen, whom the Wings drafted as a 24-year-old defensive centre, grabbing him in the third round, 97th overall in 2004.

Franzen, nicknamed The Mule, goes 6-3, 220 and is making a cap-friendly $950,000 this season. He scored six game-winning goals in March and nine in the sweep of Colorado – including two hat tricks (last night's were scored on the PP, shorthanded and even-strength). Both achievements broke team records set by Gordie Howe.

Michael Farber of Sports Illustrated has told me whoever takes over in Toronto should make Andersson his first hire. But it might be difficult to lure him away from the Red Wings.

A couple years ago,  Farber said, Detroit wanted to pay Andersson a bonus. He politely declined, saying he made quite enough money to live comfortably in Sweden.

Don Cherry is right: these Europeans are ruining hockey.