Rangers

They won't be needing that ... at least for a while.

Barring the most calamitous collapse in the history of the franchise, your Montreal Canadiens are going to be playing hockey in mid-April.

The New York Rangers probably can begin polishing their golf clubs. 

In a must-win four-pointer, the Rangers mustered only 20 shots on goal (to the Canadiens' 35) and were dominated in every aspect of the game ... except for stupidity, and they have a big advantage there with Sean Avery.

The Canadiens played a textbook road game, 

Jacques Martin rolled his four lines (everyone played double-digit minutes except Tom Pyatt, who had 9:49), got a solid game from his six Dmen and superb work on special teams: the Canadiens scored on their first power play (Glen Metropolit, his 1q0th PP goal of the season) and were perfect again in five shorthanded situations.

The Canadiens have not yielded a power play goal since the first period of their home game against Edmonton.

Six wins in a row – all with Jaroslav Halak in goal.

It's taken most of the season, but as Jacques Demers pointed out on l'Antichambre, the Canadiens finally have an identity.

Barring a total collapse ...

What a brilliant effort.

SIXTH place

And Canadiens were the kickers.

So many heroes

Especially the goaltender, who gave his teammates a chance to get rolling

A Habs Inside/Out exclusive!

Video of Jacques Martin's postgame press conference.

We've electronically altered it to make the coach look like Michel Therrien.

But you can tell he's describing your Montreal Canadiens' Lost Weekend (great Ray Milland movie, but two games of gosh-awful hockey).

We've also been able to obtain a transcript of the speech Rangers coach John Tortorella made to his team between the first and second periods.

(Had to clean it up quite a bit)

After 20 minutes, 2-0 Canadiens

SIX unanswered goals.

Worst display of total suckitude this season.

Tony Marinaro of the Team 990 asked the best question, and it came late during Jacques Martin's postgame press conference.

Citing the use of Guillaume Latendresse, rather than Andrei Kostitsyn, on a Canadiens' power play, Marinaro asked: 

"Was that a reward for Guillaume, a challenge for Guillaume or a message to Andrei?"

Martin, who smiles less often than Stephen Harper during these sessions with the media, couldn't suppress a grin as he replied:

"All three."

I met Marinaro later and complimented him on a great question.

"Martin liked it, Tony," I added. "He liked it big-time."

Just like I'm liking this calm, cool, professorial hockey coach:

Big-time ... and my admiration for Martin is getting bigger all the time as the team he wants to build starts coming together.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!!! And it cost Scott Gomez and Paul Mara money: 

Both former Rangers put bounties on beating their old team.

What's to be said?

The most valuable commodity in the National Hockey League is a puck-moving defenceman. See LIDSTROM, Nicklas: Six Norris trophies, four Stanley Cups, Olympic and World championships, nine times an All-Star, his team a permanent powerhouse.

For the last two games, Montreal Canadiens fans haven't been able to see MARKOV, Andrei.

The result: two Ls and the possibility we won't be seeing hockey past Saturday .... or, absolutely best-case scenario, not much past Saturday.

It's grim ... and on a clear day, you can see Hopeless from here.

Some of the players  are doing their best. But their best wasn't good enough to beat Ottawa at the Bell Centre and not nearly good enough to garner any points from a desperate Rangers team at Madison Square Garden.

There are new reports of an impending sale of the team. But don't let  boardroom machinations distract you from the horror story that's unfolding on the ice.

Thanks, Flyers!

I take back all the things I've said about you for 35 years ... 

 

A postgame rant from the pressbox:

"I hope they don't make the playoffs. That way, they can spend the off-season cleaning house and getting their s--- together.

"If they make the playoffs, that will just camouflage everything that's wrong. Maybe they'll win a couple games or fluke off a round and everyone will say 'Great! This team is on the right track.'"

No, the ranter wasn't me. It was a veteran beat reporter who has seen the Canadiens rise and fall through many more games than I.

He's seen enough that he recognizes a fact that is ever so slowly dawning on the large, intensely loyal fan base of this team:

They're not good enough.

Certainly not good enough to contend for the Cup.

Perhaps not good enough to make it into the postseason.

And I think their general manager/coach realizes it. 

Will they go high to Price's glove side?

 

AK46: Wide

Naslund: Deke, backhand, goal

Kovalev: Backhand, goal

Antropov: Wrister, goal

Markov: In off the post

Drury: Goal

Goodnight!! 

Seventh place ... for now 

After losing 10 of their last 12, the Rangers gas Tom Renney.

Step to the front of the class if you read this as the Big Apple version of what went down in Pittsburgh, i.e. a coach paying for his general manager's mistakes.

Michel Therrien did not trade for Marion Hossa.

And Tom Renney didn't sign that stiff Wade Redden.

The Canadiens played 60 minutes, Henrik Lundqvist played Santa Claus and the team comes back to snowbound Montreal with a W and some momentum heading into tonight's game against the Leafs at the Bell Centre.

If the Canadiens play as well as they did in New York, it should be a happy homecoming.

What impressed me most last night – even more than four hard-working lines, an All-Star performance by Andrei Markov and two goals on the power play – was team discipline.

The Canadiens did not take a penalty until 14:50 into the third period – and it was a coincident minor.

The team was not shorthanded until fewer than four minutes remained in the game.

In a tough building, the Canadiens played a superlative road game and were full value for two points that nudged them ahead of the Rangers in the Eastern Conference standings.

Maxim Lapierre ... Andrei Kostitsyn ... and tonight in Madison Square Garden: Robert Lang.

The oldest player on the team brought his season total to 15 goals. Not a bad acquisition – and Lang was minus-1 on the game.

Canadiens had two power play goals en route to a 6-3 win that solidified their Eastern Conference lead on the Rangers. Lots of excitement with Jaroslav Halak ... but he did make 36 stops.

Canadiens had 24 shots on Henrik Lundqvist, who's had better nights. 

You hate to bring up a negative note after the Canadiens' most impresive win of the season, but the team faces a personnel problem:

What are they going to do with Guillaume Latendresse, Sergei Kostitsyn, Ryan O'Byrne .... and Doug Jarvis?

Mike Komisarek is 3-0 behind the bench.

Jarvis returns to the team today after taking time off to be with his father, who has passed away. But Guy Carbonneau said he may be assigned to doing his assistant coaching from the pressbox.

It was nice to hear Carbo joking. The kindly old coach has been a tad stressed out this week – as has George Gillett.

But Carbo might be superstitious about keping Komo behind the bench when the New Jersey Devils visit tomorrow.

Why break up a winning combination?

IScoring from all four lines.

Powerful visitors held to 20 shots and two goals. 

And a young player who isn't going back to Hamilton.

The 100th year starts well. 

 

 

... in 1909, your Montreal Canadiens were born – in a manger, attended by three wise men, the grandfathers of Toe Blake, Sam Pollock and Bob Gainey. They brought gold, myrrh and Frank Selke.

Tonight, as part of the endless celebrations, an original six showdown against the Rangers.

I don't have to remind you what transpired the last time New York was in town, last Feb. 19.

Hope I make it to the game. I've lost my car, my house and all my good clothes betting Georges Laraque would be benched tonight.

Check back later for pre-game and live blogging.

Magic.

That's what Dany Dubé was calling it on the CKAC post-game show. But for me and maybe for 21,000 deliriously happy fans in the Bell Centre (there were a couple hundred Rangers supporters), it was more of a 21st century religious experience:

Woodstock Meets Triumph of the Will

"Olé! Olé! Olé! Olé! .... and BTW, Avery sucks!"

The revivalists and I bore wiitness to something that had never happened in the long and often glorious history of the Montreal Canadiens. The team had never come back from 5-0 to win a hockey game.

Not with Maurice Richard.

Not with Jean Béliveau.

Not with Guy Lafleur.

The greatest comeback in 99 years of Montreal hockey was keyed by .... organ flourish, please ... Michael Ryder.

There is a God – and He loves Newfoundlanders

Bob: About that trade ...

Links updated Wednesday at 6:28 a.m.

Happiness is a 6-5 comeback shootout victory. Canadiens goalie Cristobal Huet leaps into the arms of defenceman Mike Komisarek after the win.
Christinne Muschi, Reuters

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Incredible. Impossible. Unbelievable. Find your own adjective, folks.

The Canadiens scored five straight goals tonight to rally from a 5-0 deficit, then got a goal from Saku Koivu in the shootout and Montreal goalie Cristobal Huet stopped all three New York shooters, giving Montreal a 6-5 victory over the visiting Rangers.

Michael Ryder and Alex Kovalev scored two goals apiece, with Mark Streit adding another before Koivu scored the only goal in the shootout, Huet stopping New York's Brendan Shanahan, Chris Drury and Jaromir Jagr to seal the remarkable victory. It was the first time in the Canadiens' 99-year history that the club has rallied from a 5-0 deficit to win a regular-season game, and the first time in their history that the Rangers had blown a five-goal lead to lose.

Canadiens president Pierre Boivin brought a special guest to the winning room: Montreal Symphony Orchestra conductor Kent Nagano.

When the maaestro's small hand disappeared into Alex Kovalev's for the grip-and-grim photo op, Nagano saiud how much he'd enjoyed the game.

"You should come more often," Kovalev quipped.

This was the 1812 Overture, the Eroica Symphony and the Ride of the Valkyrie – all rolled into 37 minutes of insane, come-from-behind hockey.

"My ears are still ringing," said Mike Komisarek. The Bell Centre was that loud – and the rally that improbable. It left Komisarek at a loss for original words.

"I hate these clichés, guys," he said apologetically to the media scrum. But the game embodied every cliché in sports – especially the ones that pertain to never quitting.

"At a certain point," he said, "we had nothing to lose. Everyone was pulling in the same direction – going to battle, winning the battles and working hard ... Everyone went to war."

Josh Gorges said he sensed a comeback was possible when Michael Ryder scored hhis second goal to make it 5-2. Then, toward the end of the second period, Komisarek noticed the scoreboard read 5-3. It made him feel anything was possible.

"5-2 or 5-3, we get the next one we're right back in it."

Komisarek spoke of "being desperate and finding that urgency in our game." Kirk Muller, he said, had bucked the team up after the second period by stressing that there was nothing to lose.

As Bob Dylan sang, back when his hair was as full as Kent Nagano's, "when you ain't got nothin', you got nothin' to lose. You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.

"How does it feel?"

On this night, pretty darn good.

"What a great feeling at the end of the game," Komisarek said. "It was awesome, man. Guys went to war for each other. There's no better feeling than that."

The way I see it, the Canadiens lost their first playoff game of the 2007-'08 season.

When the Rangers cranked up the intensity and played post-season hockey, the home team wilted and allowed a thre-goal lead to evaporate.

It was a great game. Skating, hitting, skill and plenty of nastiness.

Canadiens denied that the Rangers' physical play took them out of their game, but what are they gonna say?

"Yes, they threw a few hard checks, jawed at us after the whistle and we got scared."

No. And it probably wasn't entirely the case. But down 3-0 and being outskated, the visitors used muscle to channge the momentum of the game, and I thought it worked.

There was also complacency. Canadiens made it look so easy through 30 minutes: three goals, 50-foot tape-to-tape passes, buzzing around the NY end. It was natural they'd think this one was in the W column, especially after the emotional lift of Sergei K's penalty shot goal.

Then the captain took a penalty on the PP, and the Rangers began their five-goal comeback.

Canadiens goalie Cristobal Huet flat on his back. Puck in his net. Say no more.
André Ringuette, NHLI via Getty Images

Updated by Kevin Mio; Links updated at 7:50 a.m., Feb. 4

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It started well this afternoon for the Canadiens as they grabbed a 3-0 lead on the New York Rangers with a little less than six minutes gone in the second period. But then it all fell apart.

New York scored five unanswered goals and took control of the Bell Centre game after Montreal’s third goal, beating their hosts 5-3 and denying the Canadiens a chance to close to within one point of the Ottawa Senators atop the Northeast Division.

The Canadiens got first period power-play goals from Andrei Markov and Alex Kovalev, and Sergei Kostistyn scored with a quick shot on a oenalty shot as the Habs looked to be in complete control with a 3-0 lead 5:40 into the second period.

But the Rangers weren’t about to go quietly. The scored three goals in a span of seven minutes to tie the game 3-3 before the end of the second period.

An unSuper Sunday for your Montreal Canadiens, who blew a 3-0 lead and watched the Rangers score FIVE unanswered goals in the second and third periods.

"I think they just picked it up and started to skate more," said Saku Koivu in response to aa suggestion that the Rangers' physical play  had turned the game around.

"In the first period we got pucks in their end and were able to get chances because of that. Then in the second half of the game we weren't skating as well and we didn't get the pucks deep. We kind of got away from our game plan."

 "You couldn't ask for a better start," said Mike Komisarek. "We have to find a way to bury a team and close the gate."

The Canadiens defenceman said the Rangers began to win battles along the boards as the game progressed. Echoing his captain's analysis, Komisarek said the Rangers' physical play hadn't intimidated the Canadiens.

"When we're prepared to battle, we can play that kind of game. It's more of an attitude and mentality we have to have, to keep pushing. You can't let a team like that back in the game.

"We tried too many fancy things instead of sticking with what worked for us."

Christopher Higgins said the Rangers began to win neutral-zone battles in the second half of the game.

"They clogged it up and we played right into it," Higgins said. "Instead of chipping it by them we were trying to make those cute passes. Instead of making them go the whole length of the ice, they only had to go half the ice.

"We stopped skating. That's what it comes down to." 

"These are the kinds of lessons we have to learn as the season goes on and into the playoffs," Komisarek added. "When you have a team down you have to bury them."

Was there a sense that things were slipping away?

"I don't think so," Komisarek said. "It was just a hard-fought game. Playoff atmosphere, the buzz in the building, the intensity, the battles.

"They got better as the game went on. As a team, we have to feel that pressure and push back." 

Let's hope the Sunday brunch menu includes Valium.

It was just one game in a long season, right? But man, did your Montreal Canadiens suck or what?

The Rangers dominated every aspect of the game, most notably desire. They wanted it more.

Home teams usually do – not that it helped the Boston Bruins. But this was different.

The Rangers came out skating, hitting and battling for every loose puck. The Canadiens came out soft, slow (did you ever see so many of them fall for no apparent reason) and tentative.

The power play was 1-for-8 including two lengthy 5-on-3s – and by the time it clicked, the Rangers were up 4-0 and the issue was no longer in doubt. If other teams pick up on the technique of pressuring Alex Kovalev, the PP will need adjustment.

As will the attitude. Canadiens were due for a bad game, but there are bad games and there are no-shows.

This team isn't good enough to win with anything less than 60 minutes of hard-working, high-energy, ultra-competitive hockey.

Thus endeth the Sunday sermon.

So enjoy your morning OJ and tranquillizers. There's no need to panic ... yet.

The game on Long Island will be very important. Guy Carbonneau would not commit himself as to who will start in goal on Tuesday.

And down on the farm, Carey Price was beaten five times on 13 shots and was yanked halfay through Hamilton's 7-3 loss to Rochester.

So it was a crap Saturday night all around, unless you're a New England Patriots fan or a Leafs-hater:  they blew a 2-0 lead in San Jose, and the front office massacre should come tomorrow. 

Links updated Sunday 6:40 a.m. 

New York Rangers' Petr Prucha beats Canadiens goalie Cristobal Huet up under the crossbar for the home team's third of four goals.
Mike Stobe, NHLI via Getty Images

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The Canadiens came into Saturday's Madison Square Garden game against the New York Rangers having won five of their last seven, impressive 5-2 victors over the Boston Bruins on Thursday to begin a four-game road trip. Their Big Apple hosts, meanwhile, had lost five straight.

All of which goes to show that any National Hockey League team can beat another on any given night. Especially when one forgets to take off its skateguards.

The Canadiens’ league-leading power play went a dismal 1-for-8, getting nothing on two lengthy 5-on-3s, and a fired-up Rangers squad took full advantage of its opportunities to hand a 4-1 loss to a visitor that was outshot 41-19 and showed little interest in putting up a fight.

The Brothers Kostitsyn click on the power play – Andrei to Sergei – to deprive Henrik Lundqvist of a shutout.

Canadiens managed all of 19 shots in their 4-1 loss. The Rangers had 41.

Canadiens PP was 1-for-8 – including two blown 5-on-3s.

The only unembarassed player in a white jersey was Jaroslav Halak, who stopped all 13 shots he faced after relieving Cristobal Huet in the third period.

Wait'll next year!

It used to be the eternal plaintive cry of long-suffering Brooklyn Dodgers fans. But in Montreal, we can say it with a bit more conviction.

There won't be a Stanley Cup parade in 2008, but Canadiens are on the come. They're young, they're talented and they're going to get better.

Exhibit A: Last night's game. Down a defenceman, lacking their captain, dressing only 17 skaters and facing a hot team and a well-rested goaltender, Canadiens took it to the Rangers for 54 minutes. Had Tomas Plekanec and Alex Kovalev – who were brilliant, along with linemate Andrei Kostitsyn – cashed a third-period 2-on-1, the Canadiens would have won in regulation.

As it was, they got a very well-deserved point to complete an outstanding 3-0-2 road trip.

Captain Alex Kovalev, wearing the C in the flu-bug absence of Saku Koivu, is ridden along the boards by Rangers' Paul Mara.
Bruce Bennett, Getty Images

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The record book won’t show that the Canadiens played shorthanded for 60 minutes tonight, but in a very real sense that was the case in the Habs’ 4-3 overtime loss to the New York Rangers.

Brendan Shanahan, who irked Canadiens fans last season by choosing to sign with New York instead of Montreal as an unrestricted free agent, took advantage of a Roman Hamrlik giveaway to beat Habs goalie Cristobal Huet with a high, glove-hand breakaway shot at 1:06 of overtime to give the Rangers a come-from-behind win.

The 19-man Canadiens – using 17 skaters, 11 up front – wrapped up their six-game road trip, the longest they’ll have this season, with a mark of 3-1-2 and eight points of a possible 12. And given how the club has fared in recent holiday-season sojourns away from the Bell Centre, you’d better believe they’ll happily take it.

Bulldogs callup Corey Locke was supposed to in the lineup tonight in place of flu-bitten Saku Koivu, who will watch the game from his New York hotel room.

But while Locke made it to Madison Square Garden at the last minute, his equipment didn't. The Canadiens will play with 19 men.

A great effort.

Canadiens blow a 3-2 lead with six minutes to go and lose in OT. But playing without Saku Koivu and dressing only 17 skaters, the team hung tough and came away with a well-deserved point.

The traditionally fatal holiday road trip yielded eight of a possible 12 points.

No too shabby.

On to '08.