Thrashers

It's a dreadful cliché that could get a journalist fired.

But sometimes you can't resist:

Christmas came early for the Canadiens.

The Atlanta Thrashers had 50 shots on Jaroslav Halak. They dominated all three periods and the first two minutes of OT.

Canadiens won.

The W was ENTIRELY due to the efforts of three players:

Jaro Halak ... again.

Tomas Plekanec ... again.

And the team's best free agent signing: Marc-André Bergeron.

Atlanta dominates the game.

Atlanta dominates the OT.

Canadiens win.

The referees' conspiracy strikes again!

It is just so obvious that the National Hockey League doesn't want the Canadiens to win the 25th Stanely Cup they so richly deserve.

Chris Lee, Bill McCreary ... they're all the same.

Zebras are Habs-haters.

That's why the Canadiens took seven minor penalties to only four for Atlanta.

The conspiracy is so vast, so diabolical that the Canadiens have taken 163 penalties in 33 games.

OK, enough dripping sarcasm.

Playing their fourth game in six nights – a schedule that will de duplicated next week – the Canadiens played about 30 minutes of sound, disciplined hockey. And it was good enough to build a 2-0 lead.

Then everything turned to crap.

A minute after Jaro Spacek (who was brutal but is playing hurt) returned from serving the Canadiens' fourth minor of the game, Christoph Schubert got the Thrashers on the board and a defensive system game turned into run and gun.

With three seconds left in Glen Metropolit's penalty, Ilya Kovalchuk beats Carey Price to win ti

I find myself making this observation after every game:

Jaroslav Spacek gives it his all, but he's too small and, at 35, too old to play 25 minutes a game, including the power play and shorthanded situations.

His fellow Czech defence partner, Roman Hamrlik, is the same age but is bigger ad has more skill. But Hammer played 28 minutes last night ... which is fine if your name is Jay Bouwmeester.

Were Spacek and hamrli responsible for the 5-4 loss? 

No way.

Spatch was on for four even-strength goals, two by each team, and finished the night even.

Hammer was on for one Atlanta goal, three by the Canadiens and was plus-2.

Monster minutes for the top D pairing is not unusual in the NHL. But given their age, I really worry how Hamrlik and Spacek will hold up through this month, December and however much of the new year Andrei Markov will be unavailable.

The Canadiens were missing three regulars – Markov, Ryan O'Byrne and Hal Gill – on defence last night.

And it showed.

Long season, folks

On April 11, the day after the last game of the regular season, the Canadiens will be getting ready for either the golf course or the playoffs – and at this point, I wouldn't bet my heavily-mortgaged house on one of those eventualities or the other.

What is certain, however, is any review of the 2009-'10 season will include last night's game as an early-season turning point.

The Canadiens needed a W.

They needed it bad.

I know it's still early. But three straight losses at home as part of a six-L streak ... I don't think catastrophic is too strong a word, even in October.

Czech goalie (theirs) vs. Slovak (ours)

And they freeze the kicker to clean Pavelec's crease ... with the Zamboni!!

Cammalleri: Pad save

Kovalchuk: Save

Gomez: Wrister shelf!!

Peverley: Easy save

Gionta: Backhand!!

IT'S OVER!!

How many beers have you had since the last time the Canadiens scored six goals?

Jan. 8 at the Bell Centre: a 6-2 pasting of the Leafs; power-play goals by the Kostitsyn brothers.

It was preceded by a 6-5 win over Florida at the Bell Centre and a 6-3 conquest of the Rangers at Madison Square Garden.

At normal consumption of four a day, that's a lot of beer.

For those who care about the Montreal Canadiens, consumption has been way up.

And not just beer. This team has been woeful enough to boost heroin addiction.

Well, put down your steins and throw away your syringes.

Happy days are here again – at least until tomorrow night.

Bob Gainey described his team's embarrassing loss to the Leafs on Saturday night as ":a downer for us."

And for everyone else.

But tonight's 6-3 win over Atlanta breaks a five-game losing streak and keys what Gainey called "a desperate week ... when we need to do something to help ourselves."

Gainey praised the Canadiens for "a good, strong game based on positional play." He was pleased that over the last two periods, the Canadiens were "harder to play against." 

The Canadiens' slump began in Atlanta and that's where it ended.

What? You're saying the Thrashers won 2-0 last night.

Indeed, 14th-place Atlanta shut out your fifth place (for now) Montreal Canadiens.

But this is no longer a slump. It's a debacle.

And if the Canadiens lose in Dallas tomorrow, it will become a catastrophe.

Price was very good.

The Canadiens are still in fifth place ... TWO POINTS up on 10th-place Carolina.

The worst thing about last night?

It might happen again tonight.

The Canadiens play Zach-to-Zach games, and trust me on this:

Parise will be more dangerous than Bogosian.

The difficulty of winning in New Jersey is what made last night's loss critical.

If they drop one to the Devils tonight, the Canadiens head into the All-Star break on the heels of two straight Ls.

And if you think this city will be talking about East vs. West rather than what ails the hometown team, then you don't know Montreal. 

Canadiens had 18 shots in the third period and Atlanta's goaltender stopped them all.

Zach Bogosian beat Carey Price on the Thrashers' first shot of the period to make it a two-goal lead, and Lehtonen shut the door. 

Other than the lottery ticket purchases that have become my retirement strategy, I'm not a gambling man.

Nor do I usually offer advice to those who enjoy wagering on sports.

But here's the tip of the day, a lead-pipe cinch:

Bet your children's college money that Georges Laraque won't be playing against the Rangers tomorrow night.

Andrei Kostitsyn saved the season.

And who thought Robert Lang's empty-netter would be the winning goal?

So far, so good.

Like Red Fisher, I was – and remain – skeptical about the trade that sent Cristobal Huet to Washington.

Fisher and I  have as much playoff goaltending experience as Carey Price and Jaroslav Halak. The road to  the postseason includes 18 tough games, and down the stretch there will be enormous pressure on two young guys.

Price was very good last night. Not great, because Atlanta didn't force him to be great, but Price was cool, steady, confident – all the attributes that will make him a star in this league.

The team played well in front of him. Atlanta was held to fewer than 30 shots. There weren't many odd-man rushes, and the PK killed four of five penalties.

Canadiens played a dominant third period: four unanswered goals, a 15-6 advantage in shots.

The team wanted this one as an affirmation of their ability to win without a new "impact player". And they did it.

Updated at 10:34 p.m. with all audio

Carey Price keeps a close eye on a flying puck.
Christinne Muschi, Reuters

Lineups | Preview | Game Summary | Event Summary | Boxscore | Boone | Post-Game Audio: Carbonneau | Player Audio (from RIS): Price, Lapierre, Koivu, Bégin, Higgins | Ryder

After spending the day holding their breath awaiting the blockbuster trade that never came, Canadiens fans are getting used to the look of the team that now will bear down on the stretch run to the playoffs.

And a 5-1 Bell Centre victory tonight over the Atlanta Thrashers was not a bad way at all to start.

First star Christopher Higgins scored two goals and added an assist and goaltender Carey Price, the second star of the night, made 26 saves to earn the win, the Canadiens exploding for four third-period goals to win going away.

It was fitting that tonight’s game against the Thrashers, supposedly the Canadiens’ trading-deadline dance partner, began the Habs’ 19-game sprint to the postseason.

With Price, Montreal’s newly anointed No. 1 goalie, in the Montreal net, and a new backup goaler and a flashy forward up this afternoon from Hamilton – respectively Jaroslav Halak and Mikhail Grabovski – the Canadiens had their way with the Thrashers to snap a two-game losing streak in wrapping up a four-game homestand.

There was a palpable air of relief, tinged with sadness, in the winning dressing room.

Canadiens are 1-0 in the Carey Price era, and the goaltender who stopped 26 of 27 Atlanta shots talked about losing "one of our brothers" when the team traded Cristobal Huet today.

"Everybody was pretty emotional," Price added. "We knew we had to come out and put it behind us for tonight."

Christopher Higgins was relieved. His name had been mentioned frequently in trade rumours, and when the speculation came to naught, Higgins went out and played his best game of the season: two goals, an assist on an Andrei Markov beauty and a succession of solid, hard-working shifts on the revived Saku Koivu line.

"It's a general sense of relief," Higgins said. He had tried to keep trade speculation out of his mind, but it wasn't easy.

Higgins said he had tried to get his game back on track and "clean things up mentally a little bit."

"You never know if you're going to get moved," Higggins said. "You start to think about how great a city it is here, how much fun you've had, what great friendships you've made.

"You get traded and you've got to start over with a new team. It definitely hits home when you hear your name in the media that you could get moved."

The speculation is over. The team that beat Atlanta 5-1 tonight is, with maybe a tweak here and there, the one that will finish the season.

"It's nice to have our team," Higgins said. "Barring injuries, this is it. We're excited."

If Price was excited, he did his usual cool job of camouflaging it. But there was genuine sadness in the young man's voice when he talked about the positive influence of the goalie he's succeeded.

Huet, Price said, was "unbelievable ... he was like an older brother to me."

"He's a first-class guy," Price added, "and just a great teammate. I couldn't say a bad thing about that man."

The Gazette's Pat Hickey reports from the Bell Centre after today's Canadiens practice that Guy Carbonneau will go with Carey Price in goal tomorrow vs. the Atlanta Thrashers.

Lots of speculation around the arena about trades, but no deal has gone down yet.

Listen to Christopher Higgins and Michael Ryder talk about ... all the talk about trades. And here's Mike Komisarek on the same topic, recorded after Saturday's 3-0 loss to Columbus.

Easter came early.

Cristobal Huet rose from the grave he'd dug himself in the third period and made five saves in OT and two more in the shootout to give the Canadiens their 16th road win of the season.

You have to admire Huet's sang-froid, a French phrase meaning the mental toughness to shake off boneheaded errors. Now if he'd only display some legerdemain in handling the puck.

And Canadiens win it.

Kozlov: Miss

A, Kostitsyn: Goal

Hossa: Save by Huet

Koivu: GOAL!!!!

Cristobal Huet – after another puckhandling episode during the third period – is great in OT and brilliant in the shootout.

I take back all the things I wrote about his mother. How did he maintain concentration and make all those saves with goat's horns on his mask?

Guy Carbonneau wanted eight points on the road trip. Canadiens got six.

Mission accomplished. 

Canadiens captain Saku Koivu beats Thrashers goalie Kari Lehtonen in the shootout for the game-winning goal.
Scott Cunningham, NHLI via Getty Images

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

Updated by Kevin Mio, new links added at 10 a.m.

For the third straight time this season, the Canadiens and Atlanta Thrashers needed a shootout to decide the outcome of their matchup.

After losing the first two times, 3-2, the Habs got goals from Andrei Kostitsyn and Saku Koivu in the bonus format to grab the extra point with a 3-2 win of their own on Thursday night. Cristobal Huet, whose puckhandling miscue resulted in Atlanta's tying goal midway through the third period, stopped Vyacheslav Kozlov and Marian Hossa in the shootout to help make up for his mistake.

Good to get one point – even if it should have been two.

Canadiens played a superb road game. They outskated the home team and outshot the Thrashers in every period of regulation time (shots were 3-3 in OT). They came back twice from a goal down and would have won easily had anyone batted home a few pucks bouncing around Keri Lehtonen's crease.

The Canadiens were almost error-free. Only six giveaways; and while the game plan called for defencemen to pinch deep, there were few odd-man rushes by the Thrashers. 

Guy Carbonneau, in an interview on RDS, was pleased with his team's effort, as well he should be. All four lines worked hard getting pucks deep and forcing Atlanta into laborious zone clearances. The defence was solid, as  was Cristobal Huet until the shootout – which he readily admits is not the strongest part of his game.

The SO is a Carey Price specialty. Maybe next time Carbo will go to his bullpen. 

Updated Sunday 6:20 am ET with new links, Carbonneau audio

Canadiens' Cristobal Huet is cleanly beaten by Atlanta Thrashers' Marian Hossa for a shootout goal.
Tammi Chappell, Reuters

Carbonneau Post-Game Audio (French only)

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

The Canadiens’ three-game road winning streak came to an end Saturday night, in a shootout.

The Atlanta Thrashers earned a 3-2 home-ice win with shootout goals by Marian Hossa and Vyacheslav Kozlov while both Saku Koivu and Sergei Kostitsyn of the Canadiens couldn’t beat goalie Kari Lehtonen at the other end of the ice.

Hossa was successful on his shootout effort, drilling one past Canadiens goalie Cristobal Huet, while Kozlov followed with a pretty deke to score.

Koivu was pokechecked by Lehtonen, and Kostitsyn’s attempt to deke and go high was blocked by the Atlanta goalie’s pad.

Déja vu all over again.

Except this time, Canadiens deserved to win their game against Atlanta. Unlike the 3-2 Thrashers win at the Bell Centre – also decided in a shootout – Canadiens outshot the home team and outplayed them for long stretches of the game.

The shootout, however, was a wipeout. Marian Hossa and Slava Kozlov beat Cristobal Huet easily, while Keri Lehtonen stopped Saku Koivu and – a curious choice for the SO – Sergei Kostitsyn.

Goals allowed in shootouts ths season: five on eight shots by Huet, four on 19 by Carey Price. 

But Canadiens get a point. Three of a possible four in two games on the road, and on to Dallas.