Thrashers

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

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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)

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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.