Sunday, January 17, 2010

One Word Sums Up This Weekend...Disaster

The Montreal Canadiens ended an awful weekend with a 6-2 loss at the hands of the New York Rangers. In the process the Canadiens missed a huge chance to jump ahead of the Rangers in the tight Eastern conference. The Canadiens jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead, but then quit working and were completely dominated the rest of the game, allowing 6 unanwsered goals. To play like they did the last 2 games raises serious concerns about this team. Both the Sens and Rangers were opponents that I consider very beatable. I am usually pretty positive, but this weekend was huge and pretty much the entire team forgot to show up. Mike Cammalleri and Brian Gionta scored the Canadiens goals, while Jaroslav Halak stopped 28 shots in net. To be fair, he really had no chance on 4 of the goals. Henrik Lundqvist turned aside 18 shots, with just 2 of those coming in the 2nd period. The power play again struggled, giving up a short handed goal to tie the game (and turn the momentum) to go along with a goal of their own in 4 chances. The Rangers had 6 power plays and scored once. Good old Chris "screw you Montreal" Lee was one of the refs, and again made some questionable calls. Case in point:
*Markov races to a loose puck and touches it for an icing. Voros for some reason punches Markov after the whistle and a scrum ensues. Josh Gorges comes to Markov's aide, but is clothes lined by Avery and a fight starts. The result...Travis Moen who tried unsuccessfully to get to Voros gets a minor penalty evening everything up.
*Plekanec levels a Ranger without the puck. A delayed penalty is being called but the Ranger is on top of Pleks and begins driving his head into the ice. A scrum ensues, with Lapierre getting into it along with Boyle. Pouliot lays a beating on Redden and Boyle, after things calm down is still trying to get at Lappy, leaning over the ref to cuff him in the head. The result....both Pleks and the inital player get minors, but Lappy gets a roughing penalty and Boyle gets only a 10 minutes misconduct, again leaving the Habs on the short end of the stick.
Now for some other thoughts:

>The defence coughed the puck up all night and overall played awful. I can't think of any one player on the back end that had a decent game. How about in the offensive zone just tossing a puck on net rather than shooting a bomb 10 feet wide???

>Metro was domoted to the 4th line, with Lappy moving up. Neither line did much.

>Martin should have put Laraque out to settle the score, even if it was when the game was out of reach in the 3rd. Boyle and Voros were running around nailing guys with 3 minutes left. For the love of god send Laraque on the ice and tell him to grab someone.

With 2 losses this weekend the Canadiens are once again thrown back in the fire. 2 wins would have vaulted them up the standings and given them a bit of breathing room. Now the Habs find themselves tied for 8th with all the teams around them with games in hand. The Silver Wolf Whiskey Hab of the Game goes to Mike Cammalleri. Had a nice goal and played decent. Consideration also given to Gionta and Pouliot (for the fight mostly). Next up the Blues on Wednesday.

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