The Soap Opera Continues...

In today's episode of "As the Hockey World Turns..."
The Canadiens lose their 6th straight, still winless at home.
Thrilling, no? More thrills: The only guy who was able to put a puck in the net against the Panthers, Max Pacioretty, suffered ligament damage in his wrist, forcing him to leave the game. I swear this just keeps getting better.
The Canadiens seem to have the game plan down packed when it comes to scoring the first goal, but it's scoring a second goal that seems to be a problem. The team gets off to a pretty good start, but then confusion seems to set in.
Of the possible 16 points that could have been obtained in the last 8 games, the Canadiens have 4 points, therefore they stand last in the Eastern Conference, and 29th in the league; Columbus behind the with 3 points.
On a positive note, Peter Budaj played a strong game, making some good key saves.
At 7:30, the Canadiens will be facing the Philadelphia Flyers. The Flyers have a 5-2-1 record as of late. Philadelphia GM Paul Holmgren did some clean up this summer, letting go of the Flyers main men Jeff Carter and Mike Richards. Although they beefed up the team a little, signing Max Talbot and Jaromir Jagr. The habs will be playing  in front of the home crowd tonight, hopefully giving them something to cheer about.
Pacioretty will be a game-time decision, and Price will be back in nets, still on the look out for his 100th career victory.

Bon match.      

Canadiens Still Looking for First Home Victory

The Florida Panthers are visitors at the Bell Centre tonight. They have a 4-3 record to date, and tonight is the first of a 3 game road trip. Price, who has had 7 consecutive starts in front of the net since the beginning of the season, is delegating his paper work to  Peter Budaj, giving Price a breather. This will be Budaj's first regular season game in a Montreal uniform.
The Montreal Canadiens have overcome some roster shuffling as well, acquiring Petteri Nokelainen and Garrett Stafford from the Phoenix Coyotes Saturday for Brock Trotter and a 7th round draft pick in 2012. Nothing much to get excited about, noting that together, these two players have amassed 1 goal in the last three seasons. The Canadiens have demoted Andreas Engqvist and Aaron palushaj to the Bulldogs, and have called up Mike Blunden. Nokelainen and Blunden will be making up the fourth line alongside Mathieu Darche in tonight's dispute.
Spacek will return to the game, pairing up with Weber on the blue line, whereas the 25 year old Emelin will be a healthy scratch for the soirée.

Bon match à tous.

Canadiens Fall For Fifth Straight

Source: HockeyInsideOut

The Canadiens have yet to win their first home game, got a pair of unnecessary and avoidable penalties for too many men, and Carey Price is still itching for his 100th career win, but hey; the fans got a real treat, witnessing a few great goals and some brasse camarade. I don't know about you, but I liked it.  
Travis Moen broke the ice scoring his 3rd of the season at 1:51 of the first. Get this: with the Habs coming into the game with a record of 2 for 25 on the power play, Moen scored that goal short-handed. A Miracle, I tell ya'. Once the home team got the first goal, it was a real cat and mouse chase. The first period ended 1-1. Andrei Kostitsyn fired a wrister through the posts to give Montreal a 2-1 lead in the second, blown by Phil Kessel 36 seconds later.  
For a while, it felt like Montreal was giving us some hope. With goals from Moen-his second of the night, and Cammalleri, the Canadiens had a 4-3 lead in the 3rd. Sadly, reality sets in too soon. Nikolai Kulemin stole a goal at 13:07, forcing the game to overtime, where Grabovski finished off the night with a goal that gave Price no chance.
Yeah, our Montreal Canadiens may have yet to find a win since October 9th, but if the fans keep seeing games like this, I wouldn't mind.    

A special congratulations to Hal Gill for having played his 1001st game tonight.
Coming up this week: Panthers, Flyers and back to back Bruins games.

Amen.

Habs: 1-4-1

So our beloved Canadiens de Montréal have only recorded one single win this season.

Not to worry, we've been in this position before, apparently.

In 1995. 

After Thursday night's game facing against the Pens that was filled with emotion, great Montreal power play goals, and high intensity (sarcasm), the Habs fell short to a 3-1 loss.

It was one of those games that kept you tossing and turning with discomfort and frustration, and you as a viewer and follower feel so helpless.

The Habs are looking to turn their luck around tonight at home against the Leafs. 

Now I'm usually not a sore loser, but if they lose against Leaf Nation at home, Houston, we may have a problem, and Jacques Martin may have many more.    

2minutes4roughing- What's Up With the Habs?

The Montreal Canadiens have started the season with a 1-3-1 start and the whole city reacts like we're going through some kind of epidemic, that the world is going to end.  I would like to say that everyone should calm down about the poor start to the season, we're 5 games in.  The Canadiens don't make the playoffs by playing 5 games, it's over the course of an 82 game season.  The Boston Bruins have a 2-4-0 start to their season, and I'm sure they'll still make the playoffs and compete for the Stanley Cup.  Everyone relax a little.

Now that that's out of the way let's talk about last night's game.  The Habs lost their third game in a row last night, which is obviously disappointing.  But there are many positives to take from last night's game.  The Buffalo Sabres only beat the Canadiens 3-1, and they had an empty netter so it's viewed more as a 2-1 victory for the Sabres.  When Raphael Diaz scored the first goal of the game, and the first goal of his NHL career, for the Habs 2:08 into the second period, the Canadiens had already registered a total of 18 shots.  18 shots in 22 minutes is crazy, and the Canadiens kept on driving hard to the net and ended up putting 41 shots on goal.  The only problem is that only one went in of those 41 shots.  It goes without say that Ryan Miller definitely showed up with his "A" game and earned the first star of the game.  Although Miller-time definitely stole the show, the Canadiens can at least look at this game positively and think to themselves that if they play like that next game they'll probably score five, and Carey Price will almost never let in more than two goals in a game like this where he received 23 shots on net.
Although the Habs did play a good game overall last night, it definitely wasn't perfect.  With 6 seconds left in the second period Josh Gorges ices the puck when there is no pressure on him.  The play comes back to the Canadiens zone and Thomas Vanek was able to score before the 6 seconds in the period were up, making it a 2-1 game at this point, and that was the real backbreaker for the Canadiens.  Little mistakes like this can't happen, and the Canadiens have been making them a lot.  Icing the puck when it's not necessary is a mistake the Canadiens can't afford to do.  Defensive zone face-offs never lead to good things, especially when tired players are on the ice.  The Canadiens biggest problem this season though is the lack of production on the power play.  They went 0-5 last night, and have only scored 2 goals on the power play at this point of this season.  That is not good enough to win hockey games.  They need to at least score 1 goal, ideally 2, on the power play in a game like last night.  They need to capitalize on their chances to win.

The solution?  Signing Brian McCabe.
Next stop:  The Consol Energy Center to take on the Pittsburgh Penguins

Flames light up at Bell Centre

Talk about special teams on that one.

Hey, even if the Canadiens lost, I was excited to watch that game. For the first 5 minutes. Those home opener ceremonies are always great, getting the heart pumping a little bit when they call out the players to hit the ice. Although it didn't cut it for the habs, stumbling in a 4-1 loss to Calgary in their home-opener.
Coming off a flaming start, the Canadiens had the fans roaring within the first two minutes of the game. Celebrating a goal scored by Andrei Kostitsyn at 1:47 of the first period, off a rebound that was first attempted by Max Pacioretty, habs fans were loud and proud.
And then, then came the penalties. Two penalties within minutes separating each other, costing Montreal goals on both occasions scored by René Bourque and Niklas Hagman. With the flames clearly outshot 36-21, Montreal couldn't seem to put one in after being put down 3-1 in the first.

Turn the page, next game. Colorado will be visiting Montreal tonight. With Price still on the search for his 100th career win, we'll see what the night has to offer.

Bon match,
Cheers

Flames at Canadiens

Alright so, after many frustrating pre-season games with at least one of them being worth the watch, it's now time to separate the boys from the men.
That's right. Hockey is back at the Bell Centre! With a 1-1 schedule of late, the Habs are taking on the Calgary Flames tonight for their home opener. With the Flames' line-up looking like this:
Alex Tanguay - David Moss - Jarome Iginla
Curtis Glencross - Olli Jokinen - Lee Stempniak
Tim Jackman - Roman Horak - Rene Bourque
Niklas Hagman - Matt Stajan - Tom Kostopoulos

Jay Bouwmeester - Chris Butler
Scott Hannan - Mark Giordano
Cory Sarich - Anton Babchuk

Miikka Kiprusoff 
Coming off a game against St-Louis that was qualified as "terrible" by former Canadien Alex Tanguay, Calgary is trying to turn the page on a 5-2 loss on Monday.
The puck drops at 7:30. Well sort of, get ready for some opening ceremony action first. So make that 8:00. 
It gives the fans at the Bell Centre an extra half hour to buy beer.


Vive la bière à $11.00! 


Cheers