Saturday afternoon I was at the Shark's game and as I said in a previous post, I was very eager to go to the game because my step-brother's best friend Torrey Mitchell play's for the Sharks. I haven't seen Torrey in maybe 5 years...
Watching the Habs beat the Devils last night was like watching Usain Bolt enter a sprint against The Biggest Loser. The New Jersey Devils are in dire straits, and sometimes it feels good to beat up on a weaker opponent. Not to take away from the Habs performance last night, but the Devils truly are terrible. You have the 10-million dollar man doing absolutely nothing, an aging and injured Brodeur, and their only goal scorer sidelined with injury as well.
There were two massive breakdowns at about the 10 minute mark of the third period last night, 1-it started snowing, so I lost my signal for the game. and 2-The Montreal Canadiens.... As my friend relayed to me on Twitter, the timeline of both failures was very interesting. Maybe it was a higher power trying to shield my rose coloured Habs glasses from the worst breakdown of the season, but whatever it was, I am secretly thankful I not only missed the Habs blowing a two-goal lead in the third, I also missed one of my favorite players deciding he didn't want to play hockey anymore, and letting Dustin Penner skate away for the OT Goal. I am of course talking about Mike Cammalleri.
Do you know what I love about this team? They take losing personally and make sure poor performances aren't repeated. They played 1/3 of a game on Monday, so every single member of the Montreal Canadiens made sure they played 60 minutes last night. Last night I noticed everyone, no one was invisible: well almost no one. I didn't really notice Spacek very much, but that's a good thing. I don't want to notice Spacek, that means he's not doing something terrible.
Before the season began, I predicted that Price wouldn't get a single shutout all season. It wasn't for lack of skill, but in the past he always let in a goal in those dying seconds. I described him as being " not a shut out" goalie. I usually really hate being wrong, but in this case, I am ecstatic about how wrong I was. His shutout last night wasn't a 20-save routine either. He made 41 stops, most of which came in a second period where the Habs coul have easily found themselves on the losing side of the game.
The big bad Bruins were more like beat-down burn-out Bruins. In a game that was worth far more than 2 points, the Habs once again showed that tight team play wins. Confession: I missed the first period last night due to a terrible meeting that took far too long. Needless to say that by the time I got into the car and drove to my favorite hockey watching spot I was stressed to the max and anxious for a beer. Imagine my elation when I heard the score was 1-1 and our goal came on the POWERPLAY! The game just got statistically better as the night wore on. A second powerplay goal by none other than Gionta followed by a go ahead goal by Gomez. (Look how big that tag is getting in the right hand column!) All that could go right did, and the Montreal Canadiens are proving that they...
Habs vs Canucks, aka The Battle of the Goalies Playing their Hometown Team So happy that Price not only came out on top, but recorded his 2nd shutout of the season. In September, I predicted Price wouldn’t get a shutout all season (which is weird, since I picked him in my hockey pool), and I am thrilled he is proving my hack predictions wrong! The strangest part is that before the game began I was feeling very bitter about the Halak trade. I’ve been defending it since it happened, but for some reason I got all worked up about it over dinner and had a bad taste in my mouth. Why would Gauthier make the trade so early? Why wouldn’t he demand a player like Oshie or Perron? Well, I feel much better now. Eller played only 4-minutes, but they were a VERY strong 4-minutes, and like I just...
Blah! That sucked. What sucks even more is that my computer died yesterday and is only now starting to work again. Thankfully I work with a bunch of software engineers and they are able to fix these things for me. But, back to last night and the 3-0 loss in front of 35 Blue Jacket fans. Not much to say that hasn't been said already, but I do have some interesting facts for you all:
I know...I know..I missed a post. I never wrote about the 3-0 win over Ottawa. But it was the weekend, I had two hockey games myself, plus my spouse and I have started looking at real estate so I was busy with that. Not an excuse, but there you have it. Let's talk about last night though! Firstly, I watched the game on the new TSN Alternate (whatever that means). I have no feelings either way, it was just fun to watch the game on another channel. Though, during the 2nd intermission I was treated to a rare appearance by former Hab Mike Johnson. Any of you remember him? He played for a single season in 2005/2006 (I think). He wore #20 and I think I was the only Mike Johnson fan in the entire city.
