Montreal 0 Atlanta 3 (Philips Arena)
MONTREAL, QC.– The Canadiens can’t compete against bigger players. The Atlanta Thrashers have a team full. Therefore, the Canadiens lost the game. End of story, right?
At least that is what some would have you believe.
A tad simplistic, wouldn’t you say?
Funny thing is, the Thrashers delivered 11 hits in the game. If you are thinking that’s rather a rather low number for a team labelled as big and physical, you are correct. The so-called small, meek Canadiens had 20 hits.
I guess that this great game of hockey is just a little too complicated for some to comprehend. But, you already know that.
The Habs have already proven that they can beat bigger, stronger teams. Vancouver and Philadephia can attest to that.
Besides focusing on one area of the game (that can’t even be justified by statistics) ignores the fact that the Canadiens were:
- dominated in the second period, outshot 23-to-4
- undisciplined, taking eight minor penalties
- outskated after the first period, badly as evidenced by all the penalties
- outcoached by Atlanta’s Craig Ramsey, one of the best teachers in hockey who is doing wonders with their young defensemen
- unable to get on track bottled up by an aggressive Thrashers forecheck
- pathetic at the face-off dot, winning a lowly 38 per cent of draws
Ondrej Pavelec has rarely had an easier shutout. Did coach Jacques Martin want to give Carey Price the night off? Martin should have loaned Price to the Thrashers to play goal.
Before anyone be inclined to blame the loss on Alex Auld, think again. Sure he whiffed on a floater from the stick of Tobias Enstrom. But Auld made 44 saves, and was one of the few Habs to show up.
What is proving difficult for the Canadiens is playing from behind. When they score first, the Habs are 12-1-1. When they trail at the end of the first period, they haven’t won yet.
It wasn’t a good night for Hal Gill and Josh Gorges, who each finished at minus-2. Their inability to coral a bouncing puck was game-over for the Habs. Rich Peverley was able to connect and put it behind Auld with 19 seconds left in the first period.
And we know what happens when Montreal trails.
The so-called puck possession team has a hard time getting to the black disc. Coach Martin’s counter-punch system has worked fine when the opposition is making mistakes but has difficulty generating offense when teams clog things up to protect a lead.
The coach’s answer is to use the only trick in his bag, a seemingly endless stream of line combinations. It hasn’t worked yet this season.
In the past, the Canadiens relied on producing offense with the man advantage. Without a quarterback, the power-play has sputtered. Yet, Yannick Weber sits in the press box.
The Canadiens defense looks old and slow, especially when under pressure. If size is an issue, it is the lack of a big, punishing defenseman who intimidates forwards coming into the zone and who clear the front of the net. For some reason, the Habs couldn’t find a place for Ryan O’Byrne or Pavel Valentenko.
So until the Habs obtain a physical defenseman, a power-play quarterback, a solution for the second line OR a coach who makes better use of the personnel he already has, Habs fans will have to be content with a team that looks like cup-contenders one night and duds the next.
The Canadiens are back home on Saturday night to face the Buffalo Sabres at the Bell Centre.
All Habs game stars
1. Alex Auld
2. Andrei Kostitsyn
3. Brian Gionta
Roster notes
Dustin Boyd and Yannick Weber were healthy scratches. Andrei Markov is out with a knee injury.
(photo by Tami Chappell/Reuters)