Globe Sports
posted by Sean Gordon
Monday, October 5, 2009 07:34 PM
Those with good memories will recall that last year’s Canadiens road trip to Calgary, Vancouver and Edmonton is where Guy Carbonneau’s coaching career went to die. He wouldn’t be fired for almost another month, but it was on that trip he first admitted to a TV interviewer he was out of answers, kicking off the countdown.
There was a 6-2 pasting in Calgary, then a 7-2 humiliation in the ‘Chuck (the day after Carbo’s ill-fated team outing to an Edmonton bowling alley in lieu of a practice – insert your favourite Big Lebowski reference here).
After a nail-biting win in Colorado (thank you Jaro Halak), the Habs then lost in Vancouver (thanks for nothing Jaro). They limped home from a 1-4-1 road trip, and went 10-8-5 the rest of the way to squeak into the playoffs.
This week they get another crack with a tour of the Northwest Division’s Canadian cities.
And this time, to riff on the famous tune from alt-rock heroes Camper Van Beethoven: don’t take the hockey players bowling (for readers born after 1985 – if anyone born after 1985 still reads newspaper websites – the song was Take the Skinheads Bowling).
Given the Habs are in snow-dusted Cowtown and the legions of gormless French Immersion typists are in their north-end Montreal sweatshop, we don’t have much to impart in the way of local colour or actual news.
Other than to say that a Yannick Weber-shaped bandage has been applied to the Habs defence, and Kyle Chipchura will likely deputize for the poor man’s Lecavalier, Glen Metropolit, who still has ouchy ribs.
Here are some more Monday quittin’ time odds and ends from Habs-world:
CONSPIRACY THEORY DU JOUR: Carey Price, who was benched for his professional return to his birthplace of Vancouver last season after soiling the bedclothes against Calgary and Edmonton, comes back out West with a .952 save percentage and 1.89 goals-against average, having stopped all but four of the 81 shots he’s faced. He’s stolen two in a row for the Canadiens and is in commanding form. Rollie Melanson is no longer the Montreal goalie coach. Discuss.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Those saddled with watching the Leafs or Senators on Saturday night will have missed this gem from Scott Gomez, who was interviewed between periods on HNIC and asked about whether the so-called smurf line was going to have trouble coping with big defences like Buffalo’s. Quoth the Gomer: “Well, we’ve really been working a lot on our height, putting quarters underneath our beds at night and that kind of thing.” We LOVE this guy.
OH NOOOOOOO: Among the free-agent defencemen being mooted in the Francophone media as emergency Markov replacements: Patrice Brisebois. Please, make them stop. And just so we have this straight, Tyler Myers, 19, is in the NHL, Drew Doughty, 19, is in the NHL, Erik Karlsson, 19, is in the NHL, Michael Del Zotto, 19, is in the NHL, Victor Hedman, 18, is in the NHL. Some of them even play for playoff-bound teams. But 20-year-old Pernell Karl Subban, who you’ll remember as this space’s man-crush for 2009-10, is not in the NHL. Despite injuries to two defencemen, including the only right-handed shooting rearguard on the roster. Hey, isn’t Subban right-handed? So is Weber, the detractors will say. Fair enough. But isn’t he also kinda handy on the power play? So is Weber, the detractors howl. Okay. But didn’t he out-score Hedman and Karlsson at the 2009 world juniors, and play more critical-time minutes than Myers (with Ryan Ellis)? Didn’t he have more points and a better plus-minus in junior than Del Zotto? Isn’t he bigger and faster than Weber? How long before they decide this guy’s ready? We understand the cap implications, and arbitration and waiver considerations, but unless he hurt himself the other night in Hamilton, seems to us he should be called up before the Habs do something rash like re-sign the Breezer or El Dandy (Mathieu Dandenault), who didn’t make the Sharks. Hey, but at least they’re cheap, right?