Rocket:

Ottawa Senators came into tonight winless in their past 5 games. Craig Hartsburg said that he considered different line pairings: Cody Bass with Dany Heatley; Ilja Zubov with Daniel Alfredsson; and Shean Donovan with Jason Spezza. But after 5 seconds of thought, Hartsburg realized it would be the kind of move made by an inexperienced coach acting out of desperation. Instead Hartsburg decided to leave the superstitious mumbo-jumbo to Spezza and Vermette, while he went off to prepare a game plan. In an attempt to change the Senators fortunes, Vermette and Spezza decided that the team would grow cheezy moustaches.

On the Canadiens side, Guy Carbonneau began hearing rumours about ‘the revenge of the peach fuzz.’ This certainly had to be bad karma thought Guy. He was overheard saying: that’s why I never bother with strategy nor prepare a game plan, because you never know what evil omens you will face.

OK…so my mind wandered a bit. Can you blame me? It was another night when Carbonneau send out goofy line combinations that make the players look bad so that all the attention is deflected from himself.

There were two struggling teams on the ice and it showed!

The good:

Carey Price deserved first star consideration. Price made some terrific saves in regulation and a game save in the shootout.

Andrei Markov looked much better on the left point of the powerplay (finally Carbo!) and apparently he has a pretty good shot.

Sergei Kostitsyn made the most of his icetime with 2 assists. Lang with the Kostitsyns (briefly) looked good.

Saku Koivu had yet another strong game.

Steve Begin dropped the gloves with Cody Bass (is there a blue moon?)

The bad:

The Senators played physical. They crashed the net and at times, overwhelmed Gorges (on the first goal), and Bouillon (on the second goal). Feel badly for Gorges…he is in over his head at 27 1/2 minutes TOI.

In the scrum in the first period, why did everyone have a man except Laraque?

Lang was 4 for 15 at the faceoff dot.

The ugly:

The ‘creative’ line combinations from Carbonneau continued to be an offensive dud. The Canadiens only produced 3 shots on goal in the middle 30 minutes of the game.

Guillaume Latendresse, after all the hoopla about him being on the Koivu line, produced 4. Four what? Goals? No, penalty minutes.

The exciting:

I’m not a fan of shootouts to decide games but tonight it was the best part!

Spezza scored with a terrific shot to the top corner.
Kovalev did ‘the move’ and sent a backhand wide.
Price made a nice pad save on Alfredsson.
Markov scored with a backhand 5-hole.
Price went for Ruutu’s fake yet somehow twisted his body back and made a spectacular glove save.
Auld made the save on Koivu.
Price stayed with Vermette and he ran out of room.
Tanguay telegraphed his backhand most of the way down the ice but still got it past Auld.

Game over. Canadiens win 3-2.

Pre-game:

Was Demers defending Carbonneau or re-living his own departure from Montreal?

Dandenault and Lapierre in the press box. Komisarek still injured.

Neil and Fisher out with injuries

Rocket’s 3 stars:

1. Andrei Markov
2. Nick Foligno
3. Sergei Kostitsyn

(photo credit: Phillip MacCallum/Getty Images)