Posted by EP

Um yeah, okay, so I did forget to write something up last night. Sorry. I was a tad occupied with the Bulldogs game last night. Anyway, we’ll make this really quick.

I was hoping that the Habs would come out firing (especially considering they were just coming off a blowout loss to the Penguins) but alas…. it wasn’t to be. I wasn’t able to pay full attention to the first period of the game, but from what I saw, it was a pretty sluggish one from the Habs. Things didn’t improve when D’Agostini took a hit to the head from Andrew Ladd. D’Agostini apparently has concussion-like symptoms and will be missing tonight’s game against the Leafs. I doubt very much that Ladd will get suspended (although being the biased Habs fan that I am, I think he should be). The league has already decided that the Flyers’ Mike Richards’ quite similar hit on David Booth was legal. At least D’Agostini didn’t have to be carried out on a stretcher.

In what’s becoming an all too familiar aspect of the Habs game, the defensive failed in many respects tonight. Starting with Kris Versteeg’s goal which actually went off the skates of Bergeron. A group effort failure resulted in the second Hawks’ goal in the second period. Hal Gill’s failure to keep the puck in the offensive zone lead to an odd-man rush the other way for the Hawks. Gorges wound up taking a tripping penalty in an effort to keep the Hawks from scoring. Cue the Hawks power play. With the Habs giving Kane and Versteeg all their attention behind the net, nobody was watching Barker in front of the net, who took a pass from Versteeg and rifled the puck past Price.

Granted it wasn’t all the defense’s fault. The forwards could have done a lot better job pressuring Huet. Exhibit A being: Huet was completely out of the net, it was completely wide open, Pacioretty passes the puck in front and…. nobody was home to put it away. Brutal. The Habs did get two goals in though. One from Cammalleri late in the second, when the Habs were actually crowding the net. And one from Moen with just seconds left in the second. I actually liked Moen’s better (even if it was a lot uglier) because it showed a really good effort from Pacioretty to get the puck to the net. Metropolit was able to keep the puck away from Byfuglien and get it to Moen. Huet helped a bit too by not hugging the post, but hey, I’m not here to complain about Huet’s mistakes.

I think Andrei Kostitsyn wants to go out for Halloween as a Habs zombie. He was clearly testing out his new costume last night because he was really out of it. There were numerous examples, but none that sticks out more than when he let Kane walk into the defensive zone. You don’t let guys like Kane walk in like that. It’s asking for trouble. With 4 mins left to go, Kane walks in and sets up Sharp who.. scores.

Price was solid. I didn’t think he showed very many signs of rust. He gave the Habs every opportunity to win the game, despite being left to dry by the defense.

I’m sure there was a lot more to say about this game, but honestly, I’ve already blocked it all out so let’s just move on to tonight’s game, k?

Habs vs Leafs (really short) preview

The bad news here is that the Leafs are finally starting to pull it together. They’ve actually picked up points in their last three games – including their first win against Anaheim. They’ll definitely be out for blood tonight.

The good news is that it’s quite doubtful that Jonas Gustavsson will be starting tonight. Which means that they’ll be putting in Toskala. If the Habs can get to him early, we could possibly see a total collapse… As long as the Habs don’t make him look like the next Vezina trophy winner, I won’t complain. As much.

The super bad news is that the Habs will be wearing the barberpole jerseys tonight. Ugh.

No word yet on what the lines will be or who will be in nets for the Habs, but I really hope to see Price between the pipes. Like I said, he was solid last night. He’s going to need a better effort from the guys up front though. This is probably going to be a super ugly game. I foresee the need for lots of sugar to keep me happy.