All Habs Headlines: Saturday February 6, 2016 |
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On this day in hockey history… 1943 — Montreal’s Ray Getliffe scored five goals and an assist to lead the Canadiens to an 8-3 win against Boston. 1990 — Brett Hull scored his 50th goal of the season, to become part of the first father-son combo to each score 50 goals in an NHL season. 2000 — Wayne Gretzky’s sweater No. 99 was officially retired permanently by the NHL, in a pre-game ceremony before the 2000 All-Star Game in Toronto. | |
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► Game day!
- The Canadiens host the 29th-placed team in the NHL on Saturday afternoon at the Bell Centre. You can find our Game Day preview for the matchup here: GAME DAY | Oilers – Canadiens: Preview, Lines, Goalies, TV, Fantasy
- Nathan Beaulieu was obviously frustrated with his own play in practice on Friday breaking his stick on the goal post. Will Beaulieu be a healthy scratch on Saturday after finding himself on the extra pairing in practice?
- Ben Scrivens is scheduled to get the start in goal. This season, he has a record of 0-4-0.
- Missed the last Habs game? Check out our game review here: RECAP | Sabres – Canadiens: Fragile Habs Find a Way to Lose
- The IceCaps hosted the Utica Comets on Friday night. Here is the game review: RECAP | Comets – IceCaps: Road Woes Continue at Home
Forward lines, defense pairings and goaltenders at practice on Friday
Pacioretty – Desharnais – Weise
Galchenyuk – Plekanec – Gallagher
Fleischmann – Eller – Andrighetto
Flynn – Mitchell – Smith-Pelly
Markov – Subban
Emelin – Petry
Barberio – Gilbert
Beaulieu – Pateryn
Scrivens
Condon
► Price back in the crease
Injured Price back on the ice, skating and stickhandling https://t.co/oJj7Y5BQxH #TSNHockey pic.twitter.com/1BQN2JnKJo
— SportsCentre (@SportsCentre) February 5, 2016
The goalie in a crease. pic.twitter.com/XaLw54Jkib
— Arpon Basu (@ArponBasu) February 5, 2016
► Stick to basketball
- NBA analyst Peter Yannopoulos caused a stir in Montreal on Friday tweeting that former Canadiens coach Guy Carbonneau had met with Habs management for three hours on Thursday night.
- Blog sites quickly posted click-bait articles speculating that Carbonneau was being consulted about the woeful Canadiens power-play or even being recruited as an interim head coach.
- Late Friday afternoon RDS’ Luc Gelinas squashed the rumours reporting that the meeting included about 100 people discussing a marketing event.
I was informed that Guy Carbonneau met with the #Habs senior management last night for 3 hours.
— Peter Yannopoulos (@PeteYannopoulos) February 5, 2016
That's right. But over one hundred persons were with them too for a marketing event with Evenko. https://t.co/g2FscTRtRW
— Luc Gelinas (@LucGelinasRDS) February 5, 2016
► Fleury opines on the Habs
Ok @AllHabs fire the coach and you'll win the cup this year Pittsburgh did!!!!!
— Theo Fleury (@TheoFleury14) February 4, 2016
@CHatzitoliosMTL @AllHabs How's that working for the Habs right now? PK hasn't been good this year.
— Theo Fleury (@TheoFleury14) February 4, 2016
@habsfansince87 @AllHabs @CHatzitoliosMTL No he's not it's the whole team they aren't having fun!!! Hockey is supposed to be fun
— Theo Fleury (@TheoFleury14) February 4, 2016
► Lessio out 2-3 weeks
- Following playing in slightly over two periods of hockey with the Montreal Canadiens, Lucas Lessio will be on the shelf for a few weeks.
- The conjecture that the Ontarian would be severely anguished by the hit to the knee he received from Radko Gudas was correct, sidelining the winger for two to three weeks.
- Gudas did not face supplemental discipline after the hit, he did, however, receive a match penalty and a five minute major which the unscrupulous Canadiens powerplay failed to capitalize on.
- During his team-low 6:43 ice time on Tuesday night, the 6-foot-1-inch former second-round pick failed to record any points however did finish as a plus-1.
- In 18 games with the Ice Caps this season Lessio had three goals and nine points accompanied by a minus-7 rating on a struggling St. John’s team.
► Pacioretty not incriminating the coaches
- The embarrassment of the Price-less Canadiens has been somewhat replicated in the play of Max Pacioretty. The captain has shown flashes, but the results/effort was conspicuously absent at times.
- In the post-game media scrum following another deplorable blown lead at the hands of the Sabres, Max Pacioretty spoke out, once again, backing the ticking time bomb that is the coaching staff.
- “The system isn’t the problem. We believe in the system but we’ve had little lapses and they’ve hurt us,” the Captain mentioned. “But we have four or five coaches and 23 to 25 players and we’re all working hard to win.”
- Pacioretty himself hasn’t found the back of the net in his last six games and has had three stretches of six or more games without scoring this season.
► Evidently it’s not over yet
- While the preponderance of the fan base has turned their sights towards the tantalizing array of prospects available in the top-nine of the NHL draft this summer, Yvan Cournoyer hasn’t given up as of yet.
- In an interview with TVA Sports at an alumni event, longtime Habs great Yvan Cournoyer had a positive message to give the Canadiens roster, “Until it isn’t over it isn’t over, [the Canadiens] can still make the playoffs,” said the former Conn Smythe Trophy winner.
- “Maybe they should play very defensive and try not to allow any goals, max two maybe, and at least try to tie the game and get a point and go to overtime.”
- Cournoyer identified a major deficiency for the Habs as of late, allowing 33 goals over their last eight games, seven of which were losses.
► Spacek back in hockey
- Jaroslav Spacek played 13 seasons in the NHL, exiting hockey back in 2012-13. Three years later the 41-year old is back in the international spotlight, to a degree.
- The former fifth-round pick will be an assistant coach for team Czech Republic at this year’s upcoming, and extremely maligned, World Cup of Hockey.
- According to NHL.com, the Rokcany, Czech Republic native was also an assistant coach for the Czechs at the past two IIHF World Championships.
- Spacek spent three seasons in the Montreal Canadiens organization before getting dealt to the Carolina Hurricanes in exchange for Thomas Kaberle.
- Spacek will be under head coach Josef Jandac, former head coach of dismissed Canadiens prospect Martin Reway.
- Fellow former NHLer Vinny Prospal will also be an assistant coach for the Czechs this year.
► Malkin out short-term
- The Pittsburgh Penguins will be without leading scorer Evgeni Malkin for the team’s next pair of games due to a lower-body injury.
- There was no exact date that saw the Penguins star ejected out of their lineup, as head coach Mike Sullivan described it as a “nagging lower-body injury”.
- According to Pens Inside Scoop, Malkin did not travel with the team this weekend and will be garnering treatment as his teammates are hitting the ice.
- The timing is as worse as any for the Pens at this moment, with a pair of games against two resplendent teams in the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Florida Panthers.
- This season Malkin has 23 goals and 49 points as many games, the fifth straight season he’s had a point-per-game or better ratio.
- The PS4-Price-trade candidate has 751 points in 636 career regular season games, along with 111 points in 101 career playoff games.
► Fehr out a month
- In an emphatically less consequential situation, the Penguins have lost Eric Fehr for a month with a “significant” lower body injury that was sustained in the team’s game against the Ottawa Senators this past week.
- Fehr was placed on the I.R. yesterday after the announcement of his injury.
- Despite being in the, public, good books of head coach Mike Sullivan with his defensive dependency, Fehr has been considerably worse offensively, posting five points in 39 games, well off his 19 goal output from the preceding season.
- Pittsburgh signed the former Washington Capital to a three-year, $6 million contract this offseason; he was playing on the team’s fourth line with a rotation of linemates.
► Burmistrov fined for diving
- The Winnipeg Jets have had a trivial effect on the Central division this season, the same can be aid for Alex Burmistrov, who was fined $2,000 for diving this week.
- Subsequent to chipping the puck behind Michael Stone to get breakout of the zone, Burmistrov took a dive, attempting to draw a penalty with a 5-1 lead in the third period of a game against the Arizona Coyotes.
- On October 27th, the league warned the Russian after a dive against the Los Angeles Kings.
- Burmistrov isn’t the only Jets player to garner a fine for diving this season, rookie Nikolaj Ehlers was also fined the ordinance that is $2,000 for an incident against those very same Arizona Coyotes.
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