All Habs Headlines: Sunday November 13, 2011
On this day in hockey history… 1984 – L.A.’s Bernie Nicholls became the first player in NHL history to score a goal in all four periods of a game. He scored once in each period, plus the overtime winner when the Kings beat the Nordiques 5-4 in Quebec City.
►Lucic goons, Miller vents: Boston’s Milan Lucic has a well-earned reputation as a thug. During the first period of Saturday night’s game against Buffalo, Lucic was the recipient of a give-away by the Sabres’ Thomas Vanek. In the ensuing break, Lucic’s suspect puck skills caused him to push the puck head out of reach with Buffalo goaltender Ryan Miller leaving his net to clear the puck.
Frustrated at wasting a scoring chance, Lucic levelled Miller. The Buffalo goaltender spun to the ice, losing his mask after receiving a double forearm smash from Lucic. After the hit Miller allowed three goals on 16 shots before leaving the game with an upper-body injury.
Surprisingly, the Sabres didn’t mount much of a protest prompting forward Paul Gaustad to say, “I’m embarrassed that we didn’t respond. We didn’t push back. There’s no reason to be scared.” When told of Gaustad’s words Coach Lindy Ruff countered, “Paul was on the ice.”
But the quote of the night would come from the victim himself as captured by John Vogl of the Buffalo News.
“I just stuck around because I wanted to say what a piece of [feces] I think Lucic is. Fifty pounds on me, and he runs me like that? It’s unbelievable. Everyone in this city see him as a big, tough, solid player. I respected him for how hard he plays. That was gutless. Gutless. Piece of [feces].” — Ryan Miller
For his part, Lucic seemed surprised that there was no retaliation from the Sabres. Watch this clip from NESN.com.
On Hockey Night in Canada, P.J. Stock had this to say about the Lucic hit, “I loved the fact that he hit Miller. I love it. It’s not a dirty hit. It’s not a hit to the head. Lucic actually gets hurt on the play.”
Not to be outdone, Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe posted the following to Twitter:
https://twitter.com/#!/GlobeKPD/status/135574422596755456
►Gallagher scores again: Canadiens prospect Brendan Gallagher scored his 17th goal of the year, a power-play marker, to help his Vancouver Giants win 3-2 over the Kelowna Rockets. Gallagher was also a target of the Rockets as Tyrell Goulbourne took a run at the diminutive forward in the second period.
Read more: Giants hang on, edge Rockets at home
►Price didn’t back down: The hit by Milan Lucic on Ryan Miller prompted one follower of @All_Habs to recall a similar situation involving Carey Price. @tristenpelton tweeted “the hit on Miller reminds me of Price vs Janssen except Price got back up.”
► Updates: For the latest information follow @All_Habs on Twitter!
