All Habs Headlines: Friday October 23, 2015 |
|
On this day in hockey history… 1966 — Boston rookie defenseman Bobby Orr fired a 50 foot shot past Canadiens’ Gump Worsley for his first NHL goal, during a 3-2 Bruins’ loss to Montreal. 1971 — Montreal’s Guy Lafleur scored his first career NHL goal. It came against Kings’ goalie Gary Edwards in the Canadiens’ 3-1 win at Los Angeles. 1982 — Montreal rookie Guy Carbonneau scored the first goal of his NHL career, in a 9-5 Canadiens’ win over the Quebec Nordiques, at the Forum. | |
Stay informed with All Habs Headlines, everything you need to know in one convenient location. Got a tip? Send us an email: [email protected] or tweet us: @AllHabs ! |
► Habs practice
- The Canadiens practiced in Brossard on Thursday morning prior to departing for Buffalo for their game with the Sabres on Friday night.
- The Canadiens will continue to try and make history by starting 11-0-0 but they have to get by the exuberant Buffalo Sabres first. Here’s our game report from Tuesday night’s win over the St. Louis Blues: Recap – Blues vs Canadiens: Habs Win 7th Straight as Price Shuts Out Blues
- Mike Condon will be starting in goal on Friday versus the Buffalo Sabres but aside from that, Michel Therrien decided to keep the same lineup in the Habs’ quest for the team’s eighth consecutive victory.
- Carey Price will get the start for Saturday night’s match against the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Bell Centre.
Forward lines, defense pairings and goaltenders at Thursday’s practice
Pacioretty – Plekanec – Gallagher
Eller – Galchenyuk – Semin
Fleischmann – Desharnais – Weise
Flynn / Byron – Mitchell – Smith-Pelly
Markov – Subban
Emelin – Petry
Beaulieu – Gilbert
Tinordi – Pateryn
Condon
Price
► Ott takes shots
- Despite the Blues’ 3-0 loss to the hands of the Canadiens on Tuesday night, St. Louis “forward” Steve Ott took some shots at the Canadiens.
- “The Canadiens’ defensive game plan is Carey Price. He is the best goaltender in the NHL and is even the best player in the league. I wonder what the Canadiens’ ranking would be if he had not been in goal,” Ott told the Blues’ TV Network.
- Habs forward Dale Weise wasted no time in responding to his comments saying, “First, Let’s get one thing right: Carey Price is our best player. We expect him to be our best player in each of our games, and he has been. Teams give in to frustration when they are unable to [score]. It speaks volumes about his talent. But it also speaks volumes about the quality of our team. We manage to frustrate our rivals giving them few opportunities to attack. And good for us if opposing teams are intimidated at the thought of facing Carey.”
- Then Weise further praised his starter, “He’s maybe the best player in league history. He elevated his game again. He transforms hard stops into routine stops. With him, we know what to expect every game.”
#stlblues F Steve Ott on Montreal's defensive system: "Their defensive system is Carey Price." #OurBlueshttps://t.co/Y5FBJoUuA3
— Bally Sports Midwest (@BallySportsMW) October 21, 2015
► Weary of Eichel
- There’s no doubt that second overall pick Jack Eichel is one of the Buffalo Sabres’ best forwards and his point totals at this point in the season are reflective of that. The Canadiens are very aware that they have to be aware when he’s on the ice.
- “I played against him this summer in Foxboro and I’ve seen him play a few times. He’s a fast dynamic player,” said Michael Condon, the Habs’ starter for Friday night’s affair.
- “I heard a lot of good things. I saw him play a few times with the Sabres on TV and I’m looking forward to seeing a young player like that. And we’re going to see next week McDavid, so it’s always fun to see those young kids having an impact with their team,” mentioned head coach Michel Therrien when asked about the phenom.
► A breach of privacy
- Congratulations to Carey Price and his wife, Angela, who will be expecting their first child on April 29, 2016. Angela announced the couple’s good news on Wednesday morning via her blog in a post titled “First Came Love, Then Came Marriage…..”
- The problem was that the news had already leaked out. And, as Angela explained on her blog, she was angry that the “exciting moment was stolen” from them.
- The previous weekend a tabloid blog, 25Stanley, published the announcement. Then on Tuesday night, following the Canadiens win over the St. Louis Blues, TSN’s John Lu tweeted the news. Blogs like EOTP rushed to publish the news as well.
- For our part, All Habs Hockey Magazine made the decision not to publish a story on our website. We did share the respected reporter’s tweet on social media.
- Subsequently John Lu communicated with Angela Price to apologize and clear the air. Via Twitter, both parties called the matter a “misunderstanding.” In her blog comments, Angela wrote this about John Lu, “I do feel like there was a major lack in judgement there, I realize everyone makes mistakes and will not hold it against him.”
- On Thursday Lu posted a piece to TSN titled “Making amends to the Prices.” Lu apologized for “a lapse in judgment that was borne out of a miscommunication…” and recommended that readers make a donation to the Price’s favorite charity, breakfastclubcanada.org
- On Twitter, Angela wrote that she “should have not grouped [John Lu] with @25stanley.”
- On his blog 25Stanley, JT Utah published an apology of sorts explaining that “I thought you were the kind of woman who accepts and understands that when one is exposed in this way in the media in a hockey city like Montreal, there’s some risk of losing some privacy.” The explanation ended with the words “My bad.”
- The Price’s are the third Canadiens family to be expecting a child between the offseason and now; Alexander Semin and Jeff Petry’s wives also gave birth to their first children as well.
Congrats to future parents @ByAngelaPrice & @CP0031! pic.twitter.com/eBj6GlavLS
— Diet Coke Canada (@DietCoke_CA) October 23, 2015
► Darche to be inducted into the McGill sports Hall of Fame
- Both Darche brothers, Mathieu and Jean-Phillipe, will both be inducted into the McGill Sports Hall of Fame for their accomplishments in professional sports.
- Jean-Phillipe played nine years in the NFL, seven of which were with the Seattle Seahawks, and played 119 games. He played a full 16-game season every year except his last in 2008 when he only played seven.
- Mathieu played 12 seasons of professional hockey, mostly in the AHL but played five in the NHL. In those five seasons he amassed 30 goals and 72 points in 250 games.
- Mathieu looks back fondly at his time with the Redmen saying “You play with your buddies at university. There are no contracts, nobody is trying to steal anybody’s job, you’re not trying to renegotiate your contract. It’s the true meaning of sport. There’s no contracts involved, there’s no business involved. You’re there, you’re in classes all day with your buddies, almost nobody has wives or kids. It’s just you’re playing with your buddies all the time.”
► He’s baaack!
- Following the firing of their head coach Todd Richards the Columbus Blue Jackets made a surprising move in hiring World Cup of Hockey coach John Tortorella.
- Since the American coach was still under contract with the Vancouver Canucks the western Canadian team will be receiving a second-round pick in this year’s draft as compensation.
- The Tortorella experiment failed in Van-city with a veteran group but with a relatively young team in Ohio this might be the swift kick in the rear the 0-7-0 team needs to jumpstart their season that was previously full with potential.
- The coach went 35-35-11 in his sole season behind the Canucks’ bench.
- Tortorella will also be team America’s coach at the World Cup of Hockey come September 2016.
► Down goes another
- The St. Louis Blues are off to a good start but have been ravished by injuries.
- The team found out today that it lost its number one centre, Paul Stastny, for a minimum of five weeks after he broke his foot in a win versus the Canucks.
- The Blues’ highest paid centreman was off to a red-hot start alongside Vladimir Tarasenko with a goal and four assists in five games.
- The Blues have also lost forwards Patrik Berglund and Robbi Fabbri for extended periods of time and they’re accompanied by Kevin Shattenkirk who is day-to-day.
- Jori Lehtera will move up to centre Tarasenko and Alex Steen, David Backes is now centring the second line with Troy Brower and Jaden Schwartz on his wings and Scott Gomez moves into the top-nine to have Dmitrij Jaskin and Scottie Upshall on either side of him.
New at All Habs Hockey Magazine | |
In case you missed it! Catch up on recently-published stimulating, original content. | |
[wp_rss_multi_importer category=”3″ thisfeed=”8″ showdate=”0″] |
Follow @AllHabs and @chrnarhabs on Twitter