Rocket:

The energy in the building threatened to blow the roof off the dump. Roy was clearly adored by the Bell Centre crowd. Carey Price was really into the ceremony. You could see it in his eyes. The crowd chanted “CA-REY, CA-REY” before the anthems.

This was a game that Carbonneau could have unleashed his skaters to apply wave after wave of offense. Instead Carbo sent out Lapierre, Begin and Sergei Kostitsyn to start. Price made a tremendous save off Kobasew within the first minute. Price was definitely ready to play. He was very quick all night.

It would be another shift or two before we would learn Carbo’s diabolical strategy. George Laraques was added to the Koivu/Tanguay line to shadow Milan Lucic. Yes, you read correctly…Lucic. Since we’re being nostalgic tonight, I recall Guy Carbonneau being given the job to shadow Wayne Gretzky in 1993 playoffs by Jacques Demers. Now, Gretzky was a player that deserved a shadow. Anyway, I digress. Tonight, where ever Lucic went, Georges followed trying to talk Milan into a fight. Lucic either declined or hi-tailed it to the bench. Basically, it went on all period like that.

The commentators gushed: ‘what brilliant coaching by Carbonneau!’. I changed channels…more gushing. I tried the radio…same thing. These guys are morons, I thought.

If I am Claude Julien, do I mind that the Canadiens handicap their best line by adding Laraque? No, of course not. I simply instruct Lucic not to fight. And if I’m Guy Carbonneau and I am coaching a team that is struggling offensively, why would I ensure that my two best scorers play short-handed? Advantage Julien and the Bruins.

Claude Julien also knew that George Laraques couldn’t keep the shadow going all night, and that he wouldn’t play more than 10 minutes in the game. He also knew that Laraque is much slower than Lucic and doesn’t play well in the defensive zone. In other words, Julien (and Lucic) just needed to be patient.

Oddly, the Carbonneau was puzzled after the game: “Our trouble is on offence. We lack confidence. We’re getting shots on goal, we’re getting chances. But we lack the consistent finish we had last season.” Perhaps it’s the personnel combinations, coach!

And what was accomplished by the Laraque/Lucic experiment? Nothing really. It was briefly entertaining but it mostly just handcuffed the Canadiens offense. Oh, and we learned about Lucic’s motivation to go after Komisarek and celebrate afterwards (if you care about that sort of thing.) Laraques reported on his fact-finding mission saying that Lucic whined ‘you have no idea what Komisarek has done to me in the past, how he’s abused me.’

A much better strategy for Carbo would have been to ice a 4th line with Lapierre, Laraques and Begin and instruct them to hit hard anything that in a white sweater. Take a penalty or two. Deliver a message by taking the body. That might draw Lucic or Thornton to fight. But how exactly does trailing Lucic around the ice begging him to fight all night send any message or dictate the terms of the game while in your own building?

I much preferred Ryan O’Byrne’s approach. He hit Lucic, three times in the first period alone. Begin, Bouillon, Gorges, O’Byrne, and Markov each had more than 5 hits. Canadiens out hit Bruins 49-23. The best hit on the night came from an unlikely source: Saku Koivu on Dennis Wideman.

Defensive breakdowns were a problem again tonight and led to the Bruins two goals. Bouillon made a bad pinch in the Bruins zone and after a long shift didn’t have the gas to get back. O’Byrne tried to defend on his wrong side but was beat by Kessel who set up a streaking Lucic who somehow blew by Kovalev (checkmate Julien). On the Bruins second goal, the Canadiens were back in the defensive zone but failed to pick up their assignments.

Tom Kostopoulos did great work on the first Canadiens goal. Andrei Kostitsyn just wired the puck. Kostopoulos was also the key to the second Habs goal. After TK had a scoring chance, he was tackled by Ward, but got up, went to the side of the crease, signalled for the puck, and then deflected the shot past Thomas. Tim Thomas was giving up huge rebouns all game but the Canadiens didn’t have the offensive pressure to take advantage.

Koivu, Plekanec, the Kostitsyns, and Kostopoulos all played well. Ryan O’Byrne had a solid game. Carey Price was brilliant.

Alexei Kovalev managed only 2 shots on goal in his more than 24 minutes of icetime. Max Lapierre was invisible. I was expecting a lot more from Max given his recent assignments to the press box. Why were Brisebois and Laraque on the ice with 5.7 seconds left in the third and a faceoff in the Boston zone?

Again, the game was decided by a shootout (have I mentioned that I hate shootouts?)

Price looked after Bergeron with ease, made a big save on Kessel’s deke but was unlucky on Wheeler, who lost control of the puck but it managed to slide in. None of the Canadiens shooters, Kovalev, Markov and Koivu, challenged Thomas. I might have used Andrei Kostitsyn, Higgins and Plekanec, players with quick releases who could shoot high on Thomas.

In the end, the coach sounded quite pleased with himself and his experiment: “I think (Laraque) had an effect on Lucic. I don’t think he was as involved as he was in Boston.” Carbonneau continued “There’s more games to come. We’ll see how (Lucic) keeps playing. He was a lot quieter tonight than he was in Boston.” Perhaps Carbo didn’t notice that Lucic had a goal, 9 hits and was +1. If it’s quiet he wants, Carbo should ditch the shadow and pick up some ear plugs.

Pre-game:

Patrick Roy night. Good video. Roy remembers the day that he left too soon without saying goodbye. (I was waiting for an apology. I didn’t get one) Roy says he has come home. Probably one of the least emotional sweater retirement ceremonies that I can remember. Very nice touch to have Price and Halak join Koivu and Roy to hoist the #33 pennant. Credit to CBC for not cutting away to Wendell. I like that the Leafs pennants have the player’s image.

Latendresse out with an upper body injury (I had nothing to do with it!). Lapierre will play.

Rocket’s 3 stars:

1. Claude Julien
2. Carey Price
3. Tom Kostopoulos

(photo credit: AP photo)