Montreal 2 Pittsburgh 3 (Bell Centre)
‘The Canadiens didn’t lose the game because of referee Chris Lee’s blown call.’
You will hear that a number of times in the next 24 hours. There is some truth to the statement.
After the game, the Montreal coach was his matter-a-fact self. Jacques Martin said, “That’s the rule — if the referee intends to whistle, the play is dead. The puck was there but there’s nothing you can do.”
The players, too, were towing the party line. Scott Gomez came closest to criticism, “Maybe he blew it a little quick, but you don’t want to be in that situation. I’m not going to say anything bad about the refs. They’ve got a job to do and they do it well. Call it mistake or what, but these things happen.”
What else could they say? Both players and coaches wanted to avoid saying anything that would earn them a fine or retribution in a future game.
Media and hockey analysts alike will tell you that Chris Lee was not responsible for the Canadiens being outshot 41-to-21. Lee had nothing to do with the Habs’ sloppy play that caused them to commit 27 turnovers.
Someone may even try to tell you that referees are human and therefore fallible. And over the course of a season, these things have a way of evening out.
We all witness on a nightly basis, phantom penalties that shouldn’t have been assessed and missed calls that should. Tonight, we even saw Mike Cammalleri beat out a touch that was incorrectly called icing.
These are examples of the types of calls that tend to balance, and where human error can be tolerated to a degree.
But Chris Lee disallowed the tying goal with less than six minutes left in a game against an Eastern conference contender. Lee was not properly positioned to have a good view of the play. And he got it wrong.
It is the kind of call that changes the outcome of a game. And in Lee’s case, he has done so against Montreal on more than one occasion. Do you remember the Boston game last season?
Gary Bettman got his panties in a knot over the Canadiens’ mistake when filing the paperwork for Ryan White’s call-up from Hamilton on Tuesday. So upset that one of his procedures wasn’t followed to the letter, it has been reported that Bettman would like to make an example of the Canadiens by handing them a six-figure fine.
Ryan White played just over three minutes in the game against the Senators and his appearance was completely inconsequential.
Tonight, one of Bettman’s officials made a major error than cost the Canadiens at least a point. In a just league, what should be the consequences for that action?
The above criticism does not absolve the Canadiens for the game that they played tonight. Too many shots against. Too many turnovers. Too many penalties.
Once again, we witnessed a very passive Habs team who were content to rely on their goaltending and penalty-killing, and wait for their opportunities. Again, we watched a team that suffered defensive breakdowns while under constant pressure.
Carey Price was spectacular and kept the Canadiens close. In the goaltender duel, Price looked to be the more aggressive and more poised than the much-hyped Marc-Andre Fleury.
Fleury has been getting a lot of press as a potential Olympic team member despite his less than stellar statistics. Fleury is ranked 30th in the league in save percentage (goaltenders with 11 or more games played). Tonight Fleury gave up two goals on his first 15 shots.
Roman Hamrlik continues to excel at both ends of the ice. He scored a power play goal and logged more than 25 minutes ice-time. Hamrlik, Ryan O’Byrne and Jaroslav Spacek combined for 16 blocked shots. Spacek was playing with leg pain and committed 11 giveaways.
The Habs have now successfully killed off 27 straight opposition power-plays. Tomas Plekanec, Travis Moen, Sergei Kostitsyn and Scott Gomez, along with the defense and Price excelled again tonight.
The Canadiens now prepare for a visit to Atlanta on Saturday night.
Rocket’s three stars
1. Carey Price
2. Sergei Gonchar
3. Roman Hamrlik
(photo credit: AP)
I missed every second of last night's game due to a much anticipated rock show, but I had the game in the back of my mind, and what was going on in there was not pretty.
I assumed that the trend of letting the goaltender do the work and try to be opportunistic would continue.
I hate it when I'm right. Another 41 shots against? Seriously?
The Canadiens were credited with 21 giveaways through 2 periods. Seriously?
I guess on the bright side, by spending so much time in your end, giving away the puck and taking penalties, you get to practice your penalty killing. At least that seems to be paying off. But it seems that Jacques Martin's plan to win games based on goaltending and special teams is backfiring. Price was excellent and the Canadiens won the special teams goal battle 1-0, yet still came up on the wrong side of the scoresheet.
I've heard all the kerfuffle about the refs. Every team gets a raw deal; especially this year. The quality of officiating in the NHL this year is approaching the depths of CFL officiating, which is to say, not very good. I'm not going to blame the refs for quick whistles and bad penalty calls. The Canadiens have to clean up their act in the defensive zone. Giveaways need to be drastically reduced. Shots against need to be significantly reduced, and shots for need to be seriously increased.
There are serious areas of concern on this team right now, and once again, good goaltending is masking the problems.
I realize that we lost against the cup champs by 1 goal when we previously were treated as door mats by them, but if I told you before the game started that Crosby and Malkin both be held pointless, I'm pretty sure you'd reasonably confident in the game's outcome.
Again, not having seen the game, I can only read in to what the stats tell me, and I don't see any positives other than Price's save percentage.
If we go back to last Tuesday's game vs Toronto and go right through last night's game, the Canadiens have played poorly in every game except against Boston on Centennial night. At best, they've played highly suspect hockey. Yes they won a vs Philly (who was mired in an abysmal slump) and they beat the Senators on the road. To me they all feel like empty victories, as the Canadiens continue to rack up points despite themselves.
Perhaps a little harsh, but I don't think there's any argument to be made that the Canadiens are "for real". A large percentage of the Canadiens points are due to goaltending; either the brilliance of Price/Halak or the shoddyness of opponents (i.e. Boucher, Elliott, Garon, Toskala, etc).
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