Bruins Lose in SO, Narrowly Avoid Historically Bad Shut-Out Streak

On a night that saw the Boston Bruins dominate the scoring chances department, it was this save that kept the B's in it tonight at a critical moment in the second period. Sure, they lost the game. But is anyone else just happy they scored a fucking goal? The Bruins are in sad state of affairs, to be sure.

No one could finish tonight and that proved to be their undoing. The Habs took advantage of the one real bad mistake the Bruins D made at their blue line and sure enough it ends up being enough to get them into a shootout, and eventually the win.

So, there's your silver lining: they played better than they have and score A goal. One. That's it. Wheeee.

Oh, and I think Maxim Lapierre has taken over as my most hated player on the Habs. That guy is a douche.

Bruins Throw the Habs Off the Cliff, Sweep Series

With apologies to Steven Colbert, Canada's number one threat: Bears

Holy shit does this feel good. The Bruins just blew Montreal straight out of the water in game 4 by a score of 4-1 and if that doesn't make you smile then you should take a moment to re-evaluate your internet browsing skills(z?).

I'd break down the game, but it was quite simple. The Bruins were better. Much better.

How many times did you see a Bruin win a battle in corner, make that extra pass, or clear out a juicy rebound in front of Tim Thomas. These Bruins came in with a solid game-plan and executed it from start to finish. Don't do anything dumb, don't get baited, and just work harder.

Maybe my favorite moment of tonight came in the 3rd when Mike Komaserik grabbed Milan Lucic after a little contact along the Habs bench and roughed him up for no apparent reason. Luc glares at him, ducks out in between the linesmen, and glances back with a grin and heads for the bench. What does Mike get for his trouble? A game misconduct. That was the series in a nutshell.

Perhaps Jack put it best when he said "have a great summer, Mike". Damn straight.

Game, set, match. So long, suckers. In the language of the great city of Montreal: Via con dios, Les Habitants.

Bring on the Rangers (maybe?) and their poorly, poorly lit arena.

Game Notes Haiku: Bruins Withstand Habs Best Effort, Take 3-0 Series Lead

Fans boo our anthem
their coach, goalie, team, et al
Tuesday will be sweet

Habs: We care for nothing Lebowski

I wrote this yesterday afternoon, but couldn't post it. Bear with me:

Uli and his band of Canadiens approach tonight, Nihilistic and ready to rob us of our dreams. Is Uli from Quebec? No. Do I care? No. Ride with me on this.

The Canadiens have knocked us out of the playoffs three times since 2001, including twice when we were the Division champs and held home ice. The Canadiens are lucky to be in the playoffs, as one of the most penalized teams in the league, one of the worst defensive teams in hockey, and show up as literally the walking wounded with their second best forward (Lang) and best defenseman (Markhov) gone for the series. Do you think these Canadiens care about anything? Do you think, seriously, that they have anything to lose? If you do, get outa Malibu, Lebowski!

There’s only one expectation from fans in Montreal now (I know some, so trust me) - make it respectable. If they win, we’re the humiliated, sad, sorry excuse for a franchise that they always make us out to be. If we win, big deal, they were hurt and we’re not.

One of my favorite sites for analysis, if you’re looking for something intelligable that is, is Puck Prospectus. The same sabremetric wizards that gave us VORP in baseball, now give us GVT (goals versus threshold, read more here) in hockey. They have a phenomenal preview of the series available here.

Great tidbits…

1. Did you know that Tim Thomas posted the second best save percentage mark EVER? Only DominiK Hasek in 98-99 did better (by 0.004).

2. The Canadiens are one of 8 teams in the NHL to allow more than 10 Shorties this year (11).

3. The Bruins rank 3rd in offensive GVT and the Canadiens rank 25th in defensive GVT (eeeeek!)

4. I’m stuck in an airport right now…wait, that’s not pertinent.

Montreal fans are pumped up, no doubt, but from a pure hockey standpoint, they’ve got to be about as fired up for this series an LA cop searching for a tape deck who’s working in shifts with no good leads. But statistics to not apply anymore. What applies now is what the teams leave on the ice in these next two weeks. Can the Bruins bury the ghosts of Quebec Separatist past? Can the Canadiens muster the consistency to stay with the young B’s for 6 or 7 games? One thing’s for sure, a longer series favors the Habs. If you don’t love every inch of this, hockey just isn’t for you.

Go B’s!!!

Game of the Night: It's, well, a mess

Herb Brooks: "That look like Hockey to you?
{pauses}
"To me it looks like two monkeys trying to hump a football"

Sounds about right for the fight at the bottom of the Eastern conference playoffs. In tonight's "Game of the Night" let's focus on two games...a double dippah!!!

First, the 4th place Flyers host the 9th (technically tied for 8th) place Panthers in a must win for both. If Philly loses, they lose the division to NJ and could easily drop out of having home ice in the coming days. If the Panthers lose, well, they get to keep the football and are a day closer to playing golf, folks.

The second game is Montreal visiting the NY Rangers. This battle of 7th vs. 8th is crucial to both teams.

Coming out of tonight, we could very well have the following scenario battling it out for the last two spots...

6. PIT - 93 pts
7. NYR - 92 pts
8. MTL - 91 pts
9. FLA - 91 pts

Talk about a barn-burner for the last two seeds. The other key is that Slug-a-lo is hanging back with 85 points and 3 to play, so wins by the Habs and Cats all but elminates the Slugs from contention. Watch these games closely, now, as the Bruins first round opponent is definitely coming out of this group. You heard it hear first (like that was difficult to predict).

Oh, and the B's play some clowns in Ottawa tonight, too. Can you guess what Wideman's thinking below?

Game of the Night

Alright, thanks to the wonders of NHL network (both online and via cable) i'm going to make a concerted effort to introduce a new segment for the stretch run of the regular season.

It's called: Game of the Night. Usually, this won't involve the Bruins. The idea being to get a look at Eastern Conference playoff contenders in games that preferably have implications on the standings right away.

Last night's winner: Sabres (10th seed, 78 points) hosting the Panthers (9th seed, 81 points).

The story: Down 3-1 in the third, the desperate Sabres score two even strength goals followed by a PPG in 2:07 (!) to go up 4-3 and add an empty netter for the win. In doing so, they pull to within 5 points of the crumbling Canadiens and their 8th seed while hurting the other team they need to hurdle. This is the type of loss that could kill the young Panthers, though the fact that they were on the road will likely lessen the blow. Game video highlights can be seen on the Game Center at NHL.com, here.

To watch tonight: Florida (on the road again) in Philly (probably a season determining game for the Panthers)

Also in action: TB in MTL (Can TB push the Habs towards the cliff some more?)

Canadiens' fans have seen this movie before

The last time Bob Gainey (can do no wrong apparently) fired a coach in the middle of a winning season - it was our own Claude Julien.


James Murphy over at NHL.com points out exactly this today, as Julien was axed by Gainey (who took over) in 2005. The result? A first round exit from the playoff that they were already in line to make.

Julien told reporters "It's never fun to hear that one of your colleagues has been let go,...When it comes to that, we're very supportive of each other." Obviously this is despite the "behind the bench" antics we saw over the last 21 months of hockey between Montreal and Boston, including some very heated screaming matches from bench to bench during last season's playoffs. Maybe Claude will buy Guy an appletini to make him feel better!

Seriously though. Of course Julien is sympathetic. Forgetting about the simple concept that coaches have respect for one another, especially those who've worked for the same GM, it's worth noting that Julien also got fired during a winning season AGAIN in New Jersey. I'd like to personally thank the Devils for that moronic move. I guess it doesn't matter who coaches them - as long as it's not Jacques Lemaire, who, as i've noted repeatedly in this space, ruined hockey for 10 years - but we're very glad to have the big bald man behind our bench.

The real issue here worth noting is Gainey's behaviour and the cohesion of our blue blanc et rouge rivals. They bring in Larocque and then tell him he's not wanted because the coach doesn't like tough guys? Only they follow that up by bringing a total Goon up to fight Chara for one shift? There's a littany of examples like this, including the firing of a guy with a WINNING RECORD, that really just says to me - a passionate observer - that they aren't together as an organization, much less a team.

My point? This is not new to Canadiens fans and as much as this writer likes to see them cry, this is just sad. The league is at its best when the marquee franchises are well run, and i am simply not convinced that this is the case anymore in Quebec. Let's hope they right the ship for a few more weeks, because i was really looking forward to watching them lose in the playoffs!

The Frogs Get Slightly Less French, Fire Guy Carbonneau

News came in today that Guy Carbonneau is out as head coach of your beloved Montreal Canadiens. With a career coaching record of 124-83-23, he wasn't all that bad but not all that good either.

As a player he was a solid 2 way guy, winning three Selke's in the 90s. A pretty popular dude with the the Stars and the Frenchies. His number was actually not worn the year after he retired from the league in 2000 as result of a petition from the Stars fans. Ain't that special!

Don't worry, I sent him a card to make sure he knows that we're all thinking of him ...

He did WHATS?!!!?@?@?

Ovechkin. Alexander. Boom.

As a hockey fan, it's impossible not to smile/jaw drop when viewing this. I will always endorse posting videos of this guy, because he's simply the most exciting player we've had since Gretzky. Fuck Crosby. He's great, but there's a reason he's on the Penguins...its where Lemuiex played, and Mario was always second fiddle to Wayne. Oh, and a lesser man might feel bad for Carey Price...but here, we just laugh at him. That he started the All-Star game is a j0ke.

So here. enjoy.