Game 18: Canadiens 2, Oilers 6

The Canadiens lost the first game of this road trip to the Oilers 6-2, a defeat reminiscent of last year's travails, with an initial encouraging surge by the Canadiens, undone by a lack of opportunism, especially on the powerplay, and wobbly goaltending.  We're not going to overreact, the Canadiens usually struggle on their Canadian West swing, but Pierre Houde wryly observed that a lot of what ails the team right now could be cured with an injection of Shea Weber.

Some notes and thoughts that occurred during the game.

--RDS' 'Confrontation', the attempt to resurrect the HNIC "Showdown" of yesteryear, is a little lame, lacks the drama of its predecessor, but that may be due to the fact that I was a wide-eyed ten-year old when that feature was on.

--But who do you think the unnamed 'Gardien Rétro' goalie is?  Is he just some nameless guy, or will there be a big reveal at the end?  That mask he's wearing... very Bernard Parent-like, although I'm sure it isn't him.  I might think early Michel Larocque, but of course...

And gah, Mario Tremblay and Benoit Brunet as analysts...  Pierre Houde and Marc Denis are beyond excellent, but the period breaks on RDS are not great this season.

--I guess I'm forgetting François Gagnon and Pierre LeBrun doing their 'Les Informateurs', that's actually a really good segment.

--Man, Edmonton had McJesus and Draisaitl on the same line, double-shifting, killing penalties.  Not a bad strategy with such great players, but what a signal to the rest of the league about their lack of depth.

I guess I'd rather have their problems than ours.  Although I might have to rethink this real hard, the Milan Lucic contract, the lack of defencemen, ...

--Andrew Shaw scoring goals, producing, making a difference, complementing two linemates on the Top 6, that's the Andrew Shaw I can get behind.  Still a steep contract, and the acquisition cost still smarts, essentially the two second-rounders would have netted us Samuel Girard and Alex Debrincat, for sure, but at least Andrew is now pulling his weight, instead of dragging the team down.

--We did get an early goal tonight, from Max Domi natch, but it wasn't the opening goal, giving the Canadiens the early lead, as we've almost grown accustomed to, it pulled us into a tie.  Somehow, some way, the Canadiens have found the back of the net this season, found a path to victory.  This felt more like previous seasons, when we'd try to take comfort in a moral victory, having won the Corsi battle, having thrown a lot of rubber at the opposition goalie, but grumbling about puck luck.

--Is it just me, or does the ‘reverse V-H’ create more problems than it solves?  Maybe the gaffes just stand out more, and we don’t notice when the goalie slides effortlessly from one post to another for an easy save, but man do those goal flubs look glaring.

Antti Niemi just now let a bad goal in with an imperfect application of that technique against the Oilers' Drake Caggiula.  Yeah, the execution isn’t textbook, and I understand the theory behind the ‘reverse V-H’, I’m just wondering whether it’s a manoeuvre that is bound to fail a significant number of times, what with the contortions it involves. Can a goalie flawlessly routinely perform this technique, or is it bound to fail part of the time, given the complications.

--Carey Price takes the net Thursday in Calgary.  Pas d'excuses.