Saturday, 28 September 2019

Pre-season Game 7: Canadiens 4, Senators 3 (OT)

We were all prepared to be gloomy and pessimistic, but an in extremis win by les Glorieux, literaguratively snatching victory from the jaws of defeat made this a happy ending to the pre-season and renders us entertained and merely fatalistic about the prognosis for our favourite team this season.  Nick Suzuki slam-dunked his inclusion on the opening night roster with a beauty effort and an unassisted overtime goal.



The Canadiens and the Sens played a chippy game, starring major intestinal pain Brady Tkachuk for one.  Now that the Leafs have dispatched Nazem Kadri, I thought the other Ontario team was just one Borowidjotectomy away from also icing a lineup constituted solely of talented players, but the second son of Keith will be another despondingating jerk on that roster, I'd forgotten.  Hopefully our couple of tough defencemen will be enough to counter them, because our only forward with size, Joel Armia, comes in Vanilla-Lite flavour only.  It was good to see Ben Chiarot take issue with Bobby Ryan's tap/slash on Carey and discuss the matter thoroughly with him.


The Canadiens aren't a finely-honed machine as of yet.  Max Domi isn't playing like the reformed ruffian and reigning #1 centre he incarnated last season, but rather like the distracted dissolute cheap-shotting despicable faux-tough guy he was in Phoenix.  Jesperi Kotkaniemi had the lowest icetime of all Canadiens forwards.  Jonathan Drouin was sequestered in the pressbox like a débutante with chicken pox.  It's doubtful this team is ready to charge out of the blocks as as we've grown accustomed to since 2013 and the Therrien administration.

Cale Fleury had another good solid outing, with 15 minutes of icetime, 3 shots on goal (and a near-miss on a goal when he rushed the net from the blue line) and 4 hits.  Marc Bergevin will probably have to tell the kid to get a place in TMR somewheres, kind of halfway, but closer to the Nouveau Forum than to Laval.

Carey Price had a doozy of a mishandle on the Sens' third goal by Filip Chlapik.  Let's hope that this is his lowlight in that department for the year.  Some fans will get on him about it, no doubt, but I grew up watching the escapades of Ken Dryden stiltwalking around his net, handling the puck with whimsical ineffectiveness that made us pine for Michel Laroque, ungrateful little shits that we were.  So I give Carey two or three mulligans a year on these, seeing as his puckhandling is usually flawless and assured and doesn't get noticed, like when a holder does his job on a placekick.
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