Game 24: Canadiens 2, Bruins 3

The Canadiens, facing a depleted Bruins team missing Patrice Bergeron, Zdeno Chara and Charlie McAvoy among others due to injuries, let one go on home ice, letting the Bruins steal a win at the Nouveau Forum.

--I hate when Brendan Gallagher is compared to Brad Marchand, when talking heads make the facile comparison that both are undersized, very talented and can score goals, but are also pests and agitators.  Brad Marchand is a faker and a diver and a dirty player whose many suspensions pale in  comparison with the multitude of idiocies he commits on the regular and gets away with, like the way he licked (!) opponents during the playoffs last season, and how he jumped Lars Eller at the start of this season on the flimsiest of pretexts. 

Meanwhile, Brendan Gallagher is a tireless worker and an honest competitor.  His aggravation of opponents is caused not by dirty play or a sociopathic streak, but only due to his persistence in standing in front of their net and ability to pot rebounds and tip shots.  Compared to the creep that Brad Marchand is with his cheap shots when the ref's back is turned, Brendan is a good guy with a target on his back, who doesn't back down and takes punishment and tries to dish out in kind, to fight through the abuse, much of it after the whistle and in front of the insensate referees.

Except when he does this kind of thing:

Brendan Gallagher gets Kevan Miller below the belt right as time expires. pic.twitter.com/kjrAJ1hAIt

— Conor Ryan (@ConorRyan_93) November 25, 2018

It doesn't matter what happened before this with the Bruins defenceman that caused Gally to lose his cool, it looks really bad.  The referees were starting to give you some leeway, the benefit of the doubt, and this kind of garbage will eat into that.  And it gives idiots like Gary Galley more grist for their tiresome mill, their rote platitudes and equivalencies. 

Not cool Brendan...

--Speaking of Gary Galley, oof, him and Bob Cole, they had themselves quite the showing last night.  Bob Cole being most excited when the goal by Artturi Lehkonen was waved off, and Gary insisting that, when you slow it down, you can see the intent of the Canadiens forward to push Tuukka Rask aside, because that's the way you Zapruder something, by slowing it down frame by frame, attributing volition instead of, you know, understanding that Artturi was kind of busy being pushed from behind by Brad Marchand and falling to the ice, in that fraction of a second. 

--The 'story' of the game will be Jonathan Drouin, how he went from hero...

Jonathan Drouin just slices straight through the Bruins to get the Canadiens on the board pic.twitter.com/2hbcdSniMs

— Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) November 25, 2018

One-goal game thanks to @jodrouin27. pic.twitter.com/d9zSHIyCyO

— NHL GIFs (@NHLGIFs) November 25, 2018

... to goat...

This should be a fine/suspension. Drouin looks David Backes square in the face and crosschecks him in the face pic.twitter.com/BqxEJsOjG1

— Bradley (@BWhitesell_) November 25, 2018

... in the span of a few minutes.  His four-minute crosschecking penalty lost the game for the Canadiens, and it was described by some as selfish or ill-timed.  

I'll restate that in a heated game against the Bruins, when they're running around 'finishing checks' and gooning after whistles, picking on the smaller Canadiens, I don't have much of a problem with a Jonathan Drouin or most anyone else giving an opponent a fat lip, hitting them in the mouth instead of turning the other cheek.  I don't think it's a horrible tactic to turn into a porcupine and let them know that they won't be bullied with impunity, to send the blessed message old-school analysts prize so highly and frequently.  I prefer a truncheon in the mouth of a Bruin to a lazy hooking or tripping penalty in the offensive zone à la Galchenyuk or Eller.  I prefer Jonathan retaliate than he cower at the feet of an adversary, as Jacob de la Rose did with then-Coyote Max Domi, or Lars Eller did with Nazem Kadri.

So it was an unfortunate penalty, and it had significant consequences, but it was a penalty born not of indiscipline or selfishness in my opinion as opposed to combativeness and snarl.  You don't like the result, but Jonathan didn't choose when David Backes took a run at him.  The Bruin was coming to lay a big check on him when he didn't even have the puck, and Jonathan tried to fend him off with a spirited crosscheck that caught the Bruin's sewer mouth.  Hard to fault him for that.  

And we're a very long way away from this:

#drouin not surprised selfish player. You cant win with  players like him. Personal stats and personal agenda all about him. Long contract to eat.

— bobby dollas (@bobbydollas1) November 25, 2018

We talk often about the outlandish hype the Canadiens players are subjected to, the microscope they're under, the unrelenting pressure.  This is an example at its worst. 

Mr. Dollas had an NHL career and should know better, should be able to differentiate an error of commission from an error of omission.  Jonathan didn't cheat on a backcheck and desperately try to correct his mistake with a lazy hook.  He didn't lose sight of the scoreboard and go headhunting to settle a personal score.  He was the target himself and tried to defend himself, and it turned out badly.  

His contract is not an issue, it's in line with his peers, his comparables, and his effort and production for much of the season, after a slow start.  

Mr. Dollas now has a media career and has to get clicks and attention to earn a living I guess, but this kind of ill-timed hatchet job is the kind of thing that will kill his golden goose.  With this tweet he creates the kind of environment where players don't want to be on the Canadiens, which makes a losing team ever more likely, which makes fans turn away, which drives down viewership and clicks and media jobs, ...

So yeah, I'll roast Jonathan Drouin when he coasts through a game or sleepwalks through a scoreless streak, but I won't go along with this kind of criticism.  Keep jabbing them in the face Jonathan, I prefer that to the alternative.

--Max Pacioretty has finally shaken out of his slump and bagged another couple of goals last night, but Tomas Tatar keeps plugging along, notching his tenth of the season on the powerplay to tie the game at 2-2.  He was dangerous in the Bruins zone all night. 

--And what's gotten into Andrew Shaw?  The guy is possessed, everything he touches turns to gold.  He was near the net on Jonathan Drouin's goal, at first we thought he'd cashed in a loose puck, and he was the one who got the puck behind the net and shoveled it at Tomas Tatar for the equalizer.

7 goals, 6 assists for Shawzy, most of that coming in the last few games where he's been elevated to the first line due to injuries.  It will take some doing for Joel Armia to return to the Top 6 when he's healthy again.

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.

Game 17: Canadiens 5, Knights 4

The Canadiens aren't bulldozing any other teams lately, but they are still playing with spirit and gumption.  Tonight, they overcame a Knights team trying to win for Max Pacioretty, and pulled out a 5-4 win over the Las Vegas expansion team.

--Two brief recognition ceremonies tonight, one before puck drop for Max Pacioretty, a nice video tribute and a standing ovation for the former captain.  I'll miss number 67, despite all the naysayers.

Then, during the first commercial break, another tribute to Tomas Plekanec, who will retire from the NHL, his one-year utility forward gig not shaping up the way he wanted.  This is disappointing on an emotional level, I wish the story had a better ending, but mainly for this armchair GM it's a bummer that he couldn't contribute to the team and then reap a benefit at the trade deadline.  This year's draft crop is reportedly one of the strongest in years, so a second or third-round pick is nothing to sneeze at.

--That Tomas is being released is especially galling since, as I predicted, the Canadiens will now regret waiving Jacob de la Rose even more.  Again, to try to send him to Laval was a shortsighted move, for a short-term benefit at best.  If anyone was waived, it should have been Tomas, or Nicolas Deslauriers, since with his two-year one-way contract, he wasn't liable to be claimed, and needed to go find his game in the AHL anyway. 

--Gary Galley on William Karlsson: "He creates a lot of stuff." 

Gary Galley on the Knight forecheck: "...and they re-attack you again."

Great job, Gary.  When Bob Cole finally retires, can you go with him?  Please?

--Max Pacioretty is on a mission, he has six shots already early in the second period.

--Nice shifty goal by Charles Hudon, but did Michel Lacroix announce the goal as being Jonathan Drouin's?  I'm not sure I heard this right, but is it a case of confusing the flashy French-Canadian forwards for each other?  And I think Mr. Lacroix did correct himself later on, but that was lost in the excitement of the subsequent Andrew Shaw goal, and the non-stop nattering of Dave Randorf.

--Max Domi is indispensable, despite my loathing of his lineage and 94% of him personally.  If we were to lose his services, not only do we lose his playmaking and goalscoring and effort and defensive-zone exploits, but we'd also disconnect Jonathan Drouin, he'd go dark like when you kick out the power cord for the Christmas tree.

--The defence corps that we raved about the first ten games or so?  Not so hot these days.  Mike Reilly is no longer so prominent.  Jamie Benn had a tough game, with glaring giveaways that drew clucks from Dave Randorf.  A rusty David Schlemko took the place of a suddenly wobbly Noah Juulsen in the lineup.

--And goaltending is now an issue.  Lots of contributors to online forums have been hammering the point that Carey Price was going to be too much of a cap hit relative to his value, that an average starting goalie at an average cap hit would be a more cost-effective expenditure.  My reply to this is that it's really hard to find that animal.  The Flyers have been trying for decades to find a good goalie, never mind one on a decent contract.  Same with the Flames since Miikka Kiprussof retired, it's been a revolving door of inexpensive, ineffective goalies. 

So I was okay with spending what it costs to keep Carey, probably the most talented goalie in the world.  I figured we'd get four or five good years out of the eight we had to sign him for, that at that time we could deal with it if he fell off the pace.  The problem is, he's struggling now, in his first season on his new contract, was struggling even last season, and the one before, before he had inked his new deal. 

I figure if Carey is healthy, he'll turn it around, he's got too much skill and natural ability not to, but it'll be white-knuckle time until he does.  Antti Niemi is not rock-solid at the moment, and neither is Charlie Lindgren, despite those who would have had you believe he was ready to take over if Carey was traded, on the strength of a few good outings two years ago.  Problem is, Charlie struggled all last season in Laval, and is not having a good start this season either.

So we have to be patient with Carey, as Claude Julien tried to be tonight, giving him the night off, a rare event for him on a HNIC Saturday night.  And Antti better shape up too, we have to flip him for a second-round pick at the deadline, so let's start lining up the shutouts please and thank you.

Game 13: Canadiens 1, Lightning 4

The Canadiens come back to Earth, with the Lightning taking a 4-1 victory over the good guys.  It started out so well though...

--That opening ceremony...  Oof...  Great job by the players, good to see Yanni Gourde help out his teammates at first, they were a little unclear there, and Gally, Phillip Danault, Thomas Tatar, Carey Price, all showing great personality with their charge.

--Jonathan Drouin tries a magical pass too often on the powerplay, instead of making the easy simple pass that keeps the puck moving and the opponents, tiring them out.  Too often, he tries to go cross-ice saucer through three penalty killers and it gets cut off and cleared out.  Keep It Simple Sir.

--Vasilevski is keeping them in the game early, he's already let in the de rigueur Max Domi early first-period goal, but also made two or three great saves.  Could be 3-0 easy.

Or 1-1, Carey had a puck dribble out of his glove and skitter just past the post.

--Great fast start by les Glorieux, the recipe still works.  They've got the Lightning on their heels.  Cash in one or two goals soon boys, while the going is good.

--I'm seeing what a couple people have said they're seeing lately, that Jordie Benn has played decently, certainly better than Karl Alzner.  A good pass to Charles Hudon to spring him on a breakaway, and a chance to walk in on the Tampa goal to get a good shot off, showing patience and headiness, didn't just crank it from the blue line in a panic, he took what the scrambling defenders gave him, a clear lane to the slot.  Too bad he missed the net.

--Not quite the classic Steven Stamkos from the circle, he wasn't in the classic pose or anything, but it was effective enough, Tampa ties it 1-1 on the powerplay.

--Nicolas Deslauriers took a penalty on a hit from behind on Ryan McDonagh, our first gem from the 2007 Draft we sent packing.  Nicolas doesn't quite have the same magic he had last season.

--That Tampa goal seems to have tilted the ice back, they're bottling up the Canadiens now.  Charles Hudon gives the puck away in his own zone, and J.T. Miller puts it in the back of Carey Price's net.

2-1 for the bad guys.  Charles has lots of time to make up for his mental error.

I had to step away from the keyboard for the rest of the game, but it continued pretty much the same way.  The Lightning had control of the game, and potted two more goals in the third, one early by Steven Stamkos on a line rush, and a double-insurance goal in the last five minutes by Yanni Gourde to close the books.

Any time the Canadiens threatened, Andrei Vasilevskiy slammed the door shut.  He stopped 34 of 35 shots, while Carey made 32 saves on 36 shots.

Noticed: Mike Reilly had three great chances, three wide open looks at the net, and each time he blasted the puck off target.  He needs to take a little oomph off his shot, to not try to drill it through the net, and instead just put it on target quickly.

Next, a New York swing Monday-Tuesday against the Islanders and then the Rangers.

ADDENDUM: Jean-François Tremblay of 'La Presse' states that the Canadiens merely ran into an augmented version of themselves in the Lightning, and lost.

Rambling thoughts: Attendance, Juulsen, Alzner, de la Rose, Rocket, Scherbak

Some thoughts after the exciting win against the Capitals, and prior to a matchup with powerhouse Tampa Bay at the Nouveau Forum on Saturday night.

1)  Hockey pundit and former NHL referee Ron Fournier blasted some (few) fans who left the game against the Caps early in the third to beat the traffic. I understand leaving early when the blahs of a failed season hit, in February maybe, but not this early in the season, with the score 4-3 halfway through the third. In a game that has been high-energy, high-intensity, high-excitement. When the Canadiens are beating the odds, defying expectations, taking it to the Stanley Cup champs, giving them all they can handle.

That energy, that rocking rollicking house, back in 2010 or so, I thought that might be one of the biggest draws for attracting free agents, that opponents might think, when the Canadiens are flying and they can't hear themselves think, that it might be nice to play at the Forum in the right colours, instead of their dead barn in Brooklyn or Sunrise or wherever. The last couple of seasons, with the plodding Claude Julien approach, with the team quitting on Michel Therrien, missing the playoffs two out of three seasons, maybe that electricity was absent. Maybe it will return. If this season keeps going this way. Which it won't.

2)  I wonder if Noah Juulsen might be sent back down to Laval for half a season when David Schlemko returns. Noah's played well early, but now there are a few stumbles, a couple of bruises, maybe we send him down to regroup. Let him play bigger minutes, on special teams. Let things shake out, the trade deadline happen, then call Noah back up for the playoff run. But that's the Armchair GM in me talking, who hoards his precious assets, who wanted to send down Jeppu, which is not going to happen.

3)  Maybe instead of doing that we waive Karl Alzner, in the faint hope that another team picks him up, takes his unwieldy contract off our hands, but that is a lost cause.  We would never be that lucky.

Sometimes a player has an off year, confesses to a poor summer of conditioning due to (excuses), maybe a nagging injury in season, not adapting to his new environment. I always fear the player who signs a big huge 'last' UFA deal and subsequently comes off the 'funny vitamins', as Lenny Dykstra used to say. Now that their financial future is assured, the player's own health and future become paramount in his mind. What with a guaranteed contract and all...

Loui Eriksson is a suspect in my book, had 2-3 bad seasons in Boston, then his good resurgent pending-UFA season. Immediately upon signing a contract and arriving in Vancouver, he resumes the suck, and is now coasting through his awful (for the team and fans) contract. Not that he floats, or doesn't try, just that his, uh, downgraded training methods have taken 10% off his fastball. He's now a tomato can, instead of a reliable 30-goal scorer.

Albert Pujols is another. I couldn't believe what a beast that guy was, carved out of stone, he looked like a superhero. I'd catch glimpses of him during SportsCentre and, stupidly, think to myself "Well, there's a guy who's just naturally huge and big and strong, that's why he's slugging all these homeruns." Fast-forward to him signing that crazy contract with the Angels that'll last until he's 45, and you hear that age has caught up to him, that his numbers are way down. Then you see him again and at first don't realize who he is, he looks completely different, shrunken like a raisin. The Popeye forearms, the massive jaw, all that has gone away. I was at the pub idly watching a game, and I literally didn't recognize him when they showed him onscreen.

Anyway, I'm on a tangent, I don't think that's what is going on with Karl. He was already tailing off his last season in D.C., playing a mix of second and third-pairing minutes, being scratched in the playoffs. I was ready to pardon his first season in Montréal, thought maybe the adaptation in a bad situation was a little difficult, maybe he'd go home and train in Kelowna with Shea and the boys with redoubled intensity, after finding out that half-measures wouldn't work with the fans here.

But he came in this year and said all the right things and was given the opportunity and... zip. Nothing. No change. The system is different, and other players have responded to the change, maybe it's better-suited to them (Mike Reilly, David Schlemko), but it's meant no improvement for Karl. He is what he is. There's no there there.

At this point, I would have stomached him being a third-pairing penalty-kill guy, that we'd chew through the bad contract that way, but even that's not sustainable. We'd get better production from most other lefties in the fold.

His buyout is unwieldy. Most seasons he'd cost a mere $1M cap hit until 2025, which we can handle, but 2020-21, the year of the Looming Lockout, he's paid mostly in bonuses (there's some good agenting), so he'd cost us $4.2M on the cap. And $2.2 the next season. I'd be reduced to rooting for a lockout. I wouldn't care how much he gets if it doesn't affect the cap in a cancelled season, but 4 mill of dead money is untenable if hockey is being played. Again, in a lockout we could spend our get-out-of-jail-free card amnesties, one on Karl, one on Carey oops, I mean Andrew Shaw, and we're cruising again, wiser, never to repeat the errors of the past. Jamais plus!

A friend bats around a putative trade with Edmonton for Milan Lucic, and that has one upside, which is that you can hide a forward in a lineup more easily, bury him on the Bottom 6, maybe use him as a netfront specialist. Milan would have a purpose, a heavyweight menace who can do the second wave of the powerplay, but Karl has no use, you can't hide him on a defensive rotation, he gets exposed. He's a prototypical defensive defenceman, a dinosaur these days, and at that he doesn't even bring the nasty and the justice, like an Erik Gudbransson can. I'll take a Jared Tinordi on my squad, who can throw down, but not a Hal Gill, a mastodon pacifist.

But the obvious downside is that Milan makes $6M and his contract runs until 2023, while Karl only makes $4.6, until 2022. Out of the frying pan into the fire...

So we can't outwait Karl's contract, as we did with the Scott Gomez and David Desharnais contracts to a degree for example.  For a while they could earn their icetime if you disregarded the cap-hit. And we can't trade Karl, nobody would take him, they'd have a worse contract they'd want to unload. If that exists.

The best hope would be a Dave Clarkson-type trade, where a team that's stuck paying real dollars to a guy on IR would rather pay those real dollars to a guy who's actually performing on the ice. Maybe Florida or Phoenix has one of those guys, who we can put on LTIR and we can avoid the cap implications, but I can't think of one offhand.

Or, maybe Karl gets fed up and retires, gets a case of the 'Hossa itchies' and collects his salary as a gentleman farmer in the Okanagan. Send Joey Crusher and Lowblow to pay him a visit: "Nice neck you got there. It'd be a shame if anything happened to it..."

4)  Meanwhile, Jacob de la Rose has four games played as a Wing, no goal, no assist, no point, no PIM, -1.  Last game I checked, he had one shot on goal, one giveaway.  I think that's the game the Wings put up 7 goals.

How long before the Wings put him back on waivers, and we get to claim him back and stick him in Laval?  Although, with the preamble I just provided, my ardour cools.

5)  And the Rocket needs the help, another loss last night, against the Utica Comets.  The Rocket scored one in the third to make it 3-1, but according to the TSN 690 boys calling the game, it wasn't that close, the Comets dominated.  The Joël Bouchard paeans have slowed to a trickle.

Nikita Scherbak was having a mini-meltdown during the game, got into a slashfest at the end of the game, with an extra skater on to try to tie the game, and then he pushed and pushed, even though the refs didn't want to award any penalty.  He landed in the box or the dressing room.  

If there are indeed scouts from all over scouting the Rocket to have a look at Nikita, we're not getting a second-rounder back for him.  Heck, maybe we can now sneak him down to the AHL, if he keeps playing the way he has the last two games.

Cale Fleury got the third star though...

The 'Hossa Itchies'

(First posted on HockeyInsideOut, JUNE 21, 2017 AT 3:40 PM)

RE: Ex-NHLer Marian Hossa: 'I will not play hockey anymore'

–Mario Tremblay also retired in 1986, just before the Canadiens’ Stanley Cup run, because of that skin rash that Marian Hossa is said to be suffering from. It was described to the fans as being eczema, but not really eczema.  It drove him crazy, he couldn't sleep at night, got worse the longer he wore equipment, no matter what he did to the gear, or what doctors tried. 

He retired just short of the number of games he needed to qualify for a pension bonus, and I remember him plaintively declaring while being interviewed on Radio-Canada that he'd appeal to NHLPA czar Alan Eagleson to see if an exception could be made in his case.  We can all imagine how that went.

–Ray Ferraro did a guest spot on TSN 1040 Vancouver and brought up the equipment angle. In the olden days, with equipment made largely of felt, leather and cotton, things would get mouldy and funky pretty quick, it was a perfect situation for bacteria and fungus to grow. Nowadays with modern materials you can throw pretty much all your equipment in the washer except for your skates maybe.

–Some more cynical fans might believe that it’s convenient for the Hawks that Marian Hossa has to retire/LTIR now, when the backdiving years of his contract kick in, and he can come off the salary cap. When he was about to play for $1M per year for the next four years. And it was arguably the plan for him to retire for those four years all along, before Gary came in and changed the rules with his cap recapture nonsense.

But we at HIO will choose to celebrate his career rather than hype a conspiracy theory and tarnish his career with any putative skulduggery.

Game 12: Canadiens 6, Capitals 4

What a riproaring win by the Canadiens, a 6-4 win over the Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals, who seemed for a large part of the game as if they'd coast to victory due to their greater talent and snipeyness.  Instead, the Canadiens came up clutch in the third period and stormed back from a deficit to win it clean, outright, something we haven't seen much of this team, certainly not last season.

There were heroes on both sides tonight.  Alex Ovechkin, certainly, continued to feast on the Canadiens, cashing in one of his trademarked one-timers, and scoring a Tim Kerr-like goal by having a shot bounce off his pants and bloop over Carey Price into the net.

Lars Eller seemed like he might be the spoilsport, raise his game and steal a win in his former team's rink.  He scored two nice goals, and celebrated them with reserve, like a studied assassin.  

Brendan Gallagher piled two more goals onto his torrid start, potting two within three minutes to start the second period and give the Canadiens seeming command of the game, and making this fan start to believe, after the sobering loss against the Stars.  

Pierre Houde and Marc Denis of RDS commented how Gally had that one season with 24 goals, and the pundits credited him with a great effort but in the next breath would opine that he might not ever score that many again, that it was an outlier, until his 31 goal season last year, with the same rumbling from the analysts and experts, "career year, great job, but don't expect this kind of outburst from him again..."  Well now, Monsieur Houde said, with 9 goals in 12 games, maybe we should stop making skimpy predictions and just let him show us what he can do.  Injured and re-injured hand or no, and despite the pronouncement that it would affect his game, that he'd not be able to grip his stick or play the same, Gally just keeps on ticking.

And Tomas Tatar, who had cooled off somewhat lately, was a worthy companion, assisting on both of Brendan's goals, getting three shots of his own, and dishing out three hits, in a night when he buzzed around the ice and got the Nouveau Forum crowd to its feet a couple of times.

But the night belonged to Jesperi Kotkaniemi, who scored his first NHL goal early in the first period on a line rush three-on-two, when he fired a good wrist shot past Braden Holtby, and grinned from ear-to-ear on his way back to the bench.

More importantly, with the Canadiens trailing 4-3 late-ish in the third period, and the story portending to be of the good guys firing lots of shots but failing to score that crucial goal, he took part in a goalmouth scramble and managed to bat a puck through the Caps' goalie and into the net.  

So two goals for the young prodigy who couldn't produce until now.  This will silence the naysayers, whoever they may be, who would point to his measly point totals, to the big honking zero in his goal totals.  

Carey Price, who was singled out in a recent press conference by General Manager Marc Bergevin as a player who was doing well and worthy of his trust, but who didn't have to do everything by himself this season, kind of proved that bit of wisdom tonight, with a ho-hum performance.  Some routine miracle saves, but a .871 save percentage, on 27 of 31 shots.  In years past, that would have sunk the Canadiens, but not this season so far.  There are other game-changers in bleu-blanc-rouge.

Like Max Domi, for one.  I'm not in love, I'm not even in like, but the kid risks growing on me at some point.  He's made a specialty of scoring early or late in periods so far, and tonight, with the score tied 4-4 and many a fan expecting overtime, in the last minute he foiled an Alex Ovechkin shot attempt in the Canadiens' zone, wheeled around and took off, got a pass as he hit his stride in the neutral zone and, using John Carlson as a screen, shot the puck at Braden Holtby who flubbed the save, letting it dribble out of his glove into the net.

Off the next faceoff, with the Capitals' net empty, Joel Armia got the puck off a Phillip Danault draw and shot it in to get the insurance goal.  Mathias Brunet of 'La Presse' wrote today that if you rein in your expectations, if you don't expect him to be a big scorer, and if you appreciate what he brings to the table, 6'4" size and a right shot along with a fourth and seventh-round pick at the risible cost of taking Steve Mason off the Jets' hands, there's a lot to like in Joel Armia.

So there are still some foibles to worry about, the poor faceoff percentage (39% tonight), and Carey not being essentially blameless, a fourth-line that refuses to take shape, and Mike Reilly falling off the pace, but let's trumpet the positives, the panache, the élan of the boys.

A big win and a mood-changer, after a clunker of a loss against the Dallas Stars, and a feeling in the fandom that this loss might have been the signal of something, that maybe the magic was fading away, and reality was about to set in.  It looks like the magic carpet ride isn't over yet.

Game 11: Canadiens 1, Stars 4

The Canadiens stumble at home, losing in a decisive manner to the Dallas Stars 4-1. 

--This is the second decisive loss at home this season, the other coming against the Kings, another big strong team.  It's still early in the season, and teams are finding their legs and their identity, and it's a small sample size, but it appears as if the bigger physical teams will be the ones that give our fleet-footed group the most trouble.  This should exacerbate as the season progresses and the referees forget their marching orders and revert to form, stop calling games as strictly as they do now and 'let boys be boys', to please the Don Cherrys who infest the game.

--I missed the first period, but watched the second on RDS with Pierre Houde and Marc Denis.  At the start of the third, I thought I'd switch over to TSN, thinking I might like a dose of Gord Miller and Ray Ferraro if they happened to be on, but instead the game was called by Bryan Mudryk and Dave Poulin.  Nope nope nope, I headed back to RDS.  Nothing against Messrs. Mudryk and Poulin, they're fine gentlemen, but why make do with good enough when the superb RDS team is on the other channel?  It's really no contest.

--Generally, the broadcast decisions made by the NHL have been horrid, and there might be a realization of that, if we're to believe this column by Dave Pagnotta.  He outlines something we've discussed on here before, how the NHL might get together with its broadcast partners Sportsnet in Canada and NBC in the U.S., and spin off a chunk of games to other partners like TSN/RDS, and ESPN in the States.

This would be welcome by all hockey fans, with more hockey on more channels being an obvious benefit, and with competition forcing a better quality of broadcasts.  Sportsnet is still clownish frequently, with spelling and grammatical errors in their graphics, with Nick Kypreos and Don Cherry dumbing down the content.  Were they to reduce their outlay by selling off a chunk of games to TSN, they might be able to hire a couple more people to staff their studio, instead of apparently relying on unpaid high-school interns to do the amateurish work they offer now.  Maybe we won't see directing mistakes where the feed is switched to a camera being wheeled from one position to another, or trained on the coach picking his nose.

--The Canadiens got more shots and more hits than the Stars, but the second period decided the game, with the Stars scoring twice, with a barrage of 14 shots directed at Carey Price. 

Brendan Gallagher made the game 2-1 early in the third, but the Canadiens kept getting penalties during the game, hampering their momentum.  The Stars scored a short-handed goal and added an empty-netter.

--Pierre McGuire of NBC likes to say that hockey should be called 'goalie', so important is the position.  In this game, Carey Price stopped 18 of 21 shots.  Not bad, but there weren't any standout saves that 'kept the Canadiens in the game'.  Meanwhile, Ben Bishop, that big jerk, stopped 34 of 35 shots. 

It's a game of lucky bounces, a game of inches, and in this instance, Ben Bishop gave his team a chance to win, by making one or two more saves than Carey could. 

--It's hard to find heroes in a clear loss like this, and you don't want to focus on one game, but we saw none of the Mike Reilly 'fluidity' (as Marc Denis called it), the Thomas Tatar industry, the Jonathan Drouin artistry that we've seen previously this season.  I don't want to call it a reversion to the mean, but the Canadiens have been exceeding expectations, and if these guys don't play the passionate, inspired game they have so far early this season, they'll truly be overmatched by the more talented teams they run into, like the Caps on Thursday and the Lightning on Saturday.

--Jonathan Drouin was fiery in the right manner in the last five or six games, playing with hustle, competing, driving the play.  Tonight, he got sidetracked, battled with other players away from the play, little slashing and jawing festivals.  He pouted and yelled at the referees for their decision-making.  He wasn't focused.

Game 10: Canadiens 3, Bruins 0

Great, great win by the Canadiens, 3-0 over the dirty Bruins.  Whether we're shooting for the playoffs or a high draft pick this season, anytime we can win against Boston is fine by me.  Two first-period goals by Brendan Gallagher and Max Domi (who else?), and a bank-shot empty-netter by Jordie Benn in the third to seal the deal.

Carey Price gets his 290th win as a NHL goalie.  With this win, Carey passes Patrick Roy for sole possession of second place in Canadiens history, behind only Jacques Plante for most career wins.

Coincidentally, Carey was credited with 33 saves for his shutout.

Carey was a little lucky to earn a shutout, which I guess you need to be to play a perfect game.  The Bruins' Ted Donato scored a goal on a rush that was overturned on a challenge by Coach Claude Julien, who argued the Bruins were offside on the play.

Can we agree that if we need a slow-motion High-Definition replay to determine that a play was offside, that it then wasn't, ipso facto?  If it's close enough to good to the linesmen's eyes, doesn't that indicate that no advantage is being gained by the 'offending' team, that essentially the spirit of the rule is being obeyed?  That no one is loafing in the offensive zone waiting for a lazy long pass, that there's no cheating?

Hockey is a wonderful sport, but the NHL is a cesspool of stupidity.  Brad Marchand can lick other players in the face with impunity.  Bodychecking is legal, but not really, and you'll have to defend yourself with your fists if you try to put a shoulder on someone.  Oh, and fighting is not allowed, but then again it kinda is.  Shawn Thornton is a good guy and has a job with an NHL team doing community relations.

The NHL will stop a game mid-course and review a play for minutes on end to determine if a player's skate was a millimetre past the blue line, but when Brad Marchand punches an opponent in the head in his underhanded Marchand way, that we can't review?  Because it wouldn't be, uh, fair?

It's hard to say if the goal reversal would have changed things, maybe the Bruins would have found their game, and the Canadiens would have gripped their sticks tighter, but heck, I'm not going to advocate for those thugs.  They swept the amorphous Canadiens of 2017-18, but they won't be pulling that stunt this year.

Charles Hudon was back in the lineup in favour of the erratic Andrew Shaw, who's been struggling to contribute without running afoul of the refs.  Tonight, it was Joel Armia and Nicolas Deslauriers who got caught behind the play and took bad penalties.  If I had to guess, Nicolas will sit out the next game, but Claude Julien may want to wake up Mr. Armia with a night in the pressbox. Or two.

Game 9: Canadiens 3, Sabres 4

Thoughts on the Canadiens' 4-3 loss against the Sabres.

--I loathe Max Domi 5% less after tonight's game.  (I'll impute the missing percentage to Tie Domi's account, so nothing is created or destroyed.)  Two goals and unstinting effort all game long, in all three zones.

I admit it now, Max Domi will be an amazing trade asset when we unload him off our roster so he doesn't taint the sainted bleu-blanc-rouge any further.

--RDS showed a nice graphic during their telecast, of a Mike Reilly shift in the offensive zone, where they put a red circle around him, and traced his weaving wandering trajectory around the ice with a red line.  It zigzagged and meandered all around offensive end, even behind the net at one point, and was reminiscent of those Family Circus cartoons where the little kid's odyssey is marked with a dotted line.

--When Shea Weber returns, we have a shot at having a decent defence squad, much better than I envisioned in my more pessimistic moments this summer.  Having Mike Reilly perform as he does now is a transformative factor, all of a sudden we're not banking all our hopes on sophomore tyke Victor Mete on the left side.  The kid can be allowed to progress without bearing all the considerable weight of Montréal fans' expectations.

And Jeff Petry, who had a career year last season, and could have been due for a regression to the mean, seems to have picked up where he left off.  Again, with Shea Weber in the lineup, as a second pairing defenceman on the right side, he'll be a huge asset.

--One of the moments I'll always treasure is Tim Murray's dismay at losing the Connor McDavid lottery, how he was so shocked and disheartened, even though he knew before the ping-pong balls landed that with 20% odds of winning the #1, he was 80% certain to actually get the #2 pick, and Jack Eichel instead of Connor.  I started to realize that Tim Muray might not be the genius he was being hyped to be, that he wasn't certain to sampollock the Sabres into an unbeatable juggernaut.

And I thought he was being a jerk to his eventual star player, by signalling his disappointment so clearly, instead of having rehearsed his version of the classic GM line in this situation, that "whatever happens, we're getting a fantastic player and great person, we can't lose this lottery draw, blah blah blah".  He certainly was acting as if Jack Eichel was the steak knives in this scenario, the 'Price is Right' showcase without the car.

But watching the game tonight, it came to me that maybe Tim Murray's scouting was prophetic.  Jack Eichel was nearly invisible, with no points, although he was credited with four shots and four hits.  At no time did he grab your attention though, like a Sasha Barkov or a Sean Monahan will, make you sit up and think "That kid's really good", covetously.

--Andrew Shaw...

Years ago I'd dejectedly navigate over to CapGeek and see how much longer to run out the clock on the Scott Gomez contract, and then while I was there despair at Brian Gionta, Mike Cammalleri, Tomas Plekanec, the too-rich contracts for pretty good players, the overpayment for UFAs to acquiesce to a Canadiens contract.  I'd gnash my teeth at Tomas Kaberle.

Nowadays, I rue the Andrew Shaw and Karl Alzner deals on CapFriendly.  It's not that Andrew Shaw is horrible, it's just that, at his level of compensation, he can't have the brain cramp games like tonight's, with no points and another penalty taken, after the costly penalty in the Calgary game.  He'll struggle to score enough points and show tangible leadership in the room and fire on the ice to justify his generous contract, let alone the acquisition cost to bring him here.

Because when I think of those two juicy second-round picks we gave Chicago, I don't in my mind's eye picture a swing and a miss by Trevor Timmins on those choices, I daydream about Alex DeBrincat and Samuel Girard.  Those two players would assuredly, unquestionably have been the choices we'd have made, I assure myself as a hindsight-gifted armchair GM.  And who in their right mind trades those two young stars-in-the-making for an overpaid Andrew Shaw?  How much better off would we be with those two in the lineup, a mere two seasons after their draft?

--Antti Niemi faced a barrage of shots, and Pierre Houde remarked a few times that this was an atypical performance by the Canadiens, who have been stingy in allowing shots usually this season.  Still, I was lulled into a sense of complacency, was counting this game as won, and even when the Sabres tied it up in the third, figured it was a minor annoyance, that we'd win in overtime.  Maybe I'm starting to believe?...

--I'll broken-record on Jesperi Kotkaniemi again.  Four assists in nine games, some nice plays, nice flashes, you can see the player he might become, but still, no impact on the game.  "Oh, he went after the player who crashed into Price!", as if that's reason enough to keep him in the NHL.

Tonight, he got trucked by Kyle Okposo, and as a jaded, cynical Canadiens fan, I'm convinced he'll get injured during the season, some Nazem Kadri or Kevan Miller is going to run him into the boards from behind, and the kid's spine will fold like an accordion, and then we'll rue.

Send the kid back to Finland with a pat on the back, and bring up a Byron Froese or some such from Laval.  Byron Froese will likely produce and contribute more to the cause, if we're making a run at the playoffs, if that's the goal this season.  And Jeppu will be safe(r) in Finland than here, as a callow teen playing against grown men.

If he plays Saturday against the Bruins, it'll be his tenth game and the first year of his Entry-Level Contract will kick in.  Strategically, I don't think that's the right move for the kid, and maybe not even tactically.  I don't know that having him in the lineup gives us a better chance to win, so it's not even really a win-now proposition.