Habs Report: Week 11 sees shaky start with blowout finish

I guess there was still some magic in the Bell Centre left over from Bon Jovi’s concert on Wednesday, because on Saturday night the Habs rocked the house.
The shooting gallery ended up with the Habs out shooting the Bruins 52-36, their first 50+ shot game since April 1996. It was a classic Montreal-Boston game with intense plays, quick goals, and brutal hits. Seven different Canadiens scored to lead the Habs to their 7-4 victory.
Cheers to the boys for defending Carey Price after a dirty trip from Jeremy Reich in the third. Boston was really letting their frustration show as the fights were rampant in the final frame. In fact they were so bad that assistant coach Kirk Muller had to be physically pulled back by head coach Guy Carbonneau so that he’d stop screaming at the ref.
Right after that, Carbo and Bruins’ head coach (and former Habs coach) Claude Julien let each other have it from their respective benches; it was just wild.
It didn’t stop there though. Zdeno Chara was ejected from the game with a whopping 19-minute penalty with just over five minutes left to go in the third. The 19 minutes was well deserved mind you. After throwing a nasty elbow to Alexei Kovalev’s face and then pummeling Guillaume Latendresse it was clear that his time on the ice was done.
All in all this game was a treat for the fans, as a sellout crowd of 21,273 people enjoyed a good old-fashioned Hometown vs. Beantown rivalry.
Let’s rewind a little bit here, because the rest of the week was a disaster. The Habs did not deserve to win the game vs. Toronto on Tuesday night. The whole team seemed off; even guys like Andrei Markov took several bad penalties, very uncharacteristic for him.
Mike Komisarek’s OT goal was great even though it resulted from a horrible play by Toronto. He still had to show some awareness to get the puck when he did so far ahead of the defense. Cheers to him, he plays with heart, and even though he takes sloppy penalties every now and then, he always delivers. Kovalev’s shot was so fast it was hard to even see the puck.
Overall, they were horribly outplayed and out shot. but when it’s against Toronto, true Habs fans will take a win no matter how it comes!
Friday’s game against Buffalo was even worse than their performance against Toronto. It was like watching a high school team play a university team: boys vs. men. It was just a nightmare. I’m sure that people were actually turning off their TVs all across Quebec.
They just couldn’t pull it together; they were beyond disorganized. The only good part of the night was that Michael Ryder broke his horrific drought by scoring their only goal of the evening.
Some say Cristobal Huet should have been pulled, but in all truth his defense left him out to dry. He did all he could but with no help from the other five players on the ice it’s no wonder they lost miserably.
It was a rocky week, but to date the boys are 11-5-3. not too shabby! With Ottawa on Monday, the Islanders on Wednesday, and back-to-back games against Buffalo on Friday and Saturday, it’s going to be a wild week.

Check back next Tuesday for a recap of how the boys did throughout their four-game week.

Comments are closed.

Related Posts