On we go to the Yuletide season (and Advent chocolate time), and the Habs have a five point lead on the Bruins for first in the Northeast. The Caps are also up by five over the Lightning, and the Flyers and Pens are five clear of the Rangers. The Stars, Avs and Red Wings are the division leaders in the West.
The Leafs blew a lead last night against Tampa. Martin St. Louis scored with eight seconds left, and Simon Gagne won it overtime. Nice to see.
You can vote for the NHL All-Stars here if you haven’t done so yet. Everyone who votes gets a chance at winning a trip to see the game in Raleigh.
Carey Price is the NHL’s second Star of the month, he’s trailing only Crosby for the All-Star balloting (not bad, given as he wasn’t even on the list!) and won the Molson Cup for the second consecutive month this year. I hope December goes as well for him as November did!
It’s going to be a tough month…four sets of back-to-back games, with twice as many on the road as at home (5 vs 10…the Habs get kicked out of the Bell Centre at Christmastime!) The Oilers are up tonight…should be fun!
Stars beat the Capitals tonight with their backup goaltender, Andrew Raycroft. Too bad not even the Capitals were enough of a draw to sell out the AA center. The Stars are firing on all cylinders though and this is a nice surprise.
Credit where it’s due, but don’t take too much out of it; the Devils are awful. Not even Marty’s sterling record against the Habs could have salvaged that lackluster performance.
Four days off to rest, practice and prepare after a decent (if lucky) week that should have, at the very least, given a few guys some confidence, and they come out and drop a deuce on the ice like that.
Do not ask for whom the bell tolls, for it tolls for thee and thy non-existent offensive system and ability to turn a top 5 defense into Swiss cheese, John MacLean.
My husband thinks Guy Carbonneau should coach the Devils, and the RDS guys were throwing Bob Hartley’s name out there. I kind of like Carbonneau - he had some success getting Kovy going, perhaps he can get Kovy II going!
Even though the Devils played like shit last night, I still think there’s a lot for the Habs to take out of it; Eller, Pyatt and Pouliot all scored, which can only boost their confidence, which is something all three need. Gomez seems to be beginning to find his game as well, and I think this game will provide the coaches with lots of good footage to help him figure out what the hell is wrong with him. Price was pretty solid and managed to NOT die of boredom in that long stretch in the 3rd where nothing was happening - in the past, he’d usually give up a soft goal if left to stand around doing nothing for too long. Weber played really well and his performance will actually go a long way towards an effective discipline for Subban who needs to see that his place isn’t guaranteed (he was apparently largely ignoring instructions from the coaches against the Oilers). I think it was a strong win that they needed.
And best of all, FREE WINGS AT LA CAGE AUX SPORTS!
On the post-game show last night on RDS, the host says “Pyatt is on track for an 8 point season” to which one analyst replied “and of course Gomez scored right after; he doesn’t want Pyatt to catch up to him!”
I was pulling for Carbonneau when the question of the next head coach was up in the air after Lemaire retired. The Devils do have a good history with ex-Canadiens coaches…
Many Devils’ fans now are calling for Ken Hitchcock, believing that his authoritarian style is what the team needs–pointing out that he has a good history with Captain Mopey, Jamie Langenbrunner.
Personally, I don’t think it will matter. Whatever is wrong with the Devils goes deeper than the coach or the Captain. It’s been snowballing for several years now, and though I don’t in any way remove blame from MacLean (he’s obviously just not ready to be a HC), I don’t think anyone could succeed under these circumstances.
It’s official - Markov is out for the season. He’ll be having surgery next week to repair the same knee that had surgery last year, and then there’s the long, hard road through rehab. The poor guy must be so frustrated!
I hope this isn’t the end of his career - I want to see him back on the ice in a Habs uniform! He’s UFA at the end of the year, though, so who knows what will happen?
Full blown panic mode is in effect in Toronto. Imagine if the Bruins get another lottery pick from Toronto. That is getting more and more likely. The Laffs lost to the Oilers 5-0 and have been shut out in about 1/4 of their games.
OTOH, the Stars are looking good right now. 6 game win streak to take the division lead is nice.
As a Pens fan, watching Crosby the past couple of weeks has been awesome. He’s playing the best hockey of his career right now, and that’s saying something. Pens overall just look great, playing with consistent energy and drive. Looking forward to the rest of the season.
I’m going to puke if the Stars end up trading Richards. The team is playing great, but they don’t have a face of the franchise with Turco and Modano gone. The Stars need to make a long playoff run to get the fans excited again and they can’t do that without Richards.
Who isn’t? He reached his 200th career goal and 7th career hat trick in one night last week.
We haven’t won 9 games in a row since what, the 1998-2000 season? (Anyone who was bashing Fleury’s eating their words)
(I can only imagine how we’re going to be once Staal gets back)
Not really; he remains consistently inconsistent. His sub-par start isn’t erased by his above par play down this past stretch, and his above par play recently doesn’t mean he won’t revert to playing sub-par at some point in the near future.
He has his high points and his low points, but in the end he’s an average goalie on a good team.
Three in a row for the Habs, as they beat Ottawa 4-1 in front of the home crowd.
I’m curious if there’s any call in Ottawa for Clouston’s head. There’s a reporter out of Buffalo who thinks that Clouston could be gassed if the Senators don’t turn it around.
I don’t think Clouston deserves to be fired; then again, I don’t think Alain Vigneault should have been fired from Montreal after the 2000-01 Habs started the season 5-13-2.
Bryan Murray has fired far too many coaches already. I hope against hope that he’s the one to be shown the door before he makes another of his dumbass trades.
That non-goal at the end of overtime by the Phillies was damn, damn close. Nice comeback by my Sharks. I think it’s time for me to get into hockey. For some reason I’ve had a hard time paying close attention.
