Dennis Kane’s Excellent Montreal Canadiens Blog

It’ll be a very interesting remainder of November for the Montreal Canadiens. The boys are in Ottawa now, (Kanata, way to the west of the city, where the rink is), getting ready to take on the dysfunctional Senators.

Then they’re at home Saturday to beat the Bruins, and we all know what this game means. It’s Patrick Roy Sweater To The Rafters Night.

Then the boys sleep in their own beds and wait for the Islanders on Monday.

After that, it’s a two game road trip, when they travel to Detroit next Wednesday, and then swing over to Washington for a Friday game against the Caps.

They then close out the month the following Saturday when the Sabres visit.

What does all this mean? 

It means every game will probably be a struggle for our struggling guys. Let’s see - Ottawa, Boston, the Islanders, Detroit, Washington, and the Sabres. How many games will they win here?

Boston and Detroit should be tough ones. The Sabres and Washington will also be no picnic. Montreal seems to play flat in Washington. I went to a game there in the 1980’s with a bunch of guys on a beer-soaked, rented car roadtrip, and the Habs lost 5-0.  

And opening game this year in Buffalo, the Habs lost in a shootout and were flat, a sign of things to come.

If all the stars and planets are in alignment, Montreal should kick the Islanders ass.

Which brings us to Thursday night’s game in Ottawa. The Senators have stunk this year. There’s no other way to say it. It’s a team in turmoil, it seems. I don’t know why. They’ve got Alfredsson, Heatley, and Spezza, for goodness sakes. That’s a lot.

But I suppose they’re missing most everything else, although journeyman goalie Alex Auld has been better than expected.

Montreal needs to start in Ottawa, pick up steam, and make their presence felt in all these games mentioned. Their power play needs to explode. They have to quit taking ridiculous penalties, which I blame Guy Carbonneau for. A Stanley Cup contender is a disciplined team.

Alex Kovalev needs to break out. Why does he feel he needs to be pretty on the ice? Pretty doesn’t usually work. Power works. And as Kovalev goes, the team goes. We saw this last year.

Carey Price needs to play at least five of the six remaining November games, preferably all six. The Kostitsyn boys, both of them, have to play like last year, although Andrei has been fairly good. Sergei hasn’t.

The defence has to tighten up. Price faced 48 shots in Carolina. That’s unacceptable.

Also, they’re showing that they’re weak clearing the puck. It can’t be that difficult to shoot the puck out. But other teams have seemed to have figured out how to stop it. Why is that? Carbonneau again, I think.

And I’ll mention it again. Quit taking stupid penalties. It kills momentum. The gunners sit on the bench while the penalty killers work. How can Carbonneau stop this insanity? Start benching those who take bad, ill-timed penaties. Do something.

In my book, the penalty-taking is the biggest killer of all. 

The goods news is, Montreal has played less games than most, only 15.

The bad news is, they’re in tenth place overall, with Buffalo, Vancouver, Minnesota, Washington, Boston, Pittsburgh, Detroit, the Rangers, and the Sharks all above them, with the Sharks leading the pack.

The really bad news is the Toronto Maple Leafs are only two points behind them, although the Torontonians have played three more games.

Regardless, the Leafs shouldn’t be in the same air space as Montreal. Vancouver shouldn’t be ahead of them. And I hate it when Boston’s ahead of them.

Start turning this around tonight, boys, when you play St. Louis. Otherwise, me and a handful of other bloggers are going to have to take the team over and do the coaching.

At least Ottawa lost, so that’s good.  But then again, Toronto won. So that cancels out the good part.

Oh, and there was a game at the Bell Centre.

Chalk that one up to one of those nights, forget about it, and move on. Because nights like this, a lousy 6-4 loss to the Ducks, are gonna happen. It’s a long season.

We just don’t want it to happen too often. Almost never, as a matter of fact.

We could say the five-day layoff made the team rusty, and that might be true.

Or we could say that Jaroslav Halak stunk, and that might be true too.

And we could say the Habs just didn’t have it on this night, although they fired 51 shots at J.S. Giguere.

The fact is, the Canadiens played their poorest of their seven games so far this season (although opening night in Buffalo was pretty bad too), and the Ducks, just like I was worried about, have used this little eastern road trip to snap out of their doldrums, having also beaten Toronto and Ottawa on previous nights.

Watching Halak reminded me of so many nights from recent years, when you never knew what kind of goaltending you were going to see, and far too often, weak goals were scored on the good guys. It was discouraging for the skaters, and nerve wracking for fans whenever the puck made its way inside the blueline. But that changed, for the most part, with the arrival of Carey Price.

Halak didn’t have it, allowing four goals in a period and a half, and was replaced by Price, who’s been fighting the flu all week. Price wasn’t tested a whole lot and gave up two goals, which is a whole lot better than giving up four goals.

You have to wonder what the outcome would have been if Price had started. 

On the positive side, Alex Tanguay notched a couple more to make it five in seven games, and Saku Koivu and Tom Kostopoulos also bulged the twine.

That’s it for positives.

Next Up:

The Carolina Hurricanes are in town on Tuesday. The game may be televised back in Raleigh as long as there’s no car racing and high school basketball going on.

Now that the dust has sort of settled on getting the season underway, it’s a little disturbing to see the Buffalo Sabres playing so well. They have the same record as Montreal - 4 wins and a shootout loss for nine points, for goodness sakes. Even with those George Jetson jerseys.

The Sabres will come back down to earth shortly. I’m sure they will.

There’s good news, though, and the good news is that the Philadelphia Flyers, the team Steve Downey plays for, hasn’t won yet in five games. It doesn’t get much better than that!

The Florida Panthers are in Montreal Monday night to play the Habs. I know I say every game that the two points that night are extra important for the Canadiens,  so I’ll just say it again. These two points are extra important for the Canadiens. Gotta catch those Rangers.

Florida should be in Hamilton. Or Halifax, or Winnipeg, or Saskatoon, or Quebec City.

Why is there hockey in Miami, Florida?

I know there’s lots of snowbirds in Florida who are big hockey fans, but that’s not good enough. The team’s drawing only around 12,000 a game, and so now they’re giving away a pair of free tickets as long as you can show a Florida driving license. Miami people need to be at dog races and jai alai tournaments. Not hockey games.

Also interesting in the standings is Tampa Bay’s start. They’re winless after five games. And this with two new owners, the firing of coach John Tortorella, and the hiring of Barry Melrose. So it’s not going well for all concerned except Tortorella, who’s now providing reasonable thoughts on TSN. (Except for his prediction of who will win the Cup.)

Montreal sits in second place in the east with those bastard Buffalonians, with the Rangers leading with 13. But New York has played several more games than anyone else so the standings are slightly cockeyed. And there’s a handful of teams just behind Montreal and Buffalo, like New Jersey, Pittsburgh, and Washington.

San Jose’s leading the west with St. Louis, Minnesota, and Edmonton hot on the trail. Both Edmonton and Minnesota are undefeated at 4-0.

And John Tortorella thinks San Jose will win the Cup.

It was one of those long nights Toronto Maple Leaf coach Ron Wilson and GM Cliff Fletcher predicted would happen this year as the Leafs are in the early stages of struggling and rebuilding. Not to mention they’re a team made up of unknowns.

And the best thing is, this long night was against the Montreal Canadiens, who rolled over the hapless Leafs 6-1 in front of a less-than- happy Leaf crowd. (with dozens of Habs jerseys sprinkled about).

Montreal dominated in every aspect, from Jaroslav Halak playing solid in goal, to a deadly power play (3 for 8), to Alex Tanguay having a goal and three assist night, to Sergei Kostitsyn chipping in with two goals and an assist, and Guillaume Latendresse helping out with a goal and two assists. 

What a far cry from Fridays spotty effort in Buffalo when the Habs dropped a 2-1 shootout loss. And the big question is - how did the Detroit Red Wings lose to the Leafs a couple of nights ago?

Montreal showed all the signs Habs fans have been looking for, especially the potent power play, firewagon hockey, a cavalcade of chances, and the way newcomers Alex Tanguay and Robert Lang have come through so far.

The Leafs, to their credit, hit three or four goalposts, but Montreal also hit a few, and they had enough chances to make this a 10-1 game, which wouldn’t have sit well with Don Cherry.

Don didn’t like the idea that the Canadiens kept pouring it on late in the game with the score 6-1. I say pour it on. Help Kostitsyn get his hattrick. Pad the stats of the power play with a couple more. Let Kovalev pop another because for the Habs to be successful Kovalev has to be as good or better than last year, and that’s a big order.

Hell, let everyone pad their stats. It’s a long year, with dry spells along the way. Get em while the gettins good. The hell with the Leafs and Don Cherry. This is a business, not a San Francisco love-in.

Cherry had another rant on Coach’s Corner when he went on with another classic but somewhat tired bit about European kids taking Canadian kids’ jobs. Basically, I agree with a lot of what Don says. Not all, but a lot. But I think it’s all starting to get a bit old now. Maybe him and Bob Cole should join a lawn bowling league.

On Monday the Canadiens are in Philadelphia, and this will be a huge test. For those with short memories, it was the Flyers who knocked Montreal out of the playoffs last year. And TSN hippie Pierre McGuire predicts Philadelphia, not Montreal, to win the Eastern Conference and challenge Detroit for the Stanley Cup.

So there’s big motivation for the Canadiens to win on Monday. And it’s always good when McGuire is proved wrong.

GAME NOTE: Montreal starts the season off with three points out of four.

SURPRISING TEAM OUT OF THE GATE:  Vancouver Canucks

Through the din in the bar in downtown Courtenay, I saw the game. The sound was turned off, AC DC and Carrie Underwood warbled in the background, the guy beside me and his girlfriend talked for almost two hours on their cellphone to someone about good deals on cars, then I heard him say goodbye mom, and a guy playing pool almost broke his back falling over when he won 25 bucks on pull tabs.

But I saw the game and I take back everything nice I said about Buffalo and the Buffalo Sabres. From here on in, it’s war with the Buffalo Sabres. 

Montreal played sloppy. They took stupid penalties (hello Steve Begin), couldn’t finish quality scoring plays, and the Sabres bumped them around more than the Canadiens bumped the Sabres around.

And they may as well not even shown up for the shootout.

So now it’s up the road to Toronto to play the team that just beat the Detroit Red Wings.

It’s gonna be no problem. As long as there’s no stupid penalties, better passing, more quality scoring chances, and more toughness from big guys like Ryan O’Byrne. And as long as Toronto stinks like they’re supposed to stink.

And I know Saku Koivu played because I saw him. I’m pretty sure it was him, at least someone wearing number 11. Whoever it was, he looked like me when I played after dropping some purple microdot acid. 

I saw flashes of nice play from the Canadiens, a touch of firewagon hockey here and there, but the Habs just looked out of sorts. Buts it’s only game one. Although, how come the Sabres didn’t look as out of sorts as they did? Must have been the home crowd.

The team seemed physically outmatched. Looks to me like we need Dangerous Goods Laraque to get back as soon as possible.

I’ll be back in my living room tomorrow night for the Leafs game. It’s only the beginning of the season and  I’m already running out of patience.

At least they got a point out it.

Maybe I can get it on the hotel TV. I don’t know. But all I know is I’m in Courtenay BC for two days for a Dangerous Goods course (Ferries-related stuff that some of the crew, including me, need to know) and timing is less than great, this being opening night for the Canadiens against the Buffalo Sabres.

The course couldn’t have been yesterday, or last week or next week, or last month. Nope. It had to be opening night.

I don’t know if I’ll be able at all to post anything relevant to this special night so I’d like to suggest that for absolutely everything you’ll want to know about what went on tonight, just read Robert at Eyes on the Prize. He’ll fill you in like nobody else can.

And while you’re at it, have a look at a bright lady in Buffalo who loves her Sabres, and you can get a different perspective from her. She’s really fun to read, she makes you smile, she’s a talented writer, and I think deep down she likes Maxim Lapierre just a little bit. But she’s all-Sabres through and through. She just turned twenty one, and she’s great. She’s Danielleia at Sabre Kallisions.

Meanwhile, I’ll be moping about, watching for highlights on TV in the bar while eating honey garlic chicken wings and drinking cold draught.

You know what? On second thought, maybe this won’t be so bad afterall! And who knows, the game might even be televised in the pub.

Later on I could do a post about Dangerous Goods. It would be riveting.  I could even tie Georges Laraque, who’s still having groin problems, into it somehow.

George ‘Dangerous Goods’ Laraque.

The thing about the Buffalo Sabres, who the Canadiens play Friday night in their season opener, is that for the most part, they’ve been fun to watch over the years, with the French Connection, Scotty Bowman, Punch Imlach, Tim Horton, and that little pipsqueak Daniel Briere, all doing their thing, many of them, or most of them, at the old Memorial Auditorium.

And did I mention the French Connection?

But then there’s the Sabre sweater, which looks like it came from George Jetson’s closet.

Certain teams must sometimes ask themselves the question - what was so wrong with the original sweater?

I’d probably like the Sabres slightly more if they were in the west instead of the east. But because they’re in the east, they’re going to be trying their best to be right up there in the Eastern Conference standings, which means they’re gonna try and beat the Habs.

And I have no time for such attitude.

The city of Buffalo itself might as well be in Canada. It’s close to the Canadian border, just down the road from Niagara Falls, and their snowstorms are as good or better than ours. I don’t know if folks there say “eh” but it wouldn’t surprise me. And they have a rich sporting history, with major and minor league baseball teams over the years, and of course the Buffalo Bills of the NFL.

And Buffalo had the Buffalo Bisons, a great American Hockey League team for years (1940-1970) but got bumped aside when the Sabres came into being. So Buffalo is a good, solid hockey town. How can it not be, with all those snowbanks, ice, and chicken (Buffalo) wings?

 Like I said, it might as well be Canadian.

Montreal needs this opening game. A nice jump out of the gate would be good, get the ball rolling, grab a quick two points, and then head up to Toronto to play the Leafs, a team which needs no introducton. They don’t deserve it.

So the Canadiens season begins on Friday, and it’s about time. Summers are nice and all that, but the road to the Stanley Cup trumps all the beaches, canoes, and frisbee-throwing out there.

And they have to start by beating those Sabres, eh?  

Pittsburgh doesn’t worry me. Either does Boston, or Buffalo, or Tampa Bay, or the Rangers. Calgary doesn’t worry me, or Dallas, Anaheim, Vancouver, and Colorado.

In fact, no team worries me about getting in the way of Montreal’s big season. Except Detroit. They worry me. Not a lot, mind you. Montreal will take out any team. This is the year.

But Detroit is a concern.

It isn’t even so much that the Wings landed Marion Hossa. And I’m not at all concerned about Kris Draper and Tomas Holmstrom or most of this team for that matter, including Johan Franzen, who is probably just a one-hit wonder like Iron Butterfly was with In-A-Gadda-Da-Vita.

 It’s three other guys in the Motor City I’m not crazy about.

I’m hoping Nick Lidstrom pulls a hamstring. Maybe a couple of times. And maybe Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg could break a finger or two. Nothing serious, just a finger. Even a pinky finger. They can still make whoopee with their wives. They just can’t shoot the puck.

But regardless.

This is the Year of the Habs. And all that needs to happen is this:

Carey Price, with a year under his belt, can’t be tired at the end of the regular season, and his confidence can’t take a nap at any stage in the year.

The defence, led by Mike Komisarek and Andrei Markov, has to play mean and ugly and dangerous. And this also means Ryan O’Byrne. He in particular has to play with an edge that scares the bejeesus out of opposing players. 

Up front, Saku Koivu needs to have one of his best years ever. Alex Kovalev has to take his magic into the playoffs. And Tomas Plekanec needs to become a household name throughout the league.

Alex Tanguay has to play like he’s been a Hab for years.

It’s time for Chris Higgins to become a real star this year. A big star. A huge star.

The Kostitsyn boys have to continue to blossom, as they’re expected to do.

Robert Lang has to make us all forget what Mats Sundin might have done in Montreal and be the final piece of the puzzle that’s been missing.

Guillaume Latendresse has to finally become a player. It’s time. We’ve been waiting patiently. 

Tom Kostopoulos, Steve Begin, Josh Gorges, Francis Bouillon and the rest just need to keep doing what they did last year because they were great.

Georges Laraque has to become the new John Ferguson.

The team needs to have a very fine power play again, like last year. And they have to score a lot of goals, like last year.

And they have to be stingy with goals against.

Youppi has to relive past glory and become the mascot he was with the Expos.

The Ole song must only be sung when the team’s about to win, not when it’s close.

And everyone, please stay healthy. (I’ve noticed that Koivu and Laraque are already nursing minor injuries.)

And that’s it. It’s simple!

Pre-season update:

The boys lose big to Boston 8-3, but take out Buffalo in Roberval, 3-2.

And with those cameras so low at the Roberval arena, it felt like we were there, in about the fourth row. It reminded me of the outdoor game in Edmonton a few years back

Right now, 36 years ago in 1972, Team Canada was not having a nice time with the Russian National Team. They were clobbered in Montreal and booed in Vancouver. They were tired and frustrated, and things looked bad. But in they end, as we all know, they pulled it out.

But it wasn’t just on-ice things going on. Here’s a few rare little tidbits:

Team Canada had a six hour stopover in Paris on the way to Stockholm. Goalie Ed Johnston said this about Paris: “What’s wrong is the same thing you find with all these European cities. Too many old buildings.”

While in Stockholm, a Swedish fellow at the press conference mentioned that maybe Bobby Orr, who was injured and didn’t play in the series, wasn’t as good as Russian Valeri Kharlamov. “He’s good in the NHL,” said the guy, “but in Europe he’d be only average.” A Canadian who overheard this said, “Put this down. Bobby Orr-healthy-would eat any Czech or Russian alive. And he’d spit out any Swede.”

In Moscow, the Canadians were seen coming back to their hotel at all hours of the night. While some of the boys were sitting around the lobby of the Grand Hotel, someone mentioned hearing that the Russians had put street crews with jackhammers outside the Canadian team’s windows in the early morning. “No problem,” said one player. “We won’t be in anyway.”

Coach Harry Sinden celebrated his 40th birthday while overseas. “Ten days ago I was 29,” he said.

Some Canadian fans who arrived in Moscow found out there were no tickets available for them. These included Maurice Richard, Punch Imlach, former referee-in-chief Carl Voss, and legendary wrestler Whipper Billy Watson. Those left out were given three options: they could take an all-expenses paid 10-day tour of Copenhagen; they could fly home and be refunded; or they could stay and take their chances on finding tickets. Most chose the third option.

Dennis Hull, after a tour of Moscow, gushed, “I really like the place. It reminds me of Buffalo.”