Blogging About The Montreal Canadiens and Canadiens Hockey

Although this was a small suprise for me, I realy felt that it was inevitable. Chipchura has done very little for this team in the past few years and I was completely expecting him to be traded away much much sooner.

In return for Chipchura the Montreal Canadiens will recieve a fourth round draft pick.

In the three seasons that he’s playing with the Montreal Canadiens, Chipchura has scored 4 goals and added 10 assists in 68 games. That falls very much short of what is expected of him.

Oh well, hopefully he does something in Anaheim.

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Another game day, another injury. Jaroslav Spacek can be added to the list of fatalities for the Canadiens’ this season as he has been scratched from tonight’s game with a lower-body injury. Scott Gomez will miss his second straight game with a lower-body injury as well.

Sergei Kostitsyn and J.T. Wyman will both be in the lineup for tonight’s game playing with Kyle Chipchura on the fourth line. I really hoping for a resurgence from S. Kost just like he had when he was called up last year. He, at the very least, needs to make the most of his time with the team or he’ll end up like Latendresse, just another casualty.

Carey Price will once again take his rightful place in nets against the Blue Jackets against the talented Blue Jackets squad and Steve Mason. Price has only faced the Blue Jackets one time before in his career and it was a loss with a 3.01 goals against average and a .864 save percentage but I don’t suspect that we’ll see anything close to those numbers with the way that he’s been playing as of late.

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He may not have been around the NHL very much last year but I guess Bob Gainey felt like keeping Kyle Chipchura around for a little while longer after signing him to a one-year contract. The financial details on the contract are not yet known.

Chipchura is really in a tough spot because the Habs really just don’t have the room for him unless he makes a big enough impact during training camp to make the team. He’ll probably play a few games in the NHL and those games will most likely make or break his chances of making the NHL anytime soon.

At 6′2″, 205lbs, Chipchura has the size an skill to be a great power forward centerman, but he better start giving the Habs a reason to use him or he won’t be so lucky next year.

He ended the season last year with the Bulldogs with 35 points in 51 games, and also added 3 assists in the 13 games he played with the injury plagues Habs.

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Sorry for the lack and timing of updates folks, work has been crazy so my usual updates during that time have been non-existent.

Gregory Stewart and Kyle Chipchura were sent down to the Hamilton Bulldogs on Thursday.

Stewart ended his Canadiens run playing in 3 games notching just 1 Assist with no Penalty minutes.

Chipchura played 8 games with the Canadiens and had 2 Assists and 5 Penalty minutes.

Overall, I think that Stewart played a good game, he was excellent against the boards and made good plays in the Offensive zone which lead to his Assist on Matt D’Agostini’s goal. Chipchura seems to be getting passed in the depth chart a little bit, but he still has some untapped potential I think.

Player Links:
Gregory Stewart: HockeyDB Stats
Kyle Chipchura: HockeyDB Stats

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Very good news on the injury front as every single player has been on the ice today for the practice in Brossard. Georges Laraque was on the ice an hours before regular practice with Strength and Conditioning coach, Scott Livingston. Everyone else was on the ice for the regularly schedule practice.

Carey Price should be in one of the two games played this week, hopefully New Jersey, and it looks like Saku Koivu and Chris Higgins will make a return shortly after the All-Star Break. It will be so nice to get these guys back.

Alex Tanguay and Mathieu Dandenault should make a return in mid-February.

I’m not even sure where everyone is going to go? It’s unfortunate by I can definitely see Matt D’Agostini, Max Pacioretty, and Kyle Chipchura all being sent back down to Hamilton but it just goes to show we can have guys in the Pro’s next year when all of the UFA’s bolt.

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If I’ve said this once, I have said this a million times. The referees in this league are ridiculous, and I’m not saying this because we lost, I’m saying this because Chris Lee should be fired from the league and sent to Zimbabwe to referee there. The final score in this one was 3-1 for the Boston Bruins, with the only goal for the Montreal Canadiens coming from Andrei Kostitsyn on the Power play.

The first period was excellent besides two obvious penalties including a high stick on Steve Begin and a hit from behind against Matt D’Agostini which went uncalled. Subsequently Chipchura fought Stuart over that hit and actually held his own; It’s good to have a guy like that on your time.

The Canadiens’ Andrei Kostitsyn took a questionable penalty in the second period which lead to 5 minute Powerplay which was then turned into a 2 minutes 5 on 3 in which Boston scored their second goal of the game. The call was a joke, the Bruins player went into the boards sideways, at most it was a 2 minute minor.

Halak isn’t ready to be a starter, we really need Carey Price back.

Related Links:
Bruins ends Habs win streak – CANOE
Bruins overpower Canadiens – CBC.ca
Mistakes proce costly – The Daily Hab-it
The big game – Soft European
The Bruins keep avenging last year – All Habs
Bruins Team up with Refs to Beat Habs – All Habs
Maybe The Bruins Should Buy Their Goalie A Beer – Dennis-Kane
Well… the effort was there – Shifts and Sets
Bruins 3, Canadiens 1 – canadiens.nhl.com
About last night … – Habs Inside/Out
Chara scores twice as Bruins keep edge with 3-1 victory over Montreal – NHL.com
Bruins beat Canadiens 3-1 on Chara’s two goals – NHL.com
NHL – Bruins defeat Canadiens – Yahoo! Eurosport
Power play lifts Bruins at home – Journal Gazette
Bruins flatten Canadiens – Boston.com
Chara leads Bruins over Canadiens – National Post
Duca: B’s hurting, but still winning – Cape Cod Times
Bruins get better of Montreal Canadiens, again – Boston Herald
Chara double trouble for Habs – New England Hockey Journal
Bruins keep edge with 3-1 victory over Montreal – Associated Press
Chara, Bruins handle Habs – The Sports Network
Chara scores twice as Bruins keep edge with 3-1 victory over Montreal – The Hockey News
Bruins keep edge with 3-1 victory over Montreal – Yahoo!
Chara Nets Two as Bruins Handle Canadiens – TSN

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Can’t play the way I played tonight. Those goals I gave up can’t happen. If you want to blame someboday, blame me for this game. Everybody has a job, I didn’t do mine.

That quote form Jaroslav Halak pretty much sums up the game. After letting in 3 soft goals, he was pulled in favor of Marc Denis.

The first goal, scored by New Jersey’s Brian Gionta, a seemingly harmless shot that went under Halak’s right pad. Only 2 minutes later, Max Pacioretty, in his first NHL game, on a 2-on-1 with Steve Begin snapped the puck past Scott Clemmensen to make it a tie game. Kyle Chipchura notched an assist on that goal.

Not even 2 minutes later, Andrei Markov turned over the puck sending Zach Parise in all alone who would beat Halak 5-hole. Another weak goal Halak should have had. To close out the second, on a 2-on-1, John Madden beat Halak up high to make it 3-1 for the Devils. By this point it was inevitible that Marc Denis would start the third.

The third saw Marc Denis make his first start with the Canadiens. He only faced 7 shots but made a great save on Patrik Elias, flailing around the crease which was eventually cleared by Josh Gorges. With 6:49 left in the period, he let in a Jamie Langenbrunner goal which he didn’t have a chance on. That’s where the score stood at 4-1 New Jersey.

The Good:

Guillaume Latendresse and Maxim Lapierre had a good game. Max Pacioretty made the transition well. He was quick, didn’t make any crucial mistakes and had a goal to show for it. Same can be said for Kyle Chipchura (minus the goal but he did assist on Pacioretty’s)

The Bad

Basically the entire defense (I’ll exclude Josh Gorges). Hamrlik, Brisebois and Markov were the cause of three of the Devils four goals.

The Ugly

Halak. He had a bad game, wich all goalies do. He should have had 2 of the 3 goals he let in and his rebound control was horrible. I think I remember twice where he froze the puck.  Although, there has been games this year where Halak has played well and the rest of the team didn’t show up. It would have been nice to see the shoe on the other foot. If Price doesn’t play on Sunday against the Pathers I hope he can bounce back and play like we know he can.

I have to add the Power Play to the “ugly”. Tonight it went 0-7. I’m not saying Weber is the solution to the problem but they brought him up…put him in! At least we’ll get to see if he can save it or not!

Related Links:
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Lots of information out of Habs practice today (from Habs InsideOut):

Carey Price will not join the team on their trip to New Jersey for tomorrow night’s game against the Devils. He is listed as day-to-day with  “lower body discomfort” which he felt during warm up in Tuesday night’s game against Tampa but played anyway. Marc Denis has been recalled from Hamilton to back up Jaroslav Halak for tomorrow’s game. Price may be back as soon as Sunday against the Florida Panthers.

Along with Marc Denis, Kyle Chipchura, Max Pacioretty and Yannick Weber have also been recalled. Chipchura is likely to fill in for Ben Maxwell and Yannick Weber for Ryan O’Byrne who were both sent down to the Bulldogs. Pacioretty is likely to fill in for the injured Alex Tanguay.

Player Links:

Marc Denis’ Canadien’s Profile
Marc Denis’ Hockey DB Stats

Kyle Chipchura’s Canadien’s Profile
Kyle Chipchura’s Hockey DB Stats

Max Pacioretty’s Canadien’s Profile
Max Pacioretty’s Hockey DB Stats

Yannick Weber’s Canadien’s Profile
Yannick Weber’s Hockey DB Stats

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Bob Gainey has reassigned Ben Maxwell and Ryan O’Byrne to the Hamilton Bulldogs. Maxwell played seven games with the Canadiens and didn’t register a single point and was a -1, while O’Byrne has just three assists in the 22 games he has played with the team this year.

Ben Maxwell has some work to do before he’s ready for a fulltime job in the NHL, but I’m glad he was able to get a taste of it so he now knows what’s expected of him when playing at this level.

Ryan O’Byrne hasn’t played his best hockey this year. He’s made some bad plays and even scored on his own net during a delayed penalty which cost the Canadiens the game. This should give him an opportunity to get his confidence back.

The real question is? Who will replace them. We really don’t need to replace O’Byrne because we have enough defense anyway, but I can almost guarantee that Kyle Chipchura will be recalled to the NHL before the end of the week.

Player Links:
Ryan O’Byrne: HockeyDB Stats
Ryan O’Byrne: NHL Profile

Ben Maxwell: HockeyDB Stats
Ben Maxwell: NHL Profile

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Andrei Kostitsyn recieved clearance to play in tonights game against the Pittsburgh Penguins. He left during the Habs 5-2 win against the Phillidelphia Flyers on December 18th after a knee on knee collision with Scott Hartnell. He is expected to be on his usual line with Alex Kovalev and Tomas Plekanec bumping Sergei Kostitsyn to the fourth line with Ben Maxwell and Steve Bégin.

As was suspected, Georges Laraque will not play tonight. He will be placed on Injured Reserve and won’t stay with the team on their four game road trip.

After being recalled from Hamilton both Kyle Chipchura and Max Pacioretty missed the morning skate and are not expected to play tonight.

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