Blogging About The Montreal Canadiens and Canadiens Hockey

It’s safe to say that Andrei Markov is the biggest impact player on this team. Since his return the Canadiens have lost just one game and he’s averaging just over a point per game with 3 goals and 8 assists in 8 games. Three of those assists came in last nights 5-4 win over the Florida Panthers.

Goals in the win came from Hal Gill, Mike Cammalleri, Tomas Plekanec, Marc-Andre Bergeron and Benoit Pouliot.

Halak managed 32 of 36 saves for an .888 save percentage.

You should follow me on twitter here.

Marc-Andre Bergeron scored with 1 minute and 45 seconds left in the third period tied the game up and his goal just 2 minutes and 23 seconds into OT concreted the win for the Montreal Canadiens. Tomas Plekanec and Andrei Kostitsyn also added a goal in the second to give the Canadiens a 4-3 win over the Atlanta Thrashers.

Unfortunately it appears that Marc-Andre Bergeron may have been injured on his game winning goal by Johan Hedberg’s skate. We should know more very very soon.

Halak made 47 saves in a .940 save percentage performance for a second straight win. He made some great saves and really did a good job at bailing the defense out when they got caught.

Three Stars: 3. Nik Antropov 2. Tomas Plekanec 1. Marc-Andre Bergeron

Game Highlights

You should follow me on twitter here.

The Canadiens are in Atlanta tonight to try and win four out of five after losing against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday night. The Thrashers are currently riding a three game losing streak, all played on the road, and will be looking rebound from those losses.

Carey Price gets the start for the Montreal Canadiens after another great game against the Pens. Price is 3-2 in his career against the Thrashers including a bad loss earlier in the year where he allowed 5 goals. Price is currently rolling with a .934 save percentage in his last four starts.

Watch our for Mike Cammalleri and Marc-Andre Bergeron to want to continue their streaks, Cammalleri with his 6 points in 4 games and Bergeron who has 4 points in his last 3 games. Another notable mention is Tomas Plekanec’s 7 points in his last 4 games played, all in the form of assists.

Streaming Links:
- http://www.justin.tv/exnordic02 (French)
- http://www.justin.tv/nhlgames1

You should follow me on twitter here.

I am in absolute awe that Chris Lee is still reffing in this league. This is the National Hockey League right? Not the Peewee AAA team in Southeast Asia? He not only cost the Canadiens what could have been the game, but he made and missed really bad calls for both teams. If that game was played out without Chris Lee involved then who knows how it could have ended.

The 2 goals by the Montreal Canadiens came from Roman Hamrlik who had the absolute best goal celebration ever, and Matt D’Agostini who netted his second goal of the season on a nice snipe from the side of the left circle.

A bright side in this whole debacle is that both Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin went pointless which can suggest something was done right by the defense.

On another night where the Canadiens were outshot 41 -- 21, Carey Price managed to make 38 saves for a .926 save percentage.

Cammalleri, Metropolit and Marc-Andre Bergeron all had assists on tonights goals.

Three Stars: 3. Pascal Dupuis 2. Carey Price 1. Sergei Gonchar

Game Highlights

* Watch for the bad whistle around 4:50

Controversial Whistle by Chris Lee

You should follow me on twitter here.

A win against the Ottawa Senators will bring the Canadiens back above .500 on the season and move them from ninth to seventh place in the Eastern conference. The Habs will try and keep things rolling in their second century of hockey after winning against the Bruins and Flyers will pretty decisive wins.

Although Price has a .962 save percentage in his last 2 games, Jaroslav Halak will get the start against the Ottawa Senators tonight. Halak has 2 wins and 3 losses against the Sens in his career with a .904 save percentage and a 3.23 goals against average. Halak hasn’t faired too well on the road this year going winless in the three games he’s played away from home so he’ll be looking to turn around that statistic.

Paul Mara didn’t travel with the team to Ottawa so Tom Pyatt will be in the lineup tonight with Marc-Andre Bergeron returning to the blue line.

Live Stream Links
- http://www.justin.tv/nhl_live
- sop://broker.sopcast.com:3912/36451 (Sopcast Required)

You should follow me on twitter here.

After going down a goal early in the first and despite having just 13 shots on net the Montreal Canadiens were able to storm back with goals from Mike Cammalleri, Andrei Kostitsyn and Marc-Andre Bergeron to get their second win in a row against the Philadelphia Flyers.

Price came up big recording a .933 save percentag but the defense did an outstanding job keeping pucks away from the the net and blocking shots. Roman Hamrlik had a great game at the blueline AND notched 2 assists.

Cammalleri and Plekanec continue their excellent play. It’s just nice to see a revitalized Plekanec out there after the poor season he had last year.

Unfortunately Paul Mara left in the second with what’s being called an upper body injury which sent M.A. Bergeron, who was playing forward, back to the blueline.

Three stars: 3) Tomas Plekanec 2) Daniel Briere 1) Roman Hamrlik

You should follow me on twitter here.

Finally! A decisive win for the Canadiens. They climbed back with three unanswered goals in the third period and finally got some work out of their secondary scoring in Glen Metropolit and Maxim Lapierre who both notched a marker. Mike Cammalleri opened the scoring early in the first period, and Marc-Andre Bergeron went on to have a two goal game including the inevitable game winner.

Price got his seventh win of the season stopping 33 of the 36 shots that he faced which gave him a .916 save percentage on the night. Price has really hit his stride, but I’m beginning to the see the same consistency in the rest of the team as well. Considering we’re missing as many players as we are I would say that this is pretty darn impressive.

Sergei Kostitsyn got his first point of the season, assisting on the goal by Maxim Lapierre, which is a good sign for him. As much as I think that Kostitsyn is a whiny little bitch most of the time, I REALLY hope that he succeeds because he’s a very talented and skilled player.

That A. Kostitsyn, Plekanec and Pacioretty line continues to put up the numbers combining for 5 points on last nights win. Both Plekanec and Pacioretty had two assists each while Andrei Kostitsyn added one.

Game Stars: 3. Antoine Vermette 2. Marc-Andre Bergeron 3. Carey “Mother Fucking” Price

You should follow me on twitter here.

Who knew that in a game where there was only a total of 21 shots in the first two periods by both teams, the third period would bring a total of 4 games, three of which were scored by the Montreal Canadiens, and two of those were within a period of 1:06.

I feel comfortable in saying that we needed this win. It was absolutely detrimental to not only the team but to Price as well, that we got this on.

Goals by the Canadiens in this one came from Mike Cammalleri, Glen Metropolit, Marc Andre Bergeron, and Brian Gionta with an empty netter.

Although he didn’t score, Tomas Plekanec was an absolute MONSTER and if this game was on TSN you can be guaranteed that he would have been McGuire’s. Pleky assisted on the first three of the Canadiens goals’ and finished this one with 17 minutes of ice time. I can see Plekanec moving up to the first line very very soon with the way that he has been playing as of late.

Pricey had a decent game saving 18-20 shots which gave him a .900 save percentage.

On an unfortunate note, it looks like Spacek may have been injured in this one after leaving the game and not returning. Hopefully he’ll be alright because we can’t keep losing defenseman.

And for your viewing leisure, Jay Leach vs Paul Bissonnette.

You should follow me on twitter here.

After the loss against the Lightning, Martin is going back to Halak at home in tonight’s match-up against the Calgary Flames. It’s hard to tell who’s the better goalie when we can’t seem to stream together a couple of wins in a row but since Halak has the better record at home I can see why this decision may have been pretty easy for Martin.

Jay Leach is also going to be in the lineup tonight in place of Mathieu Carle who will be taking a seat in the press box. Truthfully, I would have rather seen M.A. Bergeron site upstairs because he’s been one of the most inconsistent individuals that I have ever seen. Mathieu Carle has been excellent since he’s been called up and I think that I’d rather have him in the lineup over Bergeron.

Well, it looks like there may still be some hope left in Sergei. According to RDS he turned down a 2 year, $5 million contract in the KHL. That’s pretty interesting because a couple of months ago I would have bet every cent that I have that he would have taken it. Of course, their is always a catch. Apparently, Sergei refused the offer due to the fact that if he did accept it, the IIHF would have not allowed him to participate in the Olympics. At least he’s loyal to something .

And to finish things up, here is Sergei at his finest:

Lucky ladies….

You should follow me on twitter here.