HabsWorld.net -- 

The Habs played .500 hockey this week to finish
off October with a 7-7 record while the Bulldogs only managed one win but picked
up a pair of points in shootout losses.  This week, we look at the trio of
Montreal’s Russian prospects and how their seasons have started off while the
Final Thought looks at the alleged goalie controversy.  This, plus the
weekly power rankings, in the Recap.

Power Rankings

The PPR’s are on a cumulative basis with
some bias towards the current week.  The prev. column represents the last
ranking for the player; players not on last week’s list will be slotted back
where they were when returning from injury/benching/recall (italicized numbers). 
Thus, multiple players may have the same previous ranking.

Rk	Player	Prev.	Comments
1	Tomas Plekanec	4	With the top line struggling, he at least gives the team another option.
2	Mike Cammalleri	1	The biggest threat amongst the "Little 3" this week, but only 1 goal.
3	Glen Metropolit	7	Somehow manages to find his way onto the scoresheet regularly.
4	Roman Hamrlik	6	Only 2 goals away from matching last year’s total already.
5	Scott Gomez	2	Not playing poorly but more offence (particularly goals) are needed soon.
6	Travis Moen	12	They may not be pretty, but an ‘ugly’ goal counts the same on the board.
7	Brian Gionta	3	Playing hard, but the execution simply isn’t there at the moment.
8	Carey Price	4	Played a solid game in Chicago despite not starting for 2 weeks.
9	Jaroslav Halak	5	Neither win was particularly pretty, rebound control still needs work.
10	Jaroslav Spacek	14	The light bulb might finally have gone on; he’s making much better decisions now.
11	Paul Mara	8	Decent defensively, but the offensive game appears to have gone AWOL.
12	Josh Gorges	9	Despite the team’s defensive struggles, he was a +1 for the week.
13	Kyle Chipchura	15	Love the hustle, wish he could pop a goal one of these days though.
14	Hal Gill	17	Couple of iffy giveaways, but he actually made up for one with a goal.
15	Maxim Lapierre	10	I said it last week – he is out of his element on a scoring line.
16	Guillaume Latendresse	11	Well, at least he scored this week, better than some others…
17	Max Pacioretty	16	If he’s not going to play more than 10 minutes, send him down already.
18	Andrei Kostitsyn	19	If he could only get some confidence, I think he could bounce back.
19	Marc-Andre Bergeron	13	Signed to improve the offence…but not the other team’s offence.
20	Matt D’Agostini	18	Tough time for him to go down, he was starting to come around.
21	Gregory Stewart	21	Showed exactly why he didn’t play in 3 weeks, 4th liner and nothing more.

Dropped from the rankings: Georges Laraque
(20) who is once again battling the injury bug.  Where have we heard this
before?

The Dog Pound

Despite a pair of losses to close out the
month, the Bulldogs were undefeated in regulation throughout October as both
defeats were in the shootout.

Results:

October 27	1	2	3	OT	SO	Tot	PP	SOG
Hamilton	1	0	2	0	0	3	0/4	31
Houston	1	0	2	0	1	4	0/5	29

Attendance:  3,134
3 Stars:  1) Gillies – HOU  2) White – HAM  3) DiSalvatore –
HOU

October 30	1	2	3	OT	SO	Tot	PP	SOG
Abbotsford	0	1	0	0	1	2	0/6	36
Hamilton	1	0	0	0	0	1	0/4	31

Attendance:  4,011
3 Stars:  1) Chucko – ABB  2) Irving – ABB  3) Sanford – HAM

November 1	1	2	3	Tot	PP	SOG
Peoria	0	1	1	2	1/9	28
Hamilton	1	0	4	5	1/3	33

Attendance:  3,121
3 Stars:  1) Darche – HAM  2) Trotter – HAM  3)
Eller – PEO

Stats:

Mikael Johansson made his much anticipated
debut this week, but the rust showed as he was held off the scoresheet.

SKATERS

#	Player	GP	G	A	+/-	SH	PIMS
6	Chad Anderson	3	0	2	+2	2	4
7	Yannick Weber	3	1	2	+2	10	4
8	Maxime Lacroix	3	0	0	+1	0	0
10	J.T. Wyman	3	1	0	+1	5	0
12	Andrew Conboy	2	0	0	-1	1	5
15	Mike Glumac	3	0	0	+1	8	19
19	Brock Trotter	3	1	1	+2	11	0
20	Ryan Russell	3	0	2	+1	5	2
21	Mathieu Darche	3	2	1	+1	8	0
25	Ryan White	3	1	1	-1	7	9
27	Tom Pyatt	3	2	0	+2	9	0
32	Frederic St. Denis	2	0	0	E	1	0
44	Shawn Belle	3	1	2	+2	5	6
61	Andre Benoit	3	0	0	+2	4	2
72	Mathieu Carle	3	0	0	-1	7	4
74	Sergei Kostitsyn	2	0	1	E	0	0
76	P.K. Subban	3	0	3	+1	4	4
85	Mikael Johansson	3	0	0	E	1	0
91	Ben Maxwell	3	0	1	-2	7	0

GOALIES

#	Player	Record	SV%	GAA
1	Curtis Sanford	1-0-1	.952	1.44
30	Cedrick Desjardins	0-0-1	.893	2.77

SHOOTOUT – SKATERS

#	Player	G/ATT
15	Mike Glumac	0/1
19	Brock Trotter	1/2
21	Mathieu Darche	0/2
27	Tom Pyatt	1/2
74	Sergei Kostitsyn	0/1
91	Ben Maxwell	0/1

SHOOTOUT – GOALIES

#	Player	SVS/ATT
1	Curtis Sanford	1/3
30	Cedrick Desjardins	2/5

Leaders:

Goals: Mathieu Darche (7)
Assists: 2 tied with 6
Points: 3 tied with 9
+/-: 2 tied with (+8)
PIMS: Eric Neilson (34)

This Week:

November 6: Binghamton vs Hamilton
November 8: Hamilton vs Binghamton

Russian Roulette

With the seemingly never-ending Sergei
Kostitsyn saga leading to constant talks about the KHL and drafting Russian
prospects (the latter which doesn’t actually apply to him anyways), let’s take a
look at Montreal’s Russian prospects and how they’re doing a month into the
season.

Alexander Avtsyn: A 4th round selection back in June’s entry draft, the
6’2 winger has risen up the Russian ranks quickly.  After spending last
season lighting up the junior leagues (76-54-56-110), he has earned himself a
spot on Dynamo Moscow in the KHL.  Though he’s yet to put up a point in 10
contests, his ice time is slowly increasing by the game and appears, at least
for now, to have locked down a regular spot in the lineup.

Maxim Trunev: Montreal’s 5th rounder back in 2008, the winger turned down
the opportunity to play in the WHL to stay at home.  He split last season
between Severstal’s junior team (11-10-16-26) and their KHL squad (32-4-1-5) and
appears to have made the full-time jump to the senior squad.  He has a
pair of goals in 17 contests so far this season, but there remain concerns about
his lack of commitment to defence which is holding him back on the depth chart.

Alexei Yemelin: Drafted in the 3rd round back in 2004, the physical
blueliner has twice spurned the Habs’ offers to stay back home. 
Unfortunately, his development appears to have flatlined while playing for
Kazan Ak-Bars.  This season, he has
yet to pick up a point in 11 games while picking up 10 PIMS with a -3 rating. 
The lack of offence fits in well with previous seasons as in 107 games with the
club over the past 2 years, he had just 7 assists and 181 PIMS.

Final Thought

With Jaroslav Halak getting the bulk of the
starts over the past couple of weeks, talk has immediately turned to the ever
ridiculous debate of a goaltending controversy.  My question is simple, why
is this a controversy?  Last I checked, a backup goalie getting a chance to
run with the ball when he wins a couple in a row is not all that rare and surely
will happen again at some point in time.  What’s wrong with letting the hot
hand get a couple of extra starts?  How much really needs to be made of the
statement, "He (Halak) won so he’s getting the next game"?  Yet, we get
subjected to the daily debates of who should be #1 quickly followed by the
nonsensical ramblings of which one could soon be on the move to a team to be
named later for a player to be named later.  So, who should be the number 1
goalie in Montreal?  It’s simple, until one of them steps up (and in my
view, it’s time that Price gets a few games to re-establish himself), go with
the hot hand.  That’s not a controversy, that’s just…trying to win. 
For once, let’s not blow things out of proportion here.

Did You Know?

A little bit of cap relief is on the way for
the Habs in the next week or so.  Alex Henry, who’s counted against the cap
since the season began (injured in training camp) is set to return to the
Hamilton lineup next week, meaning the remaining $160,000 (approximately) will
come off Montreal’s cap.  They’ll still be into the bonus cushion but not
as much.  (And despite the hopes of many, the Habs have had a month to put
Markov on LTIR and have not, nor will they any time soon).  If you have a
question regarding my
capsheet or this article, feel free to
drop me a line at
[email protected].