“What scares me is that Habs Dec. 4 “centennial game” isn’t marking 100 years, but the number of shots they’ll yield that nite to Boston”
-Dave Stubbs via Twitter
NHL teams from time to time have “off nights”, but tonight was a whole other story. Montreal was manhandled for sixty minutes this evening by the Predators losing by a score of 2-0. It did not take long for Nashville to strike, scoring 10:48 into the first, a goal from Steve Sullivan. To put the first period into perspective, Nashville peppered Montreal goalie Carey Price with 24 shots. The second period was much of the same, however Price was able to keep Montreal in the game keeping Nashville off the board. Steve Sullivan ended the Habs misery at 12:59 of the third period with his second goal of the game. When the dust had settled Carey Price ended up making 53 saves of 55 shots.
There are games that you have to write off and put out of your mind. However, between the injury situation and some particularly disturbing trends developing with this team maybe writing tonight off as an “off night” might not be an option? The Habs ship is leaking and taking on water fast. Let’s see if Jacques Martin and Bob Gainey have enough fingers to plug the increasing number of holes appearing with this team.
Positives:
1.Goaltending: Carey Price had one of he greatest goaltending efforts in the last decade for a Montreal Canadiens team. Price putting together two exceptional games in a row was perhaps the only positive thing to take from tonight’s game.
2.Next Tuesday… Against the NHL’s worst team at home against Carolina.
Thumbs Up: Carey Price
Negatives:
1. Shots allowed: 55 shots allowed cannot happen again, ever. Carey Price was left out to hang dry. Period.
2. Lack of shots/scoring chances/effort: Something needs to change. Whether it be crashing the net, getting the powerplay going, praying a little extra harder at night, anything please.
Thumbs Down: (See below – if you dare)
Player Grades:
Carey Price A+: Superb performance tonight. 53 saves got close to breaking a Habs record for saves in a single game. Two solid games in a row. Is the goalie controversy dead yet?
Max Pacioretty C-: 1 shot. Part of team invisible tonight. They say speed kills, I know I have seen him use it somewhere before. Was it just a dream?
Glen Metropolit: C: 2 shots tonight. Is the Metropolit magic show over? The leader of the usually consistent third line is starting the fade.
Scott Gomez C- : Has not had a good week. Tonight topped it off. Plenty of giveaways, expect much more out of a player like him and a first line Centre. How much does he make again?
Kyle Chipchura: C- : 1 shot 7 minutes. Can see why he was healthy scratched the last few games. Maybe he will just turn out to be one of those players that was great in junior hockey and could not make the jump to the NHL. His time is certainly running out.
Mike Cammalleri: C-: 1 shot in 16 minutes. Proving to be a totally different player on the road as opposed to at the Bell Centre.
Tomas Plekanec: B : One of the only players that showed up tonight besides Carey Price. Plekanec’s stock continues to rise.
Andrei Kostitsyn: D: Stuck out like a sore thumb. Andrei is playing a game of how low can you go. -1 and a bad penalty in the third with the increasingly usual lack of shots, hits and pretty much everything else. Surly a healthy scratch must be in his near future.
Guillaume Latendresse: C- : Was suppose to be a healthy scratch tonight before Brian Gionta was a late scratch due to a lower body injury… Did little to take advantage of his opportunity.
Maxim Lapierre: D : 2 shots on net tonight. After such a promising season last year, what happened to this guy?
Travis Moen: C : He played 17 minutes tonight???
Ryan White: C : 4 minutes in the penalty box was his contribution this evening.
Tom Pyatt: C : -1 and 2 minutes in the box. Not the new boys from Hamilton’s best performance tonight.
Jay Leach C: 1 shot, a completely invisible presence on the ice tonight.
Marc-Andre Bergeron: D: To take a quote from the 1990 hit movie Home Alone “you’re what the French call les incompetents.”
Jaroslav Spacek C: -1 on the night however, obviously still injured and put in a commendable 21 minutes tonight, considering his situation.
Paul Mara: C : As a veteran on the defense needs to provide a little more then he did tonight with all of the injuries.
Josh Gorges: B: Doing his best out there. Not a top 4 defenseman though.
Roman Hamrlik: B-: Led the Habs in minutes played tonight was a -1. Not his fault but as the de-facto leader of the defense for the time being cannot allow his defensive corps to allow 50 plus shots on Carey Price.
Powerplay: : D: 0/2 Could not carry the momentum over from the Phoenix game. Ineffective. Not much more to be said. Back to the drawing board.
Penalty Kill: C: 5/6. Were able to kill off the majority of the penalties tonight in large part thanks to Carey Price. However, the Habs took six penalties which is too many, most of them being of an undisciplined nature.