The Sultan of Swank

We don't realistically have enough depth to give Toronto what they would want.

I don't think Kessel goes to a contender. My thoughts being that a top team won't want to give up the long term cap space. I could see a 6-9 place team betting the farm to get him and hopefully compete with the big boys. That being said... I wouldn't say no to him playing wing for Galchenyuk

I think it's more like a bored puppy. It starts to act out because it has nothing to do. Kane is a 23 year old millionaire stuck in Winnipeg. There's fucking nothing in that town. I wouldn't be surprised if he has no behaviour issues once he gets traded somewhere that isn't a complete hole.

In regards to the Flames/Flyers and the argument of it being a longI was reading somewhere about how overwhelmingly at the end of October, the teams in playoff positions are the teams that wind up in the playoffs. Obviously it's not the rule, but it's something....

So... you do not smell what he is cooking? Side note, I've been tossing around the idea of a NHL EHM game as the Leafs, maybe even writing it as a diary on here. So... With that in mind, besides Phil being a Jets fan, who am I supposed to love and hate on the Leafs if I were a fan?

This is why my team can't have nice things.Michel Therrien is going to be the end of Subban in Montreal. I know he's RFA, but if you bench your best player every 3rd period, you're going to stop getting an effort out of the most electrifying player in sports and or entertainment.

Well, I figured the way Montreal was able to dictate the rate of play in 3 of the games with really no issues whatsoever. I sort of expected the best offense in the league to be able to do the same thing, just waaaaaay more effectively haha. I'd be supremely surprised to see Ottawa make it out of the second round. They had a Montreal team that limped into the playoffs on a month long more or less losing streak, so I wasn't overly surprised there. What I am surprised about is how Boston is dominating their series. I felt that they too were struggling mightily down the stretch, and until they remembered how to play hockey in the last 10 minutes of game 7 I was not overly surprised at their collapse. But now... jesus, poor Hank.

Ottawa and last minute goals became a serious issue for my team this year...

TGWL, I'm still mad that Glen Sather didn't realize that Bob Gainey had his fingers crossed the whole time on the phone. We'll probably get him back someday... after Sather shells out 130 million over 11 years and trades him back to Montreal... after a devastating injury or some such OH JESUS CHRIST FUCKING WORST DEAL OF LIFE! Honestly. I'm not mad. Nope. Hasn't been 3 years of this albatross 'round our neck. Gainey/Gauthier was our captain, and we all stood by while he shot the bird. Now we're cursed to the doldrums for all time.

Free to a good home: 1 30something year old Mexican Alaskan center, shaved head, looks great carrying the puck over the blue line. Must give up due to high maintenance costs. Very low points, LIKE NEW!

The loudeest building in hockey finally has a game tonight. I don't know how we're gonna do sans Cammy. But Price has been great through his first 2 games, and the offence.... besides Kostitsyn looked great against the ThrasherJets. As long as it's not another Heritage Classic beatdown I'll be okay.

TSN radio launched in Montreal today. They bought up the only english language sports talk radio station. I love the Habs, but I also love other sports and there's only so many talking points in a day before I get bored. Also, it feels almost like another drop in the bucket with how much the media is obsessed with the team here. I guess it's just one more outlet for people to freak out about Jacques Martin or Carey Price this year. Also, I've noticed, a ton of people, articles, previews saying that Montreal is boned if Carey Price doesn't play well... would this not be true of any team that has their number 1 starting 50 plus games? Season's finally starting tomorrow, I'm excited for this year. Montreal finished 6th last season and I feel that with the return of Gorges and Markov, the addition of Cole and the continued development of Price, Patches and especially future Norris winner Subban that Montreal could realistically compete for that #4 spot possibly compete w Boston for the division. Even with all the injuries last year, it did take Boston till around late feb early march and an attempted murder before they were able to get a real good cushion in the North East. I will however temper my expectations and say that considering we're obviously better than last year (despite what the Ontario hockey media machine would want me to believe) 4 through 6 would be acceptable, 7 or 8 would be troubling and I doubt that Montreal would miss the second season. But that would be abhorrent.

Welp, the more things change, the more they stay the same. I dunno if this is more looking out for your own kind (Shanny for Yzerman), or if it's just that the league likes to turn a blind eye when it comes to Montreal, but that hit was everything that they say they want to take out of the game. I don't see how Clarke MacArthur get's 2 games, and Malone doesn't get any... maybe if Campoli wore a different jersey or Malone played for Nashville we could have expected something. Disgusted.

So how many games for Malone? 5 or 10? Clearly targeted the head, repeat offender, intent to injure was called on the play. Shanaban, make it happen, he's fucking filth.

Wow.... 8 games for the Wiz, that's a hell of a fine. I'm happy that they're not taking things lightly, but it still remains to be seen what will happen when it's someone like Iginla or Chara... or any Bruin for that matter...(Okay, uncalled for I suppose...). I hope there's consistency, and I appreciate the effort by the league to eliminate head shots while still preserving the physicality of the game. I know hockey is back when there's a French journalist interviewing a Swiss player for an English network... always makes me feel good for some reason, the multicultural aspect of hockey. I'm excited to see the Habs this year. They haven't played a pre-season game yet with more than a handful of starters because of the size of their camp. Still though, MaxPac looks great and Cole looks like there's potentially a big power forward for us this year. I'm super excited for this Brendan Gallagher kid. I understand it's just the pre season, and he's yet another undersized forward, but when a 19 year old who was sort of on the radar for 1-3 years in the future is still in the camp... you just gotta cheer him on.

Pez, The Bell recorded something stupid like 140db in the playoffs last year which blew away all other arenas. I'll look for the article to give credence to that statement, but yeah, I could see the Shark Tank being there haha, on tv from what I saw, it looks wild. TGWL: Erm, last year, Montreal was what like 32 points behind Washington, so yeah, they should have lost in 4... then they were against the perceived next best team in the Pens, and I thought they would lose in I think I said 6. It's not about sneaking anywhere to talk about how massively Washington, Pittsburgh and this year, Boston(hopefully) collapsed, it's more of a, this is the team that many picked to go to the finals this year, and they're in a serious hole against a team that every media outlet, and expert have pretty much written off as series losers before the puck dropped for game 1. Road Rage: I agree, if Boston can take tonight in Montreal, it's a new series. And they're going to be coming hard right out of the game, because 0-3 is death for them. We can hope though...

That's a really big 'If' though. Montreal is liable to lose game 3, just because Boston needs to get it going, but we're still waiting for Boston to show up at all these playoffs. Then there's also the fact that they'll be playing in bar none, the loudest building in the league. Montreal plays poorly in Boston usually, but Boston usually shits the bed in Montreal.

Well who the fuck saw that coming... Taking both games in Boston... this could get ugly in Montreal... I remember too well Montreal going up 3-1 on Boston 3 years ago and having to go to 7 games, so I'm not getting my broom ready just yet. I thought Montreal would get killed playing in Boston... Maybe playing in a building with any sort of a pulse will excite the Bruins into taking a game or 2 at the Bell... I sure hope not, but I don't want to get too excited yet...

I'm not overly familiar with Adrian Gonzalez, so maybe this question is a silly one, but why are the Red Sox shelling out almost 160 mil over 7 years for a lifetime .280 hitter?

MPH, Brock? really? What do you take me for? Some sort of commoner? haha. Well that first game what completely unexpected. Chara, in his own end was exposed the entire game... Maybe it was just a bad game for him, cause it certainly was for the rest of his team, but wow did he suck the big one tonight. He must have had 4 giveaways in his own zone, slow, pretty ineffective. Kaberle playing his first meaningful game of hockey in 7 years or so can be excused for his giveaway that led to the first goal, but it was the same way he played in Toronto, got tons of time and space a few times in the game and just skated through the slot opting not to shoot.... I'll take it. Lucic will rebound with a gangbusters game for game 2. I'll bet on it. After playing like he was the size of Brian Gionta but with none of the heart at any point in the game, he made an awful turnover, and then didn;t bother to even try and come back after Gomez, leading to the 2nd goal. I'm betting he throws at least 5 or 6 hits and has a huge hand in the next game. I may not like him, but he's a machine power forward who doesn't have too many off games. Carey Price 'Halak'd' his way through the second period. Boston had 18 shots in the period. Now many people will say, well they were mostly low percentage shots and almost no rebound shots, it's still 18 and that's too many. Montreal did do a good job keeping them on the perimeter as there was at least one stretch of almost 2 minutes where the Bruins passed it around in the Habs zone without taking a shot. Ryan White played only 8 minutes of hockey and was fantastic. He threw 7 hits, at least 3 of which I counted, where he then took the puck and made a smart pass that led to a scoring chance. If Tomas Plekanec had put in half of the open net chances he made for himself after embarassing the Boston D tonight he'd have had a hat trick. Captain Gionta showed everyone how it's done, but it's going to take a lot more than just him to get through the series. I predict Boston will come back in a big way for Game 2, but this was a great statement from the Habs. Anyone else catch Price giving Sopel a wink after Sopel more or less saved a goal for Price... What a difference 2 years makes. The last time he did something that reminded fans of Patrick Roy, they wanted to run him out of town, this time, they're probably planning the parade.

MPH, I'm actually living in Niagara Falls now, and it's been dominating everything. I mean, the other series are going to be amazing, and I actually doubt that the Habs/Bruins will live up to it's billing, but the hype machine seems to be in full swing.

I feel bad for all the other matchups in the first round, because they're all background noise to the Habs/Bruins matchup as far as the media is concerned. Elliot Friedman was making his picks for the Calder. Now I could think of at least 5 reasons that P.K. Subban obviously shouldn't win it, 2 of them would be Grabner. But Friedman chose that he annoys people and that's why he won't win. God bless the CBC. I'm not sure how I want to call the Habs/Bruins series. Logic would tell me Bruins in 5 or 6. As a Habs fan I'd say Montreal in 6 or 7 and as a history buff you have to know that down 3-1 Montreal will still likely win. I think it comes down to the first 2 games. Montreal plays awful in Boston and Boston doesn't show up in Montreal. If Montreal can take game 1 or 2, it's a statement to the Broooons. If they come back to Montreal down 0-2, then Molson can pick up their 2 million in revenue per game for 2 or 3 games and call it a season. Montreal needs to find an answer to Boston's realization that if you chip it in deep on the slow Montreal D, and forecheck hard all game, you can wear them down.... fast. If Montreal can find an answer for that, then I would expect to see the highly talented, but neanderthal minded players like Lucic, Horton et al. taking tons of penalties in their own end and in the neutral zone. Because really, if they don't make their trucelence quotient for the game, the fans might not show up to the next one.

I feel so dirty for doing/saying it, but I made 50 bucks last night because I called that Montreal would go down by at least 5 goals. It just seemed inevitable even before the game. Boston are all sex nuts and retard strong, the last game they got spanked like children and they had lost 4 of 5 games in the season series to that point. All signs pointed to a blowout in their barn. Not that it feels good to have been shutout for 6 periods in a row for a score of 9-0 haha. Oh well, We're calling it lulling the Broooooons into a false sense of security for the playoffs, then Blammo, like clockwork we restore the natural order of things. I mean, I understand that Boston swept an injury decimated Montreal 2 years ago, but, I'm erring on the side of we just usually beat Boston.... especially in the playoffs... like 75% of the time or something as stupid as that. If it were like rock paper scissors it'd be Montreal covers Boston, New Jersey breaks Montreal and Nobody beats New Jersey.

Well, Mark Recchi, a former hockey hero of mine has lost all my respect. Today, on whatever hack radio sports show is on WBZ in Boston, he and the hosts discussed how the hit on Pacioretty was a clean hit, how it was Pacioretty's fault and that he embellished the hit. Then following the hit, Mark Recchi made the claim that the broken vertebrae couldn't have been that bad, nor could his concussion and he was embellishing to try and get Chara suspended. Sad day for me, I used to respect Recchi. Not surprised with the comments coming out of Boston however, their media and fans are second only to Philly in terms of dickishness and being uninformed.

I think it's pretty funny that Brad Marchand was talking about the league being tough on Cooke when he's finishing up his suspension for an elbow to the head... Speaking of Marchand, I'm curious why no one in the league or media seems to have an issue with Marchand being disrespectful as a rookie, considering he's taken every opportunity it seems to speak out to the media about a variety of topics, oftentimes sounding like an idiot and yet none of the veterans on his team, nor any opponents nor any media have an issue with his antics. But P.K. Subban playing with an edge. WOAH! you better fucking reign it in buddy.