The Sultan of Swank

I wonder who I'd rather have the Habs face.... The Bruins are manageable in terms of talent and size, but have a goalie who is capable of being as good as Halak which would be an issue. Philly could probably smash us out of the building, but they have a goalie and injury issue that Montreal could easily take advantage of... Either way, I don't think Montreal is supposed to win the series... but I'm very confused about what should and shouldn't happen....

So I just saw video of the looting... it's just a bunch of gangster looking kids going nuts on it. There are a few habs jerseys sparsed inbetween.... the only defining features of the looters is that based on the video, they're predominantly black... I dunno... it just doesn't seem like Habs fans, for a city decked out in bleu blanc et rouge, to have entire mobs void of habs jerseys... it doesn't say Habs fans to me. I'm sure some took part, but I don't think it's fair to blanket the city on this one.. other times maybe haha..

Yeah, those aren't hockey fans who start looting, they're just opportunistic morons. Although apparently before the looting started, there was a scene which turned ugly as the police were starting to funnel people out of the middle of the streets(which they've done for most games after a few hours of celebrating), apparently one girl tripped and the police just laid into her to get her moving again, the crowd saw it, and turned on the police... That... I have to say... I kind of agree with, knowing how reckless and brutal Montreal cops often are. But the looting... I mean, it happened late in the night as fans were leaving, it really wasn't a case of hockey fans going overboard, it was fucking idiots making Montreal look bad. Also, thought this was interesting... The 3 Vezina candidates, Miller, Brodeur and Bryzgalov have all been watching the playoffs for a while now, but Halak, Niemi and Nabakov, two ninth round picks and an undrafted goalie, are in the final four.

Well it's 4-2 with 14 min left in the third and Pittsburgh is looking scary..

Fork, it's not at though Pittsburgh is playing badly... but it just seems like the Montreal defense is willing to stop a bullet for Halak, clear every possible rebound, and let Halak take care of the rest... It's a good team buying into a system and playing like a great team.

While last night's game was nothing short of a miracle, and we saw heroics from Lapierre and Cammalleri... I don't see us winning a game 7 again... but I gave Montreal 5 games against Pittsburgh so as always.... YOU GOTSTA BBEEEELLLLIIIEEEVVVEEEE!!!!! What I found interesting was a few things... after the game ended and the Habs were celebrating, Crosby gave Plekanec a good crosscheck... classy. I thought he'd be thrilled having equalled Tom Pyatt's goal scoring totals for this series... Also, I thought it was nuts that Montreal from 3pm yesterday, started detouring traffic out of downtown and had closed the entire downtown off from cars by 7pm or so. After the game, there were apparently just tens of thousands of people from the arena, bars and restaurants who just took over the streets having a good time.... no riots haha...... yet. They did this also for each elimination game of the Washington series, home or away it doesn't matter, so it's just safer to close down Ste. Catharines street than to try to let a car navigate past 20,000 or 30,000 fans having too much fun. Cripse I hope we win game 7. I know I'm hoping against hope, but really... it's been a pretty incredible run for a team that lost their way into the playoffs and was supposed to go down to Washington in 4 games... maybe 3, and that shouldn't have posed any issues for the Penguins.

Chase, I think Toe summed it up perfectly, so I don't think there's much else to say. Clawson... Uh... Pittsburgh's first goal came off a non call which made a 2 on 0 and their second came off a flukey bounce... So... it went both ways tonight. Montreal's finding ways to win, sorry it's not to your liking.

Interesting tidbit I read the other day. When Halak was announced the first star after game 6 against Washington, the Bell Centre mics recorded it to be the loudest it's ever been at the Bell. 140 decibels. That's the same as a jet engine at 100 feet or a gun being shot in the same room.... Cool. And K, you and I both know that towards the end of the game, I think Gorges swiped at him and he dropped like a bag of bricks into the turtle position. It's disgusting what he can get away with. He's no stranger to diving at the Bell Centre, he's already twice faked injury there to try and draw a penalty, and this series, poor baby hasn't been able to score, so he smashing sticks against the other teams net while the goalie is right there... oh and the play is still going on, he's crosschecking players from beind after the play... not like it's in a scrum either, it's just Cammy skating away and Crosby getting frustrated. He's a bitch, through and through. In fact, here's a story from Canwest News Service, they own a ton of papers and media outlets in Canada...

When Lapierre missed going roof daddy on Fleury by hitting the crossbar in the first, I turned to my girlfriend and said, that will be the reason we lose this game. Montreal's been playing a system where they get very few shots, but have a decent number of scoring chances. Tonight on 17 shots they probably had between 6-8 real good scoring chances, the issue tonight was that they mis fired on a few and Fleury got his head out of his ass for the rest... Thursday night should be fun to watch aswell... I wonder if we'll see more theatrics from Crosby. What a little bitch he is. He can't score in Montreal so he cross checks guys after plays, gets tapped in a scrum and collapses into the prone position... he's just a bitch. At least Malkin will fucking stand up for himself and not go after a guy from behind and then scream for team mates and the refs when someone comes after him.

Good game for Chicago. I really want to see them beat Vancouver.... especially since the Heritage minister in Canada called Vancouver Canada's team in these playoffs haha.

I agree with your statement K.

This deserves its own post... BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA As though, Cooke, one of the dirtiest players in the league right now has any right to call out another player about anything. As much as the Markov hit was clean, there's simply a video parade of him throwing knee on knee hits, blindside hits and him generally being a scumbag... Alright buddy, you keep picking on P.K. Subban.... Maybe Cooke's jealous that after only 6 NHL Games Subban already has more respect around the league than Cooke could ever hope for.

Wow Pittsburgh showed a lot of frustration this afternoon, from Crosby being his usual bitch self breaking his stick during a play by slashing it against the Montreal post... where Halak happened to be following the play, but that's okay cause it's Crosby, to that fucking dirty hit on Bergeron at the end of the game. Montreal got killed in game 1 because of the Pittsburgh powerplay, today it was Cammy with 2 gorgeous goals and Halak transforming back to superhuman, getting inside the Pittsburgh players heads going back to Montreal. Clawson, Boudreau has got to be the most over rated coach in the league, and I was trying to say that failing so epically against a team so much worse than their own showed the glaring flaw that Boudreau was unable to adjust Washington's game to beat the Habs.

I just feel that Washington was already looking at a conference final match up against Pittsburgh rather than on the first round. The Pens are also an incredibly complete team, and while Montreal has a huge chunk of guys who've won the cup and know what it takes, Pittsburgh essentially has the same core from their last 2 runs, so the experience is there as well. Anyone else think Boudreau should be fired? He shit the bed pretty hard, I mean Jacques Martin was making adjustments to the Habs game throughout the series, his coaching was pivitol in winning game 5. He coached Boudreau into the ice. It showed a pretty big flaw in their team.

So not only is Halak going to have to channel the ghosts of Vezina, Hainsworth, Durnham and Plante, but also the future ghost of Dryden and Roy just to give us a chance... I think it was R.J. Umberger who said that any team that can play a team game against Washington will win.... Pittsburgh is not a one dimensional team(even if Washington's dimension is an awesome one), Montreal will need Pleks and Cammy to keep scoring, they'll also need Gionta to get going, Gomez to keep making great passes, and they'll need a lot of depth scoring from Andrei K, Benny Pouliot, Metropolit et al. Also... The USS Hal Gill will need to keep doing what he's been doing all playoffs, Gorges too.... but now we need more contributions from the rest of the D... looking at you Hamrlik.... you fucking 5.5 million dollar bum. Also... Did I mention Halak will probably have to be better than what he was against Washington? After much thought, I revise my prediction to Pittsburgh in 5.... maybe 4.

I'm again back to, well... if we can lose in 5, that'll be okay.

Les Canadiens Sont La is only for home games directly after the win. Then It's Ole before and after. Sooo, Yeah, who saw that coming?

So Halak just turned in one of the finest goaltending performances I've ever seen. It's gotta be a top 3 for at least the last few years, it was insane. Regardless of what happens wednesday(read: when Montreal get's bounced, cause there's no way we're taking 3 in a row against Washington), I think it's safe to say that any questions of the strength of the Canadiens goaltenders has been put to rest. Halak has stopped 90 of the last 92 shots he's faced for a mind boggling .981 save %age. PK Subban was a force last night. He played limited minutes but made his presence felt. On his very first shift he threw a huge hit, and he just kept going from there. Great passes, lightning fast, made good decisions all night. Although when he made that sweet between the legs pass infront of his own net, I think Gord Miller summed it up perfectly "He's either the coolest guy in the dressing room, or has no idea he's in a game 6 in the Stanley Cup playoffs." I can't wait to see him play a full season. Bruce Boudreau makes the best facial expressions, and is probably my favourite coach to see in the post game interviews just because when the Caps lose, he is so overcome with rage. Check out the TSN post game video, it's pretty funny the way he stares down the guys who ask some of the questions. Ovechkin(who will likely score 3 or more in game 7) was clearly frustrated after the game. Saying how Washington just made Halak look good and they did that last year also with Lundqvist etc... When a goalie turns in a performance like that... you didn't make him look good. The saves he made were spectacular all night. He got hung out to dry really. He was making stops on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th attempts. He was stopping breakaways, one timers, on 3 situations. He made himself look good. I really really really really really really want Montreal to complete the greatest playoff upset since the 1970's when Boston finished 30 points ahead of Montreal and fell in 6 or 7... but I just don't see it happening. In any case, like I've said before that doesn't matter because... YOU GOTSTA BEEELLLLIIIIEEEEVVVVVEEEEE!!!!!! EDIT: Further proof that this was a miracle, and that the ghosts of the Old Forum may have had something to do with last nights win... It's snowing in Montreal this morning.

I like how the smattering boo's that the US anthem receives from some seperatist idiots always draws this scathing media response. Shit some nights we boo the Canadian anthem too... we're equal opportunity haters. Nah, to be honest, it bothers me when it gets boo'd but they make it seem that 21,273 are doing it and not the 300-400 in the cheap seats.

Oh hahahaha. Yeah, he's a fucking gem.

Why's that? They've brought him up once already this year for 2 games (was a +2 in 2 games where Montreal got out scored 9-3), and they brought up Weber last year in the playoffs when half our D went down and that was his first NHL experience. Subban has played a full year in the AHL, he was 3rd in Defensemen scoring and finished +46 or something ridiculous like that. Montreal needs a call up, and Subban is clearly the best choice as far as skill set. If anything he's the only player I'd want to call up for tonight... What's the harm anyways? He'll play 15 minutes of hockey, if that really... Montreal will lose 4-1 or 6-2 or something and he rejoins the Bulldogs for the rest of the Calder Cup. A pretty good experience for a guy who's already handled the attention of the World Juniors, being a top Habs draft prospect and being amongst the best players in the AHL in his rookie year. Yeah, I'm aware that Montreal colossally mishandled Price, but Gauthier hasn't yet annointed Subban as the franchise saviour haha.

Great game from Montreal. There will be a game 6, but we suck at home for some reason so it'll end on Monday... For all the flak the Habs goalies get... I'm just throwing this out there, but for all the 'high glove side' shit Price gets, Varlamov's blocker side is about as good as a Midget AAA goalie. His glove is unbelievable, but I think 80% of the Habs goals have been blocker side, he's just slow.

What actually happened there with Ovechkin is he was about to run over a cord for either a mic or camera, and rather than ruin the equipment, snowed the kid. Shit the kid probably got a kick out of it, but yeah the Gazette website has photos and video to show he wasn't being a total dick haha. Well at least they won't be the first team out. Asides from game 3, Montreal spent long spans of the series in pretty good control of the games. The only issue is that if you don't get a couple goals up and then keep the pressure, you're fucked. I would use game 2 as an example, as Wasnington's pressure was there, but 2 goals were bunk But it seems that in games 2 and 4 it was a span of a few minutes of less than amazing shut down hockey against Washington where they'd pop in 3 and oh shit, suddenly it's over. Still though, I have to say that I'm betting nobody thought Montreal would even show up to these games, let alone make Washington look not so great for good chunks of the game... if Montreal could shut down AO and co. for 30-40 min of a game, imagine Philly or Pittsburgh. Oh yeah, also, just cause I need to say it. Down 3-1, no team is more successful than the Habs (ask Boston), so in the face of all logic and reason, especially considering Spacek is out tonight and he's been Kryptonite at times for AO... YOU GOTSTA BEEEELLLLLIIIIIIEEEEEEVVVVVEEEEE!!!!! Also Plub, Pleks was clearly making reference to the fact that Theo is like the Sharks in the playoffs, and Varlamov isn't really a goalie you talk about as a top tier guy. In relation to regular season stats (which is where the question came from, as people gave Montreal the edge in nets going in), Halak's numbers in GAA were top 10 in the league, and his Save % was 4th.

Real excited for the game tonight, great first period to watch. I was kinda ticked in game 2. If I thought Montreal was gonna win the series I would be livid, but goals 3 and 4 by Washington were blatant goalie interference. I saw it, the fans saw it, the panel on TSN saw it, Sportsnet commented on it, it's not me being a homer, it's 2 blown calls to even the game for Washington... irks me. Then again, it would push it from 5 to 6 games, so it's not the end of the world. Watching that first period... there is no arena more wild than the Bell Center.... Fact.

Ouf, after opening day the Jays had only 12,000 and 10,000 fans for the next two games of the White Sox series..... Those are about as bad as when it became apparent that the Expos were leaving... and Toronto's stadium is right downtown, not 25 minutes away and in a bad neighbourhood.... It's strange considering they're 6-3 early on with some exciting players to watch this year.