The Sultan of Swank

So Oveckkin was held to 0 shots for only the 2nd time in 83 games. After a shitty first period, Montreal dominated the flow of game and while they took 10 less shots, they had far more scoring chances. Spacek broke up a 3 on 1 in OT with Backstrom, Semin and Ovechkin... Wow! Pleckanec scores the OT winner on Jose Three-or-more officially backing up his words from before the series started (Pleks said that Montreal's one advantage is in nets, it's not like Theo is Miller or Brodeur). Game one was an amazing display of the most exciting hockey I've watched all year. Especially the way the two teams traded rushes in OT. Scott Gomez went end to end on a give and go with Gionta for the prettiest goal of the night. Ovechkin was a total non factor last night, and his lack of back checking directly led to the tying and winning goals by Montreal... Game 1 was great, but I still think Montreal goes down in 5 or 6 at most. Also I'm loving that Pleks is being Called Tomas Jagr and Jaromir Pleks this morning... Apparently in the dressing room last night he was #68 on the whiteboard. (this stems from Theo's reply to his comments that he's no Jagr.)

Leafs get a few good chances and lucky bounces that they convert on but Montreal dominated at least 70% of the game. It's in OT now, but Habs clinch. CBC can't get their facts straight, and they make themselves look dumb as shit. To be fair, Toronto could still win, which would be upsetting, but in the last 6 season finale's between these teams Toronto only won one... granted it was a really big one but only one so far haha. Boourns make it two haha. ARGH CAMMY!!!!! snakebit isn't the word. Victimizes the entire D and Giguere and posts it. Ouf! Swear to god it should have ended about 11-3 Montreal the amount of times they've beaten Giguere and hit the post haha.

For me I'm hard pressed to find a better American player. He was awesome.\ EDIT: Not even started the actual broadcast and CBC is already claiming this as destiny for JS Giguere and the Leafs... Wow CBC... Fuck I miss RDS. Grabovski own goals then Halak misplays a puck... I hope it's not this kind of game. EDIT: HAH! JS Giguere's sister, with minimal capabilities to communicate in english, corrects the CBC.

Jesus... These other teams REALLY don't want the Habs to make it haha.

I will 100% support that. The few Habs fans Ive met out here. They go all out. But really, the few Leafs fans I know in Montreal do the same thing. When you're the only ones, you gotta represent the fact that you're the only fans of your hometown team for miles and miles haha. It's good fun.

As much as I hate that it's come down to having to beat Toronto tonight to get in... I love it. I wish I were home this weekend. There's no place in hockey that comes close to the passion you see in Montreal. The whole city has stopped for tonight's game. I remember that feeling when the Habs went to 7 against Boston a few years back, it's this near tangeable sense of excitement and fear that a team that you should beat, has nothing to lose and suddenly a very good chance of winning. My brother nabbed tickets for the game. 150 a piece to sit the front row of the upper bowl... which to be honest, are excellent seats.... hate him. Instead I'm stuck in Niagara with a ton of "wait till next year" Leafers and not a decent sports bar around. Nevertheless, at 7 or so tonight I'm putting on my Markov jersey and going out and hoping for one of 2 things. 1) A Montreal blowout. I mean a real fucking blowout. Like 8-2 or something. Something to give the fans a sense that Montreal isn't totally limping into the playoffs again.... 2) A fierce game. 5-4 OT win or something. One of those games where your team goes down 3-1 or 4-1 and then suddenly they bag one, and the momentum turns like a tidal wave and before you know it it's in OT. Then, win. Jubilation, pole-axed by Washington or New Jersey haha. Fuck, I'm homesick.

Goddamnit Montreal. What is it about non-playoff teams that you can't handle. Sure you'll get 5 of 8 points from the Caps in a season, but you can't handle the Isles or Canes?! For Montreal to get eliminated these are the parameters. Montreal must lose in regulation on Saturday against Toronto (possible, Toronto's a non-playoff team.) Boston must win both of their last 2 games. New York must beat Philly twice to end the season, but one of those wins needs to be in OT or SO. (this'll be the hard one to connect)

Right, I forgot that this time of year Clawson tries to explain that losing in the playoffs is worse than not coming close for 5 years. If the first 21 seconds of the game are any indicator, Toronto is 1) willing to throw games and 2) desperately wants Boston to get Taylor Hall, because if Toronto can't catch Montreal, at least Boston should. Huh, last time a team finished last in both PP and PK which Toronto threatens to do this year, was 94 in Anaheim, coached by Ron Wilson.

I just started a new game with a 09/10 season roster update. I'm only a few games in right now, but the very first move I made was to snag Mark Recchi. He's older than dirt and after 5 games has 6 goals and 11 points. EDIT: it came down to game 82 for Montreal to make the playoffs and they did so with an 8-4 dismantling of the Leafs. Gionta scored goals 48, 49 and 50 in that game and the 42 year old Mark Recchi would get 2 assists to finish the season 2nd in league scoring with 108 points. If only real life worked this way sometimes... I've got a 30, 40 and 50 goal scorer and 4 players with 80 or more points. EDIT: So my Habs lost out to eventual Stanley Cup champs the Carolina Hurricanes in a surprise 3rd round match up. Having finished 6th, I was hoping at best to force a game 7 or maybe... maybe win a series. The off season was rough on the team... we lost a chunk of role players who were great on our team... guys like Metropolit. Mark Recchi, our leading scorer decided to contemplate retirement and didn't want to sign with anyone which immediately threw up some red flags for the upcomming season, as there goes 110 points. Our already old defense got older, and a lot slower. To try and combat this we went out and signed Sergei Gonchar in the off season, I know another old guy. He's still got some speed and it's only a 2 year deal. He's also still an excellent d-man and we really wanted to get a top quality player to play with Markov. Salary became an issue and the blame could squarely be put on Scott Gomez. He had a great 80 point season last year, but at 7.3M/yr it's really hard to justify his salary. He got shipped off to Boston (where he's playing quite well) in return we picked up Marco Sturm, Mark Stuart and Toronto's 1st round pick. We ran into some injury, and productivity trouble early on in the season so I've since welcomed Alexander Perezhogin back to the team (11pts in 15 games so far), we also traded a 3rd for Dustin Brown and we signed Markus Naslund as a free agent this week. Hopefully that'll provide some scoring depth for the season. No matter what, with our D it's going to be a long year and I don't forsee the playoffs, but we've got some great prospects and Russian players who could step in at D next season as well as the fact that I know already that Hamrlik and Gill will be gone next season, probably Spacek also, which will open up 11.5 Million on top of the 3.3 we have available now. With almost 15 million, even after we re-sign our players, we can make a few splashes in terms of upgrading our D. The goal is to have a cup by year 5. Year 1 was great, year 2 looks like it might be a wash already...

Hah! Ron Wilson was talking about how since the Leafs have nothing to play for they're hoping to play spoiler on the Habs. That means he's gonna have to throw the game tonight because anything other than a Rangers regulation win locks up the playoffs for the Habs.

A Montreal win and a Rangers loss tonight clinches for the Habs. Obviously Halak will get the start considering he shut out Philly and Buffalo last week.... In the Philly game I was embarassed with how quickly Lapierre turtled, but his job isn't to fight, it's to incite other players to do dumb shit... fail. I was impressed with Moen who despite having 50 stitches in his face, stood up for his team mates. I mean, it's not like he can do much with all those stitches, but heart of a warrior. Be's talk about EHM makes me want to play it again. The only issue I have, is I can never get the updated databases to work... help? Also, I really want a Buffalo/Montreal match-up for the playoffs. Like you would not believe. Montreal is 2-1-1 Against Buffalo this year and if it wasn't for some miracle 2 weeks ago it would be 3-1-0. The only regulation loss to Buffalo came at the depths of our injury troubles, and really beyond that game, Montreal has absolutely dominated Buffalo on the ice this season. I feel that it could be a case of one team just having another's number for some reason. I'm not saying it would buy Montreal a series win. But if they can steal 2 games, you never know sort of thing... At the very least it'd be better than 5 games against Pittsburgh or 4 against Ovechkin.

Lord how I want to play Buffalo in the playoffs. I'm living in Niagara Falls now, I'm 20 min away and tix are probably cheaper and more accessable than Habs tickets.

What a boring game for both teams. Montreal either forgot that they won 6 in a row because of hard work, or just underestimated the worst team in the East, and failed to show up through 2.5 periods. Toronto played harder, but unfortunately have very few talented players. It was like watching the blind leading the dumb and evidentally the blind won. Montreal at least got the point to keep pace for 5th place in the East. They probably didn't deserve the point. Hopefully this game acts as a wake up call against the slumping Sens... I have a bad feeling about tonight.

So I missed most of the game last night because I was at ball hockey. I thought this was funny though, so one of the teams in the league call themselves The Leafs. They're super intense, all wear their dumbass looking Leaf jerseys to the game etc. We won 11-0, I had 6 goals due mostly to my blood lust, and as it turns out, the team is 0-4 with 3 goals for and 41 against... Sounds like real life. They've got only 1 scoring option, no D and a goalie who couldn't stop a fucking beach ball.

You mean you'll have the most over-rated defense?

Boo yah! 6 in a row and 6th place for now. Coupled with Ottawa's loss Montreal is 1 point back of 5th place Ottawa... who do have a game in hand, but more importantly there's a Habs/Sens game this week which could severely impact that situation. Philly managed only 1 point tonight, but they could still get 3 ahead with their 2 games in hand. Montreal's chances are bumped up to 93% now. Pleks agent says that they're done negociating until the end of the season. I retract my previous statement about him... So long Tommy.

I don't see Toronto being a playoff team next season. The defense, supposing that Kaberle stays in Toronto consists of 1 good puck moving d man, a good shut down man in Phaneuf and Komisarek who hasn't played well since getting rocked by Lucic and suffers from Markov syndrom. Up front It's Kessel and at best 3 decent prospects, probably only 2 really in Bozak and Kadri. Now, the Leafs also do this every season, they play well once they're out of the race. So I'd take with a grain of salt how well Bozak has been playing recently, and wait for next October to reserve judgement. I think with the right moves... which, considering it's Burke, I'm not entirely sure it'll happen(honestly, the only really good trade or pick up I think is for Giguere), but with the right moves, I think Toronto's looking at 10-12th next season, which would be a good improvement. Toronto is actually in a rebuilding mode, which is great for the Leafs, unfortunately Burke has really only ever inheirated good teams, or teams with high draft picks. Unfortunately he gave away the next 2 firsts for Toronto because this and next year aren't supposed to be great draft classes. I'm sure that if I told you that you had the chance to draft Hall or Seguin this year, you might disagree. As much as Toronto tried to improve last summer, they basically picked up grinders and bangers not speed and skill, except for Kessel... which they bet the farm on. This is not to say that Toronto might not find a gem in the following rounds, hell the 2010-2011 Calder winner P.K. Subban was from the second round, but I just don't see why a rebuilding team would toss away picks. I'm gonna predict around 11th next season, fighting for Playoffs in two, pending everything goes right.

I quite doubt that Pleks will hit the open market, recent reports from his agent say that talks are going very well.

I think if any team above Toronto wins tomorrow, they are mathematically eliminated as they currently have a 0.001% chance. Boston shit the bed with their loss tonight, now even if they win both their remaining games in hand they'd be tied with Montreal and have 5 less wins so they'd get 8th. With 12 games left and a 5 point cushion on 8th. I would be really.... really... really pissed if the Habs managed to fuck it up and wind up 9th... .. I wouldn't be surprised this year. A win tomorrow puts Montreals chances up to 93% A Predators win over Philly and a Habs win over NY would put Montreal in 6th.

Dragsy, dude. Atdhe.net It's how I survive in Ontario.

Sorry gamewelose, but the Blueshirts are gonna lose tomorrow. Fate and all. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGANLolukqg&feature=related also, thought this was fucking hilarious. Keith Aulie.. he's uh... he's 6'6 kid... he's like... a fucking wookie on skates.

Despite the loss the Leafs still have a 0.0008% chance of making the playoffs. They need a combination of at least 24 points in their last 14 games. Which happens 215 or so times out of 25,000,000 according to the computer, and they need a bunch of other teams to start dropping games. The Rangers and potentially the Lightning seems to be the two teams who want to ruin the playoffs for Montreal. It musn't happen. Game against the Blueshirts on tuesday, then no games 'till saturday, but this week is when teams start to make up a bunch of the games in hand.

The Leafs are exhibiting a classic Leaf pattern. Usually by January or Feb Toronto has played themselves out of the playoffs and are sitting in 11-13th. Then in March and April they have something like an 11-5-2 run or whatever and play up to 10th place getting stuck with a shitty draft pick. Only this season they're playing to not give Boston a top 5. Montreal wins their 5th in a row and since the Olympics are the best team in the league. The win over Boston means that the Broons need to win all 3 games in hand or score 5 of 6 points to catch Montreal for 7th. It looks like Boston and Montreal will finish in 7th and 8th. Either way one team gets the right to get pole axed by Washington, the other by Pittsburgh... Although Montreal was 2-1-1 against Washington this season, so it would at least be an entertaining series. Only 1-3-0 against the Pens though...

I understand that the CBC wants better ratings, so they're gonna show the Leafs game because 80% of Quebec is french and thus watching on RDS, but really, a part of me feels that the #29 v #30 team match up just shouldn't get precedence over the most intense rivalry since expansion, which is also an original 6 match up and is a game where #7 and #8 in the East are duking it out for position. Again, I understand there's more ratings in the Leafs/Oil game... but I just needed to get that out. In other news Montreal's chances now at 79.2% Boston at 76.8% Number 9 Rangers down to 17%

Hooray Habs win again! Not thrilled it had to go to shootout against the worst team in the league but a win is a win and 74 points puts us well clear of 9th and 10th even if they win all the games they have in hand. A win against Boston on saturday and I'll be quite pleased.