The Sultan of Swank

I don't see him being a dissappointment like Komi. I mean, I'll admit that Phaneuf if pretty over rated, but he's big, he's talented, he hits hard and can pass well. Maybe sometimes we think better than he really can, but Komisarek had suffered a pretty humiliating injury(and ass kicking) in his last year as a Hab, and also suffers from Markov syndrom where he was just playing with a ridiculously talented partner who made up for his shortcommings, Phaneuf should be a great anchor for the Defense in Toronto because it'll take pressure off Kaberle to do everything. Phaneuf's also a star. Which a team like Toronto needs. Because as talented as Kessel or Kaberle are, they don't seem to have that Star quality that makes people talk about them all the time.

Phaneuf a Leaf. Wow. When Burke was talking about getting bigger and more talented at the start of the year.... well there it is. No idea who or what went the other way, but Toronto doesn't really have anything besides Kessel and Kaberle worth giving, so yeah, Toronto takes on the salary, but that's a great trade for Toronto. EDIT: Pronger and Phaneuf in the East... Everyone less that 5'11 is dead.

Cammelleri, Done. Season, Done. Barring some miracle, the Habs will not make the second season, and they've likely lost Cammy for the balance of the season... Toronto to announce Giguere in about 45 min. I wonder who they'll be giving up though... I can't imagine much. Halak is probably going to be shipped soon as well.... Now if only we could shed the Gomez contract too... I wish you could trade parts of someone's salary(is that possible?) cause if someone wanted to pick up 3 million or so off the Gomez contract for the next few years... I could live with that. At 4.5 - 5 mil, he's still over payed, but in his last 20 games he has something like 21 points. So... it's not terrible.

Doomed to be a .500 team. After dismantling the Devils and Rangers on the weekend, Montreal shit the bed against 2 weak teams and could have put themselves right out of the playoffs. Having played the most games in the East and not being in the top 6... or even 8 for that matter.... yeah we're boned. But I'm sure this weekend they'll do something like beat Ottawa 7-1 and then rattle off a few more wins before dropping 5 before the break or some such shit.

I think it might be fair to say, that considering we got screwed and have played more games than any team, the back to back on wed/thurs could well possibly determine the course of the team.

Being out in Niagara now, I've had to watch Habs games streaming online, which is kind of shitty... then again, until last night where they surprisingly not only won IN New Jersey, but looked pretty good doing it, there wasn't much reason to want to watch. If Toronto gives up Kaberle for their 1st back, I dunno... I feel like it'd be a terrible trade. It would in effect make the already terrible Kessel trade even worse. Kaberle(A top 5 d man in the East), a 1st and a 2nd for Kessel... It would slowly be putting it into the ridiculous. I mean... going into this season, Toronto had to be thinking, yes we've got a tougher team, and Komisarek did play great in Montreal and Beauchemin was great in Anaheim.... so a playoff spot was definitely something that seemed attainable. Giving up 2 first rounders for Kessel was just short sighted in my opinion. I know you gotta give if you want to recieve, but now Burkie sees that Toronto is possible to have a lottery spot, so now he's going to give up the best and most consistent player on the team to get the #2 or #3 pick back? Maybe I'm just not seeing something, but I hope for Toronto's sake they keep Kaberle.

It was a pretty sweet move. Great game last night. Montreal's won 8 of 12 and has points in I think 10 of 12, so these are encouraging signs. It's took bad Andrei K is out 4-6 weeks from knee surgery, his line with Cammy and Pleks was outstanding.... now those two are struggling a bit. Big Georges Laraque scored his first goal as a Hab last night. The place went nuts, and he reacted as though he just eliminated Dallas from a playoff series. Good for him though considering he's Haitian. After the game he mentioned vaguely that he'd like to be able to take time off from the team and go help out in Haiti. 12 of Montreal's games before the break are against Eastern opponents, talk about a lot of 4 point games. They're gonna need to be better than the .500 team we've seen up to this point in the season. If last night was any indication there's cause for cautious optimism. If we can get to Valentines day in 5th through 8th spot. I'll start getting excited for late-april hockey.

Sawry Plub-Plub....

No one gives a shit who you cheer for Plubby.

Epic goaltender battle last night in Montreal. No question who was going to win though. I've got a friend who's out in Saskatoon voluenteering and whatnot. He was saying that for the Gold medal game he went out with some friends to a bar. They got there after the first, so when America scored their 4th goal, a bunch of tables erupted in wild cheering. He and his friends we all somewhat concerned that the good people of Saskatoon did not love their country nearly as much as he did. After the game and upon closer inspection they discovered that the tables cheering for America were actually teams Sweden, Slovakia and Finland, and they were just cheering for not Canada.

Well jake Allen shit the bed hard. Eberle was a hero. America needed that win waaaaay more than Canada. Still hurt though.

Absolutely. Can. Not. Wait.

Montreal played well this afternoon. Buffalo had unbelievably strong defence, it was frustrating how well they were stifling our passes and forcing the play. Miller was sensational in the third when Montreal really poured it on late. Sucks to lose, and the afternoon game with a 1-0 score is a pretty good cuer for insomnia.

what stereotype? That we're teh greatest people in the world?

6-1-0 on a 7 game road trip, and had it not been for heroic goaltending by Leclaire in Ottawa it likely would have been a perfect 7-0-0. Who'd have thought they'd do that after losing 5 in a row. Montreal now has I believe 6 of their next 7 at home, but unlike the roadtrip, these games are against high quality teams. Buffalo, Washington, Detroit's in there... it'll really prove the mettle of this team as barring a serious injury to Andrei Kostitsyn who left last game early, this will be the first real test for the complete team.... about 42 games into the season haha. Also, how important is Markov? 11 points in 6 games since his return, getting points in every game and is a plus 6.

Toe not to be a downer at all. But much how Habs fans are excited to be in 7th, we must remember that the teams behind us have up to 3 games at hand on us and could be 5 points ahead when they get to the same games play mark, for Toronto, it's not the amount of points (4) that you need to get to a spot, it's the amount of teams that Toronto has to get past. There are currently 6 teams ahead of Toronto before there's a playoff spot to be had. Toronto fans have to consider the fact that it's not as simple as winning 3 games and Toronto has a spot, they have to deal with 6 other teams who also feel the same way. It's no where near impossible, but it's not as simple as 4 points, in my opinion.

Switzerland was probably my favourite place when I was in Europe. Montreal drops a game to Ottawa and gets to feel how Toronto, Atlanta and others have felt recently. Montreal dominated Ottawa to a 2-0 lead, easily should have been 5-0. Leclaire keeps Ottawa in it, Ottawa snags the win late. Zero penalties against Ottawa! although the refs did, disallow a perfectly legit goal for Ottawa for a phantom goalie interference call, so I guess they had to make up for it.

I was on FHF which is a pretty funny Habs blog and thought this was pretty good: I say keep Markov out of the line up... Montreal actually plays pretty well (4-0) with him in the line up... maybe we can get 10 games with him in if we're lucky haha. Kaberle's got 3 points in his last 3 games. Toronto shut out Montreal quite convincingly last time these two met. Goaltending and Kaberle lead this team right now, Komisarek might even be waking up and learning how to play hockey without Markov. Only 3 points scored between Kessel, Poni, Hagman, Grabs and Stajan in Toronto's last 6 games. Plekanec leads the Habs with 9 points in his last 3 games, Andrei Markov is back and in awesome form, Gomez seems to be waking up.... sloooooooowwwwwlllllly, Cammalleri can't score on the road, but he's had 5 points in his last 3 games. Marc Andre Bergeron is the leagues highest scoring defenseman. D'agostini has been terrible lately, you can add Lapierre to that as well. Gill is only useful on the PK, Laraque hasn't once been useful for the Habs. Cammy needs to score on the road. Gionta, Hamrlik and Mara all out for Montreal tonight. EDIT: Lol at CBC... "Montreal will go to the powerplay... they've been pretty good lately *long pause* as it turns out they're first in the league." Way to do your research CBC... as annoying as a guy like Pierre McGuire is, at least he knows his stuff. Toronto wildly deserved to win. Montreal went out to a quick 2-0 lead with hard work. Then they decided that'd be enough. Toronto worked hard the entire game, and almost won... Almost haha. The wanted posters for Halak should go up in Toronto tomorrow. There were a few things I noticed about Toronto's game: 1) Unbelievable amount of bad shots. Shots from bad angles, shots with no traffic. There was no patience on the Toronto PP, you'd think it was 5 on 5 with the urgency they went for the shot regardless of if it's a good one or not. I know pucks on net is important(trust me.... I'm a Habs fan...) but smart shots. 2) Unbelievably terrible aim. I really feel that if Toronto shooters shot somewhere other than at the crest of the goalie's jersey or high and wide they'd be a dominant team. 49 shots tonight, lord knows how many missed or were blocked, but how many chances did Toronto have where the one timer came to Blake or Kessell or Stajan, they have the time and space and they miff it wide or hit the CH. I mean, Toronto deserved at least 4 or 5 goals... at least, and to be honest the 2 goals they scored tonight weren't even off good shots. The first hit a Habs stick, the second was a clusterfuck that went in off a Hab, Blake and Halak. Now those goals happen, and a goal is a goal, but look at the Habs goals, Pleks roof daddy'd Gustavsson, Gomez had a nice shot and Andrei shot with traffic and beat Gustavsson. Look at the last minute where Kessell had Halak dead to rights with 5 seconds left, and he missed by 3 feet. Toronto deserved this game because Montreal played their worst game of the year. I'm more than happy to see Montreal take the two points. But I'll be first in line to say that Halak and the PP bailed the Habs out. But really, Wilson, do some target practice with your team or something. Could have easily been 5 to 7 goals... easily, and it seems to be a chronic problem. Toronto leads the league in shots per game but have a terrible shooting percentage. Shit, I'm frustrated for Leafs fans. How many times did Kessell drive hard past Markov... one of the best defenceman in the league, and.... he hits the post, misses the net, takes a terrible shot.

Alright, I figured it had much more to do with than just stats, Thanks.

I think I asked this before but didn't get much of an answer but why do Leafs fans feel that Gilmour is something of a sacred Leaf? I'm just curious about it. He grew up in Kingston a Habs fan so he's not a hometown boy, I know he played 6 years in Toronto, but he played 5 in St. Louis and 4 in Calgary where he won a cup, along with 2 each in Jersey, Montreal, Buffalo and Chicago so it's now a Ray Bourque sort of Cup. He did put up his two best offensive seasons(and I think the Leafs best as well) in Toronto, but he came close to those numbers in St. Louis and almost as close in Calgary. I'm not trying to say that he isn't... I'm just trying to understand the relationship.

Spoiler: Canes Win. Montreal, traditionally rarely wins the last game before Christmas. When it's on the road, we haven't won on Dec 23 since 1945. Now THAT'S futility.

1 last Tomas Plek the Turtleneck statistic I thought was interesting. No player ahead of him in league scoring ranks in the top 200 in penalty kill minutes, he's 4th in the league... granted that has a lot to do with playing on the 2nd most penalized team...

Wow, what a steal last night. 50 shots against and we get the win.... should never happen but I'll take it. On the Bergeron OT goal, which in itself was a fan-dabi-dozi move, that whole goal was the work of the industrious Tomas Plekanec who made an unbelievable and precise saucer pass over one stick and then another and then right onto the tape for MAB to get the break and the goal. Bergeron now has 9 on the year, tied with Robidas for most by a defenseman, with 5 games less played. Not bad for 750k. Pleks, who once again was really the star forward for our team had 4 points on the night. Involved in every goal, and for the first time in god knows how long, Montreal officially has a top 10 scorer... sign em Bobbo. With 40 points, he's ranked 9th based on games played but tied for 6th with Parise, Backstrom, Richards and St. Louis. That's some pretty nice company. His 33 assists also rank 2nd in the league, behind Joe Thornton. Now, only 38 games into the year, these are some fan-dabi-dozi numbers, but come February and March, if he keeps this up, I think it puts him into the category of a star player... but that's still 40 games from now and tomorrow night will once again be a what have you done for me lately situation haha. Oh fickle Habs fans...

Yes, but I was amongst the first to jump on the fact that Kessel was playing on a far more talented team in Boston than he could hope for in Toronto, then he was injured for a good chunk of the year and missed a bunch of games, and now he's pretty much thrown the team on his back and is doing all he can to carry them towards the playoffs, so... While both are super talented, the inference that Kessel's stats were padded due to the guys he got to play with is obviously ridiculous now. Markov scored 2 in his comeback... that was wonderful. Sweden decides to not shake hands after the game cause they got spanked by our U20 team.

I know that trades in baseball are really fucked up to understand sometimes... but seriously.... 3 prospects AND they're paying 6 mil of Doc's salary this year... The Jays got fleeced methinks.