Sidney Crosby made his presence felt in his Montreal debut scoring 2 goals including the game winner and lifting the Pens to a 6-4 victory over a sloppy confused Canadiens team.

The Canadiens held a post-game meeting to try and determine their problems. The Habs have now lost 3 straight and are sliding lower and lower down the Eastern Conference standings.

The Canadiens managed to rally against a defensively weak team and score 4 straight goals to take the lead 4-3. These are the Pittsburgh Penguins remember? Michel Therrien called a timeout which seemed to be the turning point as the Canadiens figured they could now give up again. A lack of effort in the 3rd and same old story – a home ice loss to a less than .500 team.

Jose Theodore once again certified his bush league status letting in questionable goals. Painful to watch. Claude Julien’s patience is running thin and his “enough is enough” comment might be more than just frustrated post-game words. Things can’t continue like this for much longer and the chance the Canadiens make a move and perhaps a big move is looking more and more likely to happen.

The scratching of Ribeiro and Dagenais is sending a message. Changes are being made. Are they in the process of being traded or is Julien just sending them a warning? Time will tell.

The roster on Thursday in New Jersey will be interesting to see and may give us further clues. In the meantime don’t try to call the Bell Centre as Bob Gainey probably has all the lines tied up.

Tonight the Montreal Canadiens welcome the Pittsburgh Penguins and Sidney Crosby to the Bell Centre for their first game of 2006. This date has been highlighted ever since the NHL schedule was announced. Sidney Crosby was a long time Canadiens fan and he dreamed about playing for the Canadiens, the same team that drafted his father. This is the first game of his career in Montreal and 2nd against the Habs, in the first he scored a highlight reel shootout goal to win the game and tonight he will surely be ready to go again. Michel Therrien also makes his return to Montreal this time as Coach of the Penguins, he will no doubt want to send a message himself to the team that fired him.

The Canadiens start the New Year fresh and trying to regain the success they found earlier in the season and forget their recent slide. The slide has put them in a dangerous spot. The Habs are currently sitting in 8th spot in the Eastern Conference after Tampa Bay passed them and the surging Atlanta Thrashers are knocking right on the door. The Thrashers have their #1 star goalie healthy again and the difference is already being felt as they knocked off the Senators 8-3. They won’t go away. The Canadiens hold a few games in hand on each team and will have to put them to use to stay competitive in the Conference.

The good news for the Habs, the team is healthier than they have been in a long time and the top line of Koivu, Zednik and Kovalev will finally get a chance to play again. When this line was healthy and firing, the Canadiens were a winning team and had their season high 5 game winning streak. Radek Bonk is set to return shortly although no one knows if that will make a difference as he has been virtually invisible all season.

Trade rumors are everpresent and speculation increasing as the Canadiens are shuffling around their roster demoting Perezhogin to Hamilton and recalling Andrei Kostitsyn, Jonathan Ferland and defenseman Jean-Philippe Côté. No one really knows why as their are fewer roster spots available as the team is healthy and no real room. If the Canadiens don’t turn it around in January there most certainly will be some kind of move made to change things around.

Until then the Canadiens go tonight against an improving but definitely beatable Penguins team.