montreal canadiens hockey - habs blog

Old people go to Florida to die, so they say.

The Canadiens go for the same reason apparently.

The Habs had chances to bury the Panthers early last night and failed to do so. The 1-1 score dragged on for ages and you knew the early chances would come back to haunt them and it did.

On paper you’d think a short road trip to Florida to play some average teams should result in nothing less than a split and hopefully 4 points. The Habs need a regulation win tonight to get that split and come out .500 which is certainly possible but far from guaranteed.

David Abeischer should get the start since it’s back to back and on the road. Not to mention Cristobal Huet seemed a little ‘off’ in yesterday’s game. He didn’t play bad but seemed to struggle with moving and getting up at his normal speed.

The Lightning are second last in the East, only to the Flyers. This is a team with Martin St-Louis, Brad Richards and Vincent Lecavalier, collectively earning more money than you probably could in 10 lifetimes.

Unfortunately for them, that’s about all they have. They are very vulnerable on defence and their 122 goals against and record speaks for that.

This is a winnable game for the Habs and it would give them a very satisfactory record of 23-10-5 to start the New Year.

The Habs Holiday break was short and they were back to business against Ovechkin and the Capitals last night.

Any doubts of whether they could pick up where they left off were answered with a 4-1 win.

The Habs contained Ovechkin and almost earned a shutout against the Caps until late in the 3rd while down two men.

The Habs got production from unlikely sources Mathieu Dandenault and Aaron Downey to take the lead in the first. 4th liner Latendresse added two helpers.

The contributions from these kinds of players are helping the Canadiens maintain and improve their impressive record.

Cristobal Huet was sharp as ever and deserved to get the shutout.

The one thing you can fault the Habs for is taking penalties, many of them. At inappropriate times. Their special teams usually handle it but it’s a trend you would like to stop.

The Habs play a back to back Friday and Saturday in Florida. The back to back games are another area the Habs have been sub par in, and the last time they played a second game in two nights in Florida they lost 5-1 to the Panthers.