Habs vs Leafs [Round 1]

The first of what should be another six classic Hockey game’s gets underway tonight in Toronto.

The Leafs have no pressure and no expectations to do anything but be a horrible team this year. The Canadiens the opposite, already under heavy surveillance.

The Habs stumbled a bit out of the gate in their first game, but still managed a point on the road against a competitive Sabres team.

The Leafs come in confident after defeating the Cup champ Red Wings in their home opener.

The Habs begin with 4 games in a 6 day span and Jaroslav Halak will get the call in nets tonight.

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13 Comments

#1 PACTUM SERVA says:
October 11, 2008 at 1:34 pm

Leafs will come into tonights game a little to confident. Habs will have game faces on after a so so game last night. 5-2 final Habs win

#2 groundworking says:
October 11, 2008 at 3:40 pm

Higgins, Koivu and Tanguay were rusty. Higgins and Tanguay have something to prove tonight, as they were both outplayed by the likes of Latendresse and Lapierre. I don’t like how Tanguay quits on the play–hopefully Carbo breaks him of that habit (If Kovalev isn’t quitting, then frigging Tanguay better find some fight!)

I thought Price looked good, Komisarek looked good (that goal was a bad bounce, not his fault), and Markov and O’Byrne looked good, but a bit rusty. Gorges played well. If Brisebois finishes the year with the Habs, I’m trying out for the team next year and I’ll write comments here about how good groundworking is, how tough he plays, and how all you guys should stop complaining about his giveaways because they were all because of the bad ice, etc.!

The Kats, Kovalev, Lang and Plekanac looked very good! Fun to watch!

#3 PACTUM SERVA says:
October 11, 2008 at 3:47 pm

Higgins did not even play last night, and if you thought latalentless played good then you didnt even watch the game….

#4 Dancan81 says:
October 11, 2008 at 3:56 pm

I can’t believe that the rds commentators were talking about how good Lats passing was last night during the game. He simply dumps the puck off the board and chases into the corners where his slow *** speed gets him beat everytime. Seriously why is he there? Nobody besides the coaches and SOME french commentators thinks he’s any good. Max P, should be playing on this team before Lats, no doubt about it. Are we all watching him play through some anti-Lantendresse goggles or does he really suck? I’m so confused.

#5 groundworking says:
October 11, 2008 at 6:32 pm

My apologies to Higgins–whoever played with Koivu and Tanguay sucked last night. I definitely do not think that Latendresse played a good game. He is my benchmark for “anything below this” and you’re in the minors.

Brisebois is worse than Latendresse. I also don’t know what the RDS people see in Latendresse.

#6 alias says:
October 11, 2008 at 7:40 pm

Latendresse just made a nifty pass on the 1st goal by Hamrlik

#7 Dancan81 says:
October 11, 2008 at 8:39 pm

He still sucks, lol, despite putting up some points.

#8 Lebeau says:
October 11, 2008 at 9:57 pm

Tanguay just proved himself. Man, they looked good tonight!

#9 hab faithful says:
October 12, 2008 at 12:07 pm

yes they did!

#10 Senet 1 says:
October 12, 2008 at 5:07 pm

Even Lats played good for two periods. It looks like Lang is fitting in nicely as well. Sergie had a great game and I think he earner is way on the two lines. I still would like to see him on the Line with his brother and Plex. He actually brings a little muscle and spirit to the line. That would free Kovalev up to play with Lang and and Leave Koivu’s line in tack for now. Halak played well against Toronto, I believe that he will be traded sometime this year for a number one draft pick hopefully top five.

#11 alias says:
October 12, 2008 at 7:44 pm

Lang is fitting in very well. Halak will definitely be traded IMO only if 2 things fall into place. Price shows that he is a bona fide #1and can handle the work load, and Denis needs to show he can be a capable back-up and can step in when needed and play well. If those things happen he will be dealt. I never thought of going for picks which is interesting, I had only thought about making a trade to fill a need (ie. lack of defense or specialty shutdown man)

#12 James says:
October 12, 2008 at 10:16 pm

The Habs look fantastic last night. The movement on and off the puck looked fantastic, and the power play looked better than last year’s.

Lets hope we can keep that performance level up the entire season.

#13 hab faithful says:
October 13, 2008 at 12:10 pm

I know we’re all excited about the win, but let’s put this into proper perspective, It was the leafs, who are a horrible team. The real test is tonight against a good team. If we beat the flyers, then we’re in for a good year. But first we must exorcise some demons, especially Price.

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goalie : Didn't get to see the game at all but it's great to see Pacs get a hat trick and fpor Cole to be + 3. When was the last time this team won three games in a row? Great victory -looks like they're giving 100% effort!
Senet1 : 4-2 win habs
Senet1 : Gomez scores, Yea!!!
goalie : As I said yesterday it will be interesting to see what our lame ass GM gets for players he ships out. Bourque is good and he'll help us but I still think we could have gotten more for him and for Halak when he was traded.
Avatar37 : round those picks occur (probably 3rd).
Avatar37 : An interesting article. If we slip to the 5th or 7th draft pick, a very interesting case could be made for drafting Galchenyuk. If we wind up with the second or third pick, I'm not sure who I'd draft, because clearly Yakupov is going to be drafted first overall. Our second round pick also becomes interesting, I know I'd take Vasilevski if he were still available. It will also be interesting to see if we can turn some of our veteran players (Moen, Gill, Campoli) into draft picks, and what
Avatar37 : «link»
Avatar37 : That is why PG should have waited on trading Cammalleri. Right now, there is a high demand for a top 6 forward, we could have gotten much more than Bourque in return. That isn't a knock against Bourque, but a knock against a knee-jerk reaction trade that didn't maximize our return on a top asset.
Avatar37 : «link»
Avatar37 : chips fall where they may. After all, the only difference between finishing 17th and 29th is how good a pick you get in the draft.
Avatar37 : We currently sit in 26th place in the league. We are 15 points ahead of Columbus, it's safe to bet at this point they will place last. We are, however, only 4 points ahead of Edmonton so it's still wide open as to who is going to finish second last. I still think that it's time to sit the veterans, play the youth, let them get experience, and regroup for next year. I'm not suggesting deliberately tanking like the Penguins, but give all our young players lots of playing time and let the c
Avatar37 : goalie - If it were not for the play of Cammalleri, we would never have made it out of round 1. Cammalleri played as big a part, if not bigger, than Halak did. Sure, Halak played well, but remember the team collapsed in front of him, making his job much easier. We had lots of blocked shots and the ones that got through were typically from the outside.
Senet1 : Goalie you are absolutely right, of course the one thing we had the two previous years that won the games that we are losing this year was our power play. If you look at say 10 games that we should have won had we had a similar power play, again we would not be having these conversations. When your PP goes from first to last in the league that is a lot of goals.How many games have we lost this year by one goal. Again poor management who did not prepare for Markov's possible absence.
goalie : I'll put it another way.... we need more players who are willing to get their noses dirty.
goalie : Two years ago when our goaltending stole series adn our players suddenly scored the coaches / GM believed that that was our true team . Well time has proven that was not. Though I was very glad to see the Habs knock off some very good teams we were very fortunate. And fortunate that spring was spelled HALAK!
goalie : The wrst mistake management could possibly make I believe is to say, we played well some games and we believe the team can play to that level more often in the future. This team CANNOT adnb DOES NOT play to a high enough level. Please do not kid yourself mamngement. hat is partially why we're in the lace we are.
goalie : Senet is correct when he says that if we had more games with a better efort this year we'd likely be in the playoffs. It has been very inconsistent effort but much more than that. We lack big, tough playing and finishing. Never mind fighting for a moment. We did not compete for the pucks nor along the boards nor in front of both nets enough this year. Thus we are in 29th. If the coaching staff doesn't see that then they shouldn't be there.
Senet1 : Surely Molson is not going to keep him as the GM?
Senet1 : when he knows he will be fired at the end of the season. Nothing really makes since in this whole process.
Senet1 : I am not sue why PG has not been fired by now. They could be waiting for another GM to come available at season end, but why would you not set up a committee to manage the team in the short run until a new GM can be named. There is no since in chaning coaches because whoever the GM is he will want to name his own coach. Gainey and a committe of other executives can manage the team through to the trading deadline and onward. What motivation does PG have to making any worthwhile trades when he is
Senet1 : I am too mch of a competitor to want my team to tank to. However, If these players played like they ae cabable of playing all year we would not be having this discussion right now, we woud be talking about the playoffs and who we would rather meet in the first round.
rocky : Exactly, and Senet nails it when he says we have not had an elite top 5 in the nhl player since lafleur.
goalie : I too want the Habs to get the best possible draft this June. We all need SOME hope!
rocky : He is persona non grata in habville, and a ghost in every sense of the term.
goalie : It remains a miracle how we have heard from our mighty GM twice since Christmas - the trades involving Spacek and Cammy and those comments were extremely brief. PG just does not cut it in my world. Part of a GMs job is to go public from time to time. PG never does that in fact he's a ghost GM!
rocky : Its true, there is no honor in that. These guys have only known the ethic of giving it all to win every night. I do not want them to "tank", and they will never do that anyway. I do want them to lose though, as awful as it sounds.
goalie : Roicky as a good point. We all want the Habs to get a really good draft pick. However, players, coaches etc. also have a keen desire to compete and win. That's why they're playing at the pro level. Thus we can only hope that the team plays some good games and let the chips fall where they may. After the disasterous season we've had let's not lower ourselves adn get involved in any dscussions about 'tanking' games.
rocky : So long.
Senet1 : Good discussion rocky, I have to step out for an hour, but may be back later.
Senet1 : The only way this team comes back to a team with long term potential is to draft a game breaker. Even all the other bad teams have a Stamkos or a player like him. He have some good player so what we need is a Malkin that we can count on 80% of the time to win a game for us.
rocky : I mean winning will only do them harm that is.
rocky : It really hurts because my reflexes make me want to cheer like mad, but it will only hurt the team now.
Senet1 : Yes I have mixed feeling when watching the game. Last night I say here we go again. with our record of shoot losses I did not expect to win that one. Yet I wanted to win real bad?????
rocky : God, so horrible to sit and hope for losses, but here we are.
Senet1 : Our problem is we play one out of every 4 games good and therefore, we play well enough to stay on the borderline of a top five pick. If we win three or four in a row we could take ourselves right out of the running.