While Montreal had a well-earned rest after back-to-back games, there was no rest for the Blackhawks, who were coming off a biting 4-1 loss to Nashville that was sealed in the last 2:03 of the game and the Capitals were set to face the Flyers, with new coach Jack Laviolette, but were without the services of suspended superstar Alex Ovechkin.
Capitals-Flyers
I missed the game, I was busy watching the Chicago-Pittsburgh game, but I have to say, the Capitals once again, missing the prescence of outstanding star player Alex Ovechkin found a way to exploit a disoriented Flyers squad, from what I managed to pick up later on...
1st Period:Tomas Fleischmann collected his 9th goal of the season off a Brendan Morrison centering pass 57 seconds into the game, Fleischmann despite missing training camp, pre-season and the team's first eleven games has taken off quite impressively thus far this season 1-o Capitals.
Mika Pyorola brought it even for the Flyers just over eleven minutes later and it was entirely possible a see-saw battle between these two teams would erupt, as they often have for the rival squads, 1-1 score.
Daniel Carcillo doomed his Flyers team however when he would sucker-punch Washington's Matt Bradley, collecting a cross-checking, instigator and five-minute fighting major adding up to 9 minutes of power-play time for Washington, with a Game misconduct attached.
Mike Richards would set up a 2-on-1 with Jeff Carter during the long Flyers penalty kill, but netminder Theodore stopped Carter's shot off of Richards feed, denying the Flyers a lead and any momentum from an extremely dangerous penalty kill unit that was renowned for shorthanded goals last season.
Washington would score 20 seconds apart after 4:36 of PP time had passed, another goal by Fleischmann than a quick wrist shot by Blue-line sniper Mike Green off of a Nicklas Backstrom feed gave the Capitals a 3-1 lead to end the first period, outshooting the Flyers 14-13 during the stretch.
2nd Period:
There was still 1:06 of PP time left for Washington to start the frame and they scored even faster than the first period with only 36 seconds to go, Brooks Laich tapped in his 10th of the season, thanks to the playmaking work of Mike Green and Backstrom, 4-1 Capitals.
The offensive pressure would relent, with Capitals call-up D-man Karl Alzner taking a penalty giving the Flyers their first power play of the match, but would result in nothing as Theodore kept the Flyers without a goal during the Washington penalty.
Alzner would jump out of the penalty box to take the puck for a quick pass to Chris Clark, Captain of the Capitals team, he would loose a wrister to deliver the 5th goal of the game for Washington, chasing Ray Emery from the net, after 5 goals on 17 shots.
Nicklas Backstrom would work off of a Jurcina slapshot rebound to bring it to 6-1 Capitals, spoiling any hopes of Flyers backup goalie Brian Boucher closing the door on a relentless Capitals offence.
Backstrom would set up Mike Green once more for his 2nd goal of the game off another one of his sharp wristers, Green has had a rather slow start goal-scoring wise, with only 5 goals in his first 28 games compared to the 31 he scored last season, he still leads all defencemen in points, up to 30 thanks to his 4-point night. The Flyers were outshot 25-21 over 2 periods, but the real story was the scoreboard on that count.
3rd Period: The Flyers would try to storm back offensively, with a 15-5 shot advantage for the period, but would produce a single goal by Scott Hartnell, whose own slashing penalty later on neutralized the slight dig into the Capitals lead by allowing for another Capitals goal.
Scott Hartnell would feed off a behind-the-net pass to beat Theodore in a late effort for some minor personal glory and something for the Flyers to take off the night as they shrunk the lead to 7-2 for the Capitals. Hartnell's glory would be short-lived as he would later be caught for a slashing penalty.
David Steckel, who finally produced his first goal of the season would restore the 6-goal lead on tne ensuing Power play, he would feed off a well-placed Mike Green pass to make the final score 8-2. The Flyers would end up with the shooting advantage of 36-30, but Theodore would make 34 stops, the Flyers two netminders a mere 22.
Strutting their stuff: Nicklas Backstrom would have a goal and 4 assists on the night, Mike Green would have 2 goals, 2 assists, the premiere playmaker Backstrom and star defencemen Green would both score their 25th assist of the season together on the Steckel goal. Tomas Fleischmann would have a 2 goal night, the team is 2-0 for Alex Ovechin's 2-game suspension in an offensive flurry that saw 14 goals over two games.
Blackhawks/Penguins
'Wow' would be the most accurate way of describing the match, The youngest team and most talent-laden team in the Western Conference engaged the most talented team in the Eastern Conference. Sidney Crosby was out of the match with a groin injury, but thanks to the Penguins glut of top centres, Jordan Staal took the 2nd line duties while Malkin took over the top line and neither and scarcely missed a beat, the Penguins depth down the middle has got to make you hate them at times.
Marian Hossa was facing his 2008 team, who he lost the Stanley Cup with in the 2008 Finals, lost it to them when he switched to the Red Wings for the 2009 Cup Finals and finally decided to stick with a team in the Chicago Blackhawks for the next 12 years in his massive new contract. The crowd was quite vocal in booing the high-scoring forward they felt had abandoned them and gone shopping for a Cup. Antti Niemi recieved the start in nets, the 26-year old is 5-1-1 this season, which begs the question of besides Christobal Huet's salary, why doesn't the Journeymen goalie start more often? Marc-Andre Fleury, a likely candidate for the Canadian Olympic Team took to goal crease for Pittsburgh, he's become quite the thief when it comes to scoring on him in the last two years after having a rough start following his 1st overall selection in the impossibly talent-laden 2003 Entry Draft.
The First Period: The only goal to be scored in this stretch would come from a 4-on-4 section of the game when after Pens D-Man Brooks Orpik was holding, then Duncan Keith was cited less than 30 seconds later for intereference. The period would spawn a disagreement that would last the match between Pens forward Matt Cooke and Hawks defencemen Duncan Keith, as Keith's blindside hit on Cooke that spawned the interference penalty came from Cooke running him in his own end, which did not draw a penalty but Keith felt a need to push back against the hard-checking forward.
Patrick Kane would steal the puck along the boards and take off with the blinding speed that has defined the young forward's career and his justification to be drafted first overall in 2007, he would bring it in the Penguins zone and hold it until he could feed it to teammate Brian Campbell, who would rip a shot off of Fleury that produced a big rebound, just in time for the slick reflexes of Hossa to catch the flying puck, bring it down to the ice and slip it by Fleury, 1-0 Blackhawks.
A tustle between Penguins grinder Mike Rupp and Hawks grinder Ben Eager would cost the Penguins, as Rupp was assessed a double-minor for roughing while Eager served a single, but no score on either side during the match thanks to impressive goaltending and strong defence. Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook never seemed to come off the ice, keeping both the Malkin and Staal lines in check as often as they could. The Hawks would take an 11-9 shots advantage over the period.
The Second Period:
Scoreless, but not for lack of trying. The Penguins wanted to tie the game up and take the lead, but solid goaltending from Niemi and a very coordinated, mobile defence by Chicago kept the rebounds away from Niemi or blocked shots and disrupted the top Penguins lines.
Pittsburgh would outshoot the Blackhawks 17-6 over the period, but the Blackhawks few scoring chances required the sharp wits of goaltender Fleury, speed kills in the NHL and the Blackhawks are known for punishing any team that can't keep their forwards contained. The shots were now 26-17 Pittsburgh, but Chicago still held the lone marker. Duncan Keith would play over 20 minutes by the end of the period, his partner Brent Seabrook was less than thirty seconds short of putting in 20 minutes himself. This is all after playing the night before as well, these two young men should be Olympic starters, without question for Team Canada.
The Third Period:
The Blackhawks wanted to seal the deal and get an insurance goal but it never came, tight saves by Marc-Andre Fleury and good defensive work to keep the Blackhawks shooters from setting up in the offensive zone kept Chicago from cashing in on any rebounds or golden chances.
The Pittsburgh Penguins came close to solving Niemi several more times, but it took Fleury sitting on the bench with the sixth man with 1:32 left in the game for a goal to finally get by the Finnish netminder. A faceoff win by Malkin, a pick-up by Gonchar, a feed to Malkin who would rip off a slapshot from the point, the shot was blocked only to have the rebound float right to an open Jordan Staal, whose quick reflexes would put the puck past a sprawling Niemi to tie the game. Chicago would outshoot Pittsburgh 11-6 over the period, the Penguins would still lead with a 32-28 total shot advantage.
Duncan Keith would have played just about 30 minutes of game time to this point, after playing just over 26 minutes the night before, talk about earning your new contract!
Overtime: Chicago would lock down Pittsburgh in the extra frame, using their strong defensive corps to keep them contained until a breakout play by Kris Versteeg would end things.
Kris Versteeg, thanks to the lockdown efforts of the Chicago Defence would take the puck into the Penguins zone and feed a pass to Brian Campbell, who would shoot twice, his first effort blocked and then a weak second puck would hit Fleury, Versteeg would crash into the crease and push the puck into the goal, delivering the game-winning goal, ending the Penguins 6-0 Overtime winning streak, handing Pittsburgh their first overtime loss of the season at home.
Key Players:
Pittsburgh: Jordan Staal and Evgeni Malkin would be in place for many offensive chances and would set up the game-tying goal that allowed Pittsburgh to leave with an overtime point. Brooks Orpik, Sergei Gonchar, Kris Letang and Mark Eaton would work very hard to contain a very quick Chicago offence.
Chicago: Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook would play a combined total of 59 minutes, 39 seconds over 62 minutes and 38 seconds of game time, a fantastic performance by two elite defencemen that seem at this point, destined to form a pairing on the Canadian Olympic Hockey Team. Marian Hossa would be the only Blackhawk to score on the Penguins during regulation time on a slick rebound goal and would continue to harry his old team all night long alongside linemates Joanathan Toews and Patrick Sharp. Patrick Kane would make the offensive zone moves that made the Hossa goal possible, while Versteeg's improving play of late made the OT winner possible, Brian Campbell would assist on both Blackhawks goals.
Thoughts: We could do a whole hell of a lot worse than to have a 7-game Stanley Cup Final occur between these incredible teams, as much as I may dislike them for their failures delivering them their drafting success, you can't argue with how well they play on the ice. This is a preview of the Stanley Cup Final, you heard it here first.
Granted of course, the Canadiens don't go on another 1993-esque Miracle Run with Carey Price channeling Plante, Dryden and Roy the whole time ;)
Ex-Habs Recognition:
- Bruin Steve Begin would drop Jamal Mayers in a fight during a losing battle for the Maple Leafs in a 7-2 drubbing by the Beantown boys.
- Maple Leaf Mike Komisarek would attempt to put out Zdeno Chara's right eye with a dangerous high-sticking that went unnoticed by a very oblivious ref, a four-minute double minor towards Toronto during that point in the game might have seen the score jump even further. Komisarek just isn't the same since he had his ass handed to him by Milan Lucic last season in Montreal.
- Ranger Chris Higgins would score his 3rd goal of the season off a Gaborik feed, which is pretty sad considering he registered 3 20+ goal seasons for his first three years with Montreal.
- Lightning member Alex Tanguay would assist on Rookie defencemen Victor Hedman's first NHL goal.
- Senator Alex Kovalev would assist on a Jesse Winchester goal with 46 seconds left in regulation time to bring the score up 2-3 against the Phoenix Coyotes, but the team failed to tie the game in the remaining time.
Junior Habs Recognition:
- Tougher night for the Hamilton Bulldogs, a 6-5 overtime loss to the Toronto Marlies (Baby Leafs), P.K. Subban would collect one assist in the game. as would Mathieu Carle, two of Montreal's better defensive prospects. Dimunitive centre David Desharnis would score a goal and assist, but given his 5'6" stature and Montreal's lack of size in the forward corps, he'll likely be a career AHLer or moved to another team in a trade deal rather than serve as a Canadien over the next several years.
- Swediesh Centre Andreas Engqvist, who was signed to a contract with Montreal after recieving a development camp invite over the summer and impressing the Habs scouting department is getting back to scoring, with 2 goals and 2 assists in his last 5 matches in the Swedish Elite League after several prolonged dry spells.
- Mac Bennett has scored goals in 2 consecutive games with his USHL Cedar Rapids Roughriders now, after a slow start when returning from participating in the World Junior A Championship with Team USA.
- Finnish centre Joonas Nattinen, a 6'2" member of the very impressive 2009 Draft class Montreal selected has 4 goals and 2 assists in his last 4 Finnish Junior League matches. He has served a lot of time in the higher Finnish Elite League this season with only 3 assists in 16 games this season, but he has his 9 points in his 7 Junior League games. At 18 and a 3rd-round pick, it would seem harsh to expect him to play at the highest level of hockey in his country at such a young age, he is a long-term prospect and would probably be better off playing in the Junior team he has been moved up and down to this season. Interesting note, he likes to pattern himself after one of the last great Habs to play for Montreal in the last decade, Saku Koivu.
The "Go to Hell you Leprachaun" Note:
Apparently the League is talking about changing the names of notable player trophies to that of NHL greats and away from the historic names like the Art Ross, Hart, Calder and Norris trophies. This has the stink of Gary Bettman all over it, he's thinking of new ways to corrupt the game to sell it to a bunch of Southern US markets who only actually get out of their seats during a game when a fight breaks out. Phoenix can't even fill the arena out unless tickets are 25$ each, most of the Southern US market has to to give out free food and beer coupons with their tickets to get people to come to the games.
The talk about changing the names to honour the players is stupid. The players are honoured with personal trophies when they win a coveted trophy like the Art Ross, or have their names forever inscribed on the Conn Smythe Playoff Trophy when it is collected. The people whose names are on the trophies have the trophies named after them because they helped found the game, grow the game and decided to institute the trophies to recognize the greatness of the athletes they fostered that founded the greatest sport in history.
The greatest players are inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, do they really need more honours than they already recieve? If the league needs to correct anything, it's to change names of the Divisions to something a little more interesting than "Northeast, Southeast, Northwest" and so on.
Here's an easy way to do it if you want to make this about recognizing the past greats in the NHL.
Atlantic Divison - Lemieux Division.
Northeast Division - Beliveau Division
Southeast Division - Orr Division
Northwest Division - Gretzky Division
Pacific Division - Hull Division
Central Division - Howe Division
Eastern Conference - Wales Conference, as in the Prince of Wales Trophy which is awarded to the winner of the Eastern Conference Final in the Playoffs.
Western Conference - Campbell Conference, as in the Clarence S. Campbell Trophy which like the Prince of Wales Trophy, is awarded to the Western Conference Finals winner in playoffs.
Sounds a hell of a lot better for sure.
Showing posts with label Capitals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Capitals. Show all posts
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Montreal-Buffalo, The League's running a memo on Montreal's D...
All it reads is "Montreal can't handle a rebound in front of the net, just crowd it and you will get goals". That's how Goals 2, 3, 4 occurred, Goal 5 came off of a huge screen, Goal 6 a defensive breakdown and No. 1 was Halak's trademark weakness, rebound control.
The First Period: Unmitigated disaster, Halak's rebound control problems emerge and goal #1 comes off his not handling the initial shot, then his teammates failing to clear. Goals 2 and 3 come off of the team's inability to make a rebound, Halak makes the initial save, but again the rebound kills the team, Buffalo's up 3-0 by the end with a 15-3 shot advantage. The team had about two minutes of good offensive pressure total, even our top centre through most of the season, Tomas Plekanec had a tough time getting anything going. Scott Gomez played with a bit more jump in his game than his first game back fortunately. Referees left the game wide open, both teams had one blatant penalty that should have been called, but quiet generally.
The Second Period: Didn't get much better, defensive miscues around the net give Buffalo their 4th on the night. At this point in the game, the patience of the Refs was tested a lot more, Buffalo got away with three pretty blatant tripping minors, Ryan O'Byrne got caught giving a bear hug to a Buffalo player to give Buffalo the first PP of the game, Montreal played their best hockey of the game in those two minutes really, following that, a neutral zone play gave Montreal a spark of hope. A breakout play by Sergei Kostitsyn started in the neutral zone with Gomez with him, Sergei fed a pass to Gomez who steadied it on his stick to give Montreal their first goal of the game. Sergei's ability to be a set-up man was evidenced once more as they scored with just over 3 minutes left in the period. Things had a tinge of hope and Montreal avoided playing five entire periods of NHL hockey with no goals. Montreal managed five shots on net that period, Buffalo got another 14.
The Third Period: The refs were garbage, absolute 100%, knuckle-dragging, Milbury-ite jerks who handed Buffalo the period, Montreal's players were tripped at least a half-dozen times during the period and denied them vital PPs that would have allowed a comeback. Montreal got one power play off a holding penalty and got close, although I imagine they would have gotten a lot closer had they recieved the PP opportunities Buffalo would have recieved had the situations been reversed I imagine. They would press on offensively and a great rushing play by the Lapierre line, with a shot by Lapierre then the rebound picked up by a streaking Gorges would make the game 4-2, granted there were less than nine minutes left but Montreal had been managing the offence for nearly the entire period, they had twice almost collected shorthanded goals on the Tom Pyatt penalty that was taken earlier in the period, Sergei gave Gomez a chance to get his 2nd of the game, but Gomez shot high, showing he's got a lot to work on when it comes to shooting. Buffalo would then exploit the Montreal D-zone vulnerabilities, a screen prevented Halak from seeing the 5th goal, a slapshot from the point and the 6th came from a neutral zone giveaway that set up a classic two-on-one breakaway that couldn't have been set up better in a team practice for Buffalo. Halak is good, but his first start in 10 games and he doesn't have Price's brilliance for that astounding save, he'll battle to make saves but he doesn't have that extra level I see in Price's game. Montreal would have fifteen shots on net in the third period, after managing a mere eight in the previous two periods, leaving them 23-37 against Buffalo's final shot total.
Thoughts: Buffalo would have won 9-2 had some of their players connected better on some of te near-goals against Montreal. The team is missing Gionta badly, he was often the one that sparked the team to come back after bad periods, scoring or assisting on that goal that helped turn things around or talked the locker room up to get them going. Mike Cammalleri gives a good interview and seems to be a good team guy, but is not that strong of a leader I believe and his status as a streaky scorer (His 39 goals came in 29 games last season) means he's less able to score the opportunistic goal and get the team going. Gionta's excellent work ethic and relentless play with Montreal this season gives a better on-ice leadership example than Cammalleri too. The Defence needs to work on clearing the rebound, or Montreal is doomed for the next while because the opposition is pressing around the net and getting far too many opportunistic goals with pressure around the goal crease.
Offence: Sergei Kostitsyn shows why he should be wearing the Bleu-Blanc-Rouge, he set up the Gomez goal and nearly gave Gomez a shorthanded marker during the Pyatt penalty. Top line work for him for now, the people who can use his brilliant offensive zone passes do not have names ending in Pyatt, White or Moen for that matter. Max Pacioretty, he's got to strap that helmet of his own tighter, it came off twice during the game and the kid's going to get hurt one of these days playing like that, he made some good moves tonight and is improving. Cammalleri seems to have lost his scoring touch for the moment, I'm sure it will be back but that's the nature of Cammalleri, he is a streaky goal scorer. Tomas Plekanec didn't play well until the third, on the whole, Gomez was a much better forward than he was tonight. Andrei Kostitsyn, he keeps making the right moves, nearly dangled himself to a goal at least twice but couldn't quite finish it off. Nice offensive zone work, but his inability along with the rest of his line to prevent goals didn't help him. Moen, Metropolit make all the right moves generally, but they're low-scoring checking forwards and shouldn't be counted on for more than the odd goal now and then, this team needs them for regular scoring they're in more trouble than they thought. Pyatt and White are good kids, but they don't have the stickhandling ability to handle a puck and release a shot in an NHL-pace game right now for any kind of reliable scoring. Mad Max? A pleasure to watch in action towards the end of the game, his shot set up the Gorges rebound goal and he even played PK minutes, he's getting himself back together.
Defence: O'Byrne is a godsend to return, he's the only truly reliable big-body D, but his inexperience showed when his drop to prevent the cross-crease pass for the Buffalo goal did nothing, he'd have been better off covering the man who came in to put the puck in the net. Bergeron made some mistakes, but his offensive zone assistance was a major help. Hamrlik and Spacek worked their asses off, but they've been doing that nonstop since the season started and it's already cutting into their performance at times. Gorges was a champ and got the 2nd goal, which gave the team the spirit to keep trying for more goals and maybe tie it up and push it to overtime, he made good defensive plays and kept it from getting worse. Mara was a good guy to teach that little bastard Kaleta a lesson, but it would've been much more welcome towards the start of the game, get the team fired up then, rather than the dying minutes of a lost game. Mara had a better night tonight, but not that good considering the score, his D-zone coverage makes me shake my head at times, he forgets the basics too much.
Goaltending: Not going to dump on Halak, he should have controlled the rebound better on the 1st goal, but the other 5 were much more on the team than he was, he hadn't been in nets since November 10th and it showed as well, he would have had to make at least 4 game-changing saves to deliver this for Montreal and he didn't have it in him.
Ex-Habs Recognition:
- Saku Koivu scored the opening goal of the Anaheim-Dallas Game, but they lost 3-1 off of two bad goals and an EN shot.
- Komisarek managed to not be a boat anchor for Toronto since he returned from injury, he might have learned to finally stop overplaying his position and trying to be Chris Pronger.
- Gui Latendresse has 2 goals and 1 assist since being traded to the Wild, although I doubt his streak will last, he rarely finds the inspiration to play well for very long.
Washington Capitals Report:
They've actually done well this season when Ovechkin has been injured or away (currently on a two-game suspension, which is just as well since he hurt his knee in the Gleason incident), which is good but at the same time the moment he's back they seem to step back and wait for him to deliver each game for them, they need to keep up their efforts more often when Ovechkin is playing. Recently returned sniper Alex Semin had a 4-point night, 2 goals, 2 assists on his first game back from having wrist problems for the Capitals, his wrist seems to be working fine now to deliver a 6-2 win over the Florida Panthers.
Special Note: Semyon Varlamov is a brilliant goalie when it comes to low shots and goalmouth jamming, he's been notably a bit weak on his glove side at times but teams that rely upon dirty goals don't get much with him at all. He gets his glove in strong condition, the Capitals could win a Cup with him.
Chicago Blackhawks Report:
Toews, Kane and Keith were all signed to long-term deals, 6.3 million for five years was given to Toews and Kane each, Keith signed a longer deal, 72 million over 13 years with the team with a no-trade clause attached. The talk now is that Chicago must deal away something immediately to be cap-compliant, as teams must have a salary cap situation that is within bounds for the following season, not just the current one. Brent Sopel and Thomas Kopecky are two players on the team with low salaries that can moved to cover this, I expect an exchange for a pick or prospect to solidify Chicago's future.
The First Period: Unmitigated disaster, Halak's rebound control problems emerge and goal #1 comes off his not handling the initial shot, then his teammates failing to clear. Goals 2 and 3 come off of the team's inability to make a rebound, Halak makes the initial save, but again the rebound kills the team, Buffalo's up 3-0 by the end with a 15-3 shot advantage. The team had about two minutes of good offensive pressure total, even our top centre through most of the season, Tomas Plekanec had a tough time getting anything going. Scott Gomez played with a bit more jump in his game than his first game back fortunately. Referees left the game wide open, both teams had one blatant penalty that should have been called, but quiet generally.
The Second Period: Didn't get much better, defensive miscues around the net give Buffalo their 4th on the night. At this point in the game, the patience of the Refs was tested a lot more, Buffalo got away with three pretty blatant tripping minors, Ryan O'Byrne got caught giving a bear hug to a Buffalo player to give Buffalo the first PP of the game, Montreal played their best hockey of the game in those two minutes really, following that, a neutral zone play gave Montreal a spark of hope. A breakout play by Sergei Kostitsyn started in the neutral zone with Gomez with him, Sergei fed a pass to Gomez who steadied it on his stick to give Montreal their first goal of the game. Sergei's ability to be a set-up man was evidenced once more as they scored with just over 3 minutes left in the period. Things had a tinge of hope and Montreal avoided playing five entire periods of NHL hockey with no goals. Montreal managed five shots on net that period, Buffalo got another 14.
The Third Period: The refs were garbage, absolute 100%, knuckle-dragging, Milbury-ite jerks who handed Buffalo the period, Montreal's players were tripped at least a half-dozen times during the period and denied them vital PPs that would have allowed a comeback. Montreal got one power play off a holding penalty and got close, although I imagine they would have gotten a lot closer had they recieved the PP opportunities Buffalo would have recieved had the situations been reversed I imagine. They would press on offensively and a great rushing play by the Lapierre line, with a shot by Lapierre then the rebound picked up by a streaking Gorges would make the game 4-2, granted there were less than nine minutes left but Montreal had been managing the offence for nearly the entire period, they had twice almost collected shorthanded goals on the Tom Pyatt penalty that was taken earlier in the period, Sergei gave Gomez a chance to get his 2nd of the game, but Gomez shot high, showing he's got a lot to work on when it comes to shooting. Buffalo would then exploit the Montreal D-zone vulnerabilities, a screen prevented Halak from seeing the 5th goal, a slapshot from the point and the 6th came from a neutral zone giveaway that set up a classic two-on-one breakaway that couldn't have been set up better in a team practice for Buffalo. Halak is good, but his first start in 10 games and he doesn't have Price's brilliance for that astounding save, he'll battle to make saves but he doesn't have that extra level I see in Price's game. Montreal would have fifteen shots on net in the third period, after managing a mere eight in the previous two periods, leaving them 23-37 against Buffalo's final shot total.
Thoughts: Buffalo would have won 9-2 had some of their players connected better on some of te near-goals against Montreal. The team is missing Gionta badly, he was often the one that sparked the team to come back after bad periods, scoring or assisting on that goal that helped turn things around or talked the locker room up to get them going. Mike Cammalleri gives a good interview and seems to be a good team guy, but is not that strong of a leader I believe and his status as a streaky scorer (His 39 goals came in 29 games last season) means he's less able to score the opportunistic goal and get the team going. Gionta's excellent work ethic and relentless play with Montreal this season gives a better on-ice leadership example than Cammalleri too. The Defence needs to work on clearing the rebound, or Montreal is doomed for the next while because the opposition is pressing around the net and getting far too many opportunistic goals with pressure around the goal crease.
Offence: Sergei Kostitsyn shows why he should be wearing the Bleu-Blanc-Rouge, he set up the Gomez goal and nearly gave Gomez a shorthanded marker during the Pyatt penalty. Top line work for him for now, the people who can use his brilliant offensive zone passes do not have names ending in Pyatt, White or Moen for that matter. Max Pacioretty, he's got to strap that helmet of his own tighter, it came off twice during the game and the kid's going to get hurt one of these days playing like that, he made some good moves tonight and is improving. Cammalleri seems to have lost his scoring touch for the moment, I'm sure it will be back but that's the nature of Cammalleri, he is a streaky goal scorer. Tomas Plekanec didn't play well until the third, on the whole, Gomez was a much better forward than he was tonight. Andrei Kostitsyn, he keeps making the right moves, nearly dangled himself to a goal at least twice but couldn't quite finish it off. Nice offensive zone work, but his inability along with the rest of his line to prevent goals didn't help him. Moen, Metropolit make all the right moves generally, but they're low-scoring checking forwards and shouldn't be counted on for more than the odd goal now and then, this team needs them for regular scoring they're in more trouble than they thought. Pyatt and White are good kids, but they don't have the stickhandling ability to handle a puck and release a shot in an NHL-pace game right now for any kind of reliable scoring. Mad Max? A pleasure to watch in action towards the end of the game, his shot set up the Gorges rebound goal and he even played PK minutes, he's getting himself back together.
Defence: O'Byrne is a godsend to return, he's the only truly reliable big-body D, but his inexperience showed when his drop to prevent the cross-crease pass for the Buffalo goal did nothing, he'd have been better off covering the man who came in to put the puck in the net. Bergeron made some mistakes, but his offensive zone assistance was a major help. Hamrlik and Spacek worked their asses off, but they've been doing that nonstop since the season started and it's already cutting into their performance at times. Gorges was a champ and got the 2nd goal, which gave the team the spirit to keep trying for more goals and maybe tie it up and push it to overtime, he made good defensive plays and kept it from getting worse. Mara was a good guy to teach that little bastard Kaleta a lesson, but it would've been much more welcome towards the start of the game, get the team fired up then, rather than the dying minutes of a lost game. Mara had a better night tonight, but not that good considering the score, his D-zone coverage makes me shake my head at times, he forgets the basics too much.
Goaltending: Not going to dump on Halak, he should have controlled the rebound better on the 1st goal, but the other 5 were much more on the team than he was, he hadn't been in nets since November 10th and it showed as well, he would have had to make at least 4 game-changing saves to deliver this for Montreal and he didn't have it in him.
Ex-Habs Recognition:
- Saku Koivu scored the opening goal of the Anaheim-Dallas Game, but they lost 3-1 off of two bad goals and an EN shot.
- Komisarek managed to not be a boat anchor for Toronto since he returned from injury, he might have learned to finally stop overplaying his position and trying to be Chris Pronger.
- Gui Latendresse has 2 goals and 1 assist since being traded to the Wild, although I doubt his streak will last, he rarely finds the inspiration to play well for very long.
Washington Capitals Report:
They've actually done well this season when Ovechkin has been injured or away (currently on a two-game suspension, which is just as well since he hurt his knee in the Gleason incident), which is good but at the same time the moment he's back they seem to step back and wait for him to deliver each game for them, they need to keep up their efforts more often when Ovechkin is playing. Recently returned sniper Alex Semin had a 4-point night, 2 goals, 2 assists on his first game back from having wrist problems for the Capitals, his wrist seems to be working fine now to deliver a 6-2 win over the Florida Panthers.
Special Note: Semyon Varlamov is a brilliant goalie when it comes to low shots and goalmouth jamming, he's been notably a bit weak on his glove side at times but teams that rely upon dirty goals don't get much with him at all. He gets his glove in strong condition, the Capitals could win a Cup with him.
Chicago Blackhawks Report:
Toews, Kane and Keith were all signed to long-term deals, 6.3 million for five years was given to Toews and Kane each, Keith signed a longer deal, 72 million over 13 years with the team with a no-trade clause attached. The talk now is that Chicago must deal away something immediately to be cap-compliant, as teams must have a salary cap situation that is within bounds for the following season, not just the current one. Brent Sopel and Thomas Kopecky are two players on the team with low salaries that can moved to cover this, I expect an exchange for a pick or prospect to solidify Chicago's future.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Is it possible to be a fan of Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin?
This is inspired by the reaction to Ovechkin's latest high-risk hit and the dicussion I read following it at Habs Inside/Out.
They are the two most visible players in the NHL at the moment. They are also the quickest way to divide a room of hockey fans about who's the best player in the game.
Alex Ovechkin, Alexander the Great, The Great 8, whatever you call him, everyone who watches hockey knows who he is. He is billed as the most entertaining player in the NHL right now and I can't find an argument that holds another player ahead of him. He scores goals in ways that no other NHL player can imagine, let alone recreate, especially the Phoenix goal, the Montreal goal and the Rangers goal. No one else in the NHL has the natural ability Ovechkin has to find the back of the net, he is a pleasure to watch and I have enjoyed watching him ever since I really took the time to watch all the hockey games I could. Ovechkin plays with flair, he loves getting goals and everyone knows it, from at the beginning of his career when he would jump into the glass in celebration or the infamous 'Hot Stick' celebration last season, which I enjoyed because it pissed off Don Cherry.
At the moment, Ovechkin is the most intimidating sniper the NHL has seen in some time, he gives out more hits than Heatley (26), Gaborik(11), Selanne (9), Cammalleri (6) and Kovalchuk(4) combined. He uses his intimidation factor to allow him to muscle through the opposition, make opponents want to avoid his check and use his strength to crunch opponents into the boards to retrieve the puck or simply punish them. He plays a very intense, focused game that is based around taking the puck and scoring goals with it, he is very much a Rocket Richard/Pavel Bure type of player, he wants to score goals more than set up another person's goal, for him it's about the back of the net and nothing else.
Ovechkin has been accused of being a puck hog, but if you have a superstar of Ovechkin's quality on the ice, it seems insane not to let him handle the puck, he can create an opportunity where others are stymied, he can shoot like no one else in the NHL, let him have the puck and shoot, that's how he delivers his 50-goal seasons. His shootout abilities are less than that of Canadian kids Jonathan Toews or Sidney Crosby or his fellow countrymen Pavel Datsyuk, but at times I've also seen him do moves that would make Pavel Datsyuk proud including this one against Nashville.
Another strike against him has been the claims of diving, faking injuries in World Junior tournaments, refusal to fight and of his reckless hits. A lot of NHL players dive, Ovechkin's dives will generally get highlighted more because he is Ovechkin and his detractors want to it as a strike against him. As for faking injuries, Ovechkin's personality just doesn't seem to me as one who would fake an injury and not play, he is too much the competitor from everything I've ever seen of him. His missing out International tournaments with faked injuries seems far and away from his style, for Russian players, representing their nation is the highest honour they can achieve as hockey players. Ovechkin's only significant time missed in International Tournaments was the 2005 World Juniors, when he left the ice with a separated shoulder courtesy of up-and-coming Broad Street Bully Mike Richards, a well-known cheap shot specialist.
When it comes to fighting, I'm against it and I don't care how much of a minority I'm in on that one, I find them boring and rather sloppy affairs that are a holdover from when the NHL was really an amateur league. I applaud players who refuse to fight generally, they know the fight will gain them nothing, their ability in the game lies in other areas and not in some clumsy boxing match on skates. It's nothing to do with a 'Code', 'Honour' or 'Bravery.' From my eyes and I've spoken to my father about this, the Code was something back in the day when the NHL knew each other, back when there were six to twelve teams and you faced the same team up to 14 times a year. I'm tired of hearing Cherry toss around stuff like Honour or Bravery when it comes to NHL fights or when that crap I hear used to describe UFC fighters like George St. Pierre, who is revered for reasons beyond my understanding, I don't want to go off topic really, but I feel this needs to be said. There is no honour that is involved in a fight you can walk away from without any true repercussions and are only engaging in because it benefits you financially or salves your ego. An honourable man might risk his life defending the life of another, he does not gain honour for beating up another man because he will be paid to do so or because he wants to prove he was the better fighter.
In the NHL, one might point out O'Byrne's pummelling of Kaleta for the Pyatt hit in pre-season as standing up for one of his guys during the Montreal-Buffalo game, but to me, there's not much honour in beating up the dishonourable. Kaleta was a dirty bastard who got what was coming to him and the way the NHL is, the team needs a guy like O'Byrne to stand up for his teammates. I don't particularly like it, but I recognize that there was respect for one's teammates in situations such as this and a sense of loyalty, although I do happen to have a very prickly definition of honour that doesn't generally fit into the world of million-dollar athletes.
There is a degree of bravery involved in challenging a known pugilist like Colton Orr or George Laraque I will admit, they are feared NHL fighters but there is also false heroics. Choosing to engage in a contest you can not win gains one nothing, so what does Ovechkin really have to gain from fighting except shutting up his detractors? Shows more intelligence than anything else, it's not a good idea Ovechkin to allow himself to get beaten up by goons because he delivered a hit that the other team didn't like.
For Ovechkin's reckless hits, besides the latest example with Gleason, there are the these hits, which include the playoff knee-on-knee contact with Sergei Gonchar in the Washington-Pittsburgh series in the 2009 semi-finals. Some other examples would be the boarding of Jamie Heward, the Briere boarding or just any one of his jumping hits, you surely must remember some of them if you've ever seen Ovechkin play. I won't try and defend these hits, they are indefensible when I am in favour of a less brutal NHL game than the one I've been watching of late. Ovechkin needs to learn how to control himself and deliver safer, legal hits, the sooner the better. The league's refusal to discipline him is not likely to change anytime soon, if his knee injury from the Gleason hit sidelines him for any length of time, hopefully this might make him pause and reconsider how he plays his game, if his reckless hits are causing him to be injured and prevent him from playing.
Ovechkin clearly loves the game, the attention and the rush he gets from competing and I want him to be in the NHL for as long as he can, he is a magnificent player and a pleasure to watch. His own attitude will probably go against him more than anything else, if he can not adjust his game to keep up with the reality of his situation, that his playing style puts himself and others in danger and he needs to change, I fear his career could be cut short by half a decade or more. Nevertheless, he has breathed life into the game of hockey in Washington, making the Capitals the No. 1 team in the Washington D.C. area. Granted, their popularity is greatly enhanced by the local football, baseball and basketball teams generally being terrible. He entertains, sells the game and is the most dangerous offensive threat in the NHL. Fans love him because he scores and hits and entertains, his detractors focus on his negative attributes which he does have. What is the truth in the matter? I'm not sure, but Ovechkin remains my favourite NHL player. From my view, he is the best player in the NHL for the fact that there is no other skater in the NHL who can single handedly turn a game on it's head with their play like Ovechkin can. With a total of thirty-six skaters in each NHL game, it can be difficult for any man to make a major impact in more than a handful of games, but Ovechkin is always visible and always considered the largest threat on the ice. Team games are supposed to be about the team, but Ovechkin glosses over that fact with his play that makes it seem like everyone else is out there to simply give him a challenge, make it a little bit harder so he must do something even more spectacular to change the outcome of the game.
Note: For some reason I've either hit the number of links I can attach in a blog post or the Blogging software doesn't like me anymore, I can't attach any more YouTube Videos for Crosby so you'll have to rely solely upon my prose from now on.
Now let's consider Sidney Crosby, Sid the Kid as most of us call him, some disparagingly, some lovingly, I like him, but I'm not crazy about him either. He was the most sought-after first overall draft selection in many years, billed as "The Next One" before he'd even really hit puberty. The Next One has been a tricky phrase ever since Gretzky, who has set so many impossible NHL records that it's ridiculous to even imagine any of them being broken. I always have felt Mario Lemieux, with better health and a better Penguins team when he was first drafted might have closed the gap with Gretzky or surpassed him on a few records, but that's idle speculation from a fan's perspective. Crosby I would say models himself more like Yzerman or Gretzky, the playmaker with the scoring touch.
Many have been tagged with "The Next One", First overall picks are the most valuable resource in the NHL, considered can't-miss choices that are highly coveted, the chance to have the next NHL superstar that will lead your team to a Stanley Cup. Ovechkin was selected first overall in 2004, but Crosby. selected first overall in 2005 was the much bigger show. It was the draft following the o4-05 lockout, the Penguins had nearly been handed over to rogue billionaire Jim Balsillie, who has engaged in three battles with the NHL with the intention to bring a hockey team to Southern Ontario. The deal was reneged after Balsillie and the NHL had a disagreement about the conditions attached to the deal. The Penguins were to stay, they acquired the much sought-after first overall pick in the lottery thanks to their horrific standings in the NHL in the past couple of years. They selected Sidney Crosby. It wasn't soon after that they managed to work out the financing to build a new arena, as the Mellon Arena was close to 40 years old at that point and the team needed a new building. Crosby first became fodder for some critics around this point when there was talk that his parents would pressure him to sit out the draft and sign somewhere else, until Lemieux personally negotiated with his parents, stating he would have Crosby live with him if he were to start with the Penguins. The living arrangement has become a striking point against the Penguins captain in itself now, considering the young phenom is now in his 5th NHL season and still living with the Pittsburgh legend.
Sidney Crosby would be off to a rougher start in the NHL than his rival Ovechkin. Crosby was smaller, Ovechkin stands at 6'2" and generally weighed at least 220 pounds, although this season he's bulked up to about 235. Crosby is 5'11" and weighes 200 even and was less than that when he started in the NHL. Despite managing a 102-point season with 39 goals and 63 assists, he recieved a good deal of criticism. He whined too much, teams would target him for hits and he would take dives, gripe every time he was taken down and chirp a lot. Ovechkin would give as good as he got, Crosby far less so.
I won't deny Crosby's ability, he is perhaps the best playmaker in the game and while some might say Thornton is better, but for me Thornton goes down on the chart because he can't pull the trigger in the playoffs the way Crosby can. With Malkin in a mini-slump during the Washington-Pittsburgh series last year, Crosby would take over the scoring and keep his team in the series until Malkin got back into action later in the series. He is notable leader, having worn the C in Pittsburgh since May 31st of 2007. I don't think he's a new Yzerman and he's certainly no Messier, but he definitely has leadership attributes based upon his ability to elevate his play to inspire the team onwards. He's gotten tougher in past seasons, showing more fire and wilingness to give hits and take them, had a couple of fights including the one where after Evgeni Malkin was upended by Keith Ballard and Crosby dropped the gloves.
However I've noticed with Crosby as well that he does get into flights of aggressiveness where he'll be more active physically to no gain, get into a fight or take foolish penalties. I remember when he got into one of those streaks where he really started taking whacks at Ovechkin during a Capitals-Penguins match, they got in close, Ovechkin wrestled him close and I imagine said something like "are you nuts? This will end a lot worse for you than me comrade." It's part of his growing pains in the NHL, but it's an annoying part of the game's premiere young playmaker, I want to watch him score and set up great goals, I don't need him dropping the gloves or picking up foolish penalties because he feels the need to look tough. 'Hockey tough' I've always felt is getting up from the big check, shaking it off and getting the guy later, not a high-sticking or a hooking penalty on the guy because you took it personally or thought you were too important to get hit. However they are streaks and not a dominating measure of his play, I think he'll get over it as he gets older.
I've also found him a bit too arrogant, yes I'm talking about Sid and not Ovie on this one. His team was far too smug about their Stanley Cup run and their general success. All their 'aw shucks' crap and talk about what seemed like an impossible victory over Detroit. Impossible would have been the Carolina Hurricanes winning through perhaps, or Montreal to take it despite their injury problems and aging stars or the Colombus Blue Jackets with 1st-year captain Rick Nash and 20-year old rookie(but definitely not sophomore) sensation Steve Mason. The Penguins have enjoyed a hideous advantage in the draft because of their wretched record for most of the decade, allowing them to draft Marc-Andre Fleury (1st overall), Evgeni Malkin (2nd overall), Sidney Crosby (1st overall) and Jordan Staal (2nd overall). Crosby enjoys having Malkin as his PP partner so success is practically guaranteed on that team at times. They have a hideously stacked team in centres thanks to the draft and these players attract many of the best free agents to sign with the because they want to be part of a team where players like Malkin or Crosby will make them look great and the team will win championships. Crosby is a good leader and a great player, but he hasn't exactly managed the 1990 Oilers Cup victory like Messier did at the same time. He's got a stacked team with him and he owes a lot of success to the fact that for a long time, the Penguins were lousy so the parity of the draft lottery gave them undeserved high picks for their failures.
I'll say one thing about Crosby that I really hate, he shouldn't be allowed to grow any more playoff beards until he can do better than the Liberal Arts grad student look.
Crosby is definitely the less controversial star of course, he is more the clean-cut kid and relies upon a less reckless, more complete game that works with his skill set. Crosby has his fans and he's done well to earn them. He sells the game in Pittsburgh and the rest of the NHL, delivered a Stanley Cup to the city and is the face of the franchise there. He's earned accolades in his youth with his stellar play and will continue to be a defining star in the NHL for a very long time to come. He can change the outcome of a game at times, not as successfully as Ovechkin can but he has the ability and the talent to do so which makes him a true superstar in my mind. A brilliant player, he is good for the game and that can't be argued by anyone.
Would we in Montreal cheer for either of them if they played for Montreal? Definitely, although I suspect we'd be more in love with the constant entertainer Ovechkin than Crosby, as the Bell Centre faithful are a fickle crowd that wants the big play, the impossible goal, the fifty-goal scorer and the outspoken, entertaining players that are fun to interview. He is a natural entertainer and the city is hooked on such players. I imagine if he was one of ours, he'd get all the defenders in the city backing him up on these things because that's the nature of most fan crowds. If Crosby was here with his draft lottery crew, we'd explain away his rashes of angry play, immaturity and arrogance with "we won, you didn't" and so on.
These two will always be rivals and so will their fans, Ovechkin has more sins than Crosby, but Crosby is hardly the perfect player either. I hope they both do well in the 2010 games and if Ovechkin gets Olympic Gold for Russia, I honestly won't hate him because if Russia was the better team than so be it, Canada has more than enough talent on their roster going into the games to win and if they couldn't, that's on their heads and not his. I look forward to another Capitals-Penguins tilt in the Playoffs as that was one of the greatest playoff series of the decade, seeing the league's three best players in an all-or-nothing series.
I'm sure this has been tossed up in hundreds of other hockey blogs and numerous sports articles but I thought I'd take a shot at since the Ovechkin debate has sprung up once more. A star like Ovechkin will always be controversial and I do think he does need to change his game, but I don't think we hockey fans should delude ourselves that most of us wouldn't love to have him on our own team. The same for Crosby, while he's not my favourite star, I certainly wouldn't mind having him in Montreal.
They are the two most visible players in the NHL at the moment. They are also the quickest way to divide a room of hockey fans about who's the best player in the game.
Alex Ovechkin, Alexander the Great, The Great 8, whatever you call him, everyone who watches hockey knows who he is. He is billed as the most entertaining player in the NHL right now and I can't find an argument that holds another player ahead of him. He scores goals in ways that no other NHL player can imagine, let alone recreate, especially the Phoenix goal, the Montreal goal and the Rangers goal. No one else in the NHL has the natural ability Ovechkin has to find the back of the net, he is a pleasure to watch and I have enjoyed watching him ever since I really took the time to watch all the hockey games I could. Ovechkin plays with flair, he loves getting goals and everyone knows it, from at the beginning of his career when he would jump into the glass in celebration or the infamous 'Hot Stick' celebration last season, which I enjoyed because it pissed off Don Cherry.
At the moment, Ovechkin is the most intimidating sniper the NHL has seen in some time, he gives out more hits than Heatley (26), Gaborik(11), Selanne (9), Cammalleri (6) and Kovalchuk(4) combined. He uses his intimidation factor to allow him to muscle through the opposition, make opponents want to avoid his check and use his strength to crunch opponents into the boards to retrieve the puck or simply punish them. He plays a very intense, focused game that is based around taking the puck and scoring goals with it, he is very much a Rocket Richard/Pavel Bure type of player, he wants to score goals more than set up another person's goal, for him it's about the back of the net and nothing else.
Ovechkin has been accused of being a puck hog, but if you have a superstar of Ovechkin's quality on the ice, it seems insane not to let him handle the puck, he can create an opportunity where others are stymied, he can shoot like no one else in the NHL, let him have the puck and shoot, that's how he delivers his 50-goal seasons. His shootout abilities are less than that of Canadian kids Jonathan Toews or Sidney Crosby or his fellow countrymen Pavel Datsyuk, but at times I've also seen him do moves that would make Pavel Datsyuk proud including this one against Nashville.
Another strike against him has been the claims of diving, faking injuries in World Junior tournaments, refusal to fight and of his reckless hits. A lot of NHL players dive, Ovechkin's dives will generally get highlighted more because he is Ovechkin and his detractors want to it as a strike against him. As for faking injuries, Ovechkin's personality just doesn't seem to me as one who would fake an injury and not play, he is too much the competitor from everything I've ever seen of him. His missing out International tournaments with faked injuries seems far and away from his style, for Russian players, representing their nation is the highest honour they can achieve as hockey players. Ovechkin's only significant time missed in International Tournaments was the 2005 World Juniors, when he left the ice with a separated shoulder courtesy of up-and-coming Broad Street Bully Mike Richards, a well-known cheap shot specialist.
When it comes to fighting, I'm against it and I don't care how much of a minority I'm in on that one, I find them boring and rather sloppy affairs that are a holdover from when the NHL was really an amateur league. I applaud players who refuse to fight generally, they know the fight will gain them nothing, their ability in the game lies in other areas and not in some clumsy boxing match on skates. It's nothing to do with a 'Code', 'Honour' or 'Bravery.' From my eyes and I've spoken to my father about this, the Code was something back in the day when the NHL knew each other, back when there were six to twelve teams and you faced the same team up to 14 times a year. I'm tired of hearing Cherry toss around stuff like Honour or Bravery when it comes to NHL fights or when that crap I hear used to describe UFC fighters like George St. Pierre, who is revered for reasons beyond my understanding, I don't want to go off topic really, but I feel this needs to be said. There is no honour that is involved in a fight you can walk away from without any true repercussions and are only engaging in because it benefits you financially or salves your ego. An honourable man might risk his life defending the life of another, he does not gain honour for beating up another man because he will be paid to do so or because he wants to prove he was the better fighter.
In the NHL, one might point out O'Byrne's pummelling of Kaleta for the Pyatt hit in pre-season as standing up for one of his guys during the Montreal-Buffalo game, but to me, there's not much honour in beating up the dishonourable. Kaleta was a dirty bastard who got what was coming to him and the way the NHL is, the team needs a guy like O'Byrne to stand up for his teammates. I don't particularly like it, but I recognize that there was respect for one's teammates in situations such as this and a sense of loyalty, although I do happen to have a very prickly definition of honour that doesn't generally fit into the world of million-dollar athletes.
There is a degree of bravery involved in challenging a known pugilist like Colton Orr or George Laraque I will admit, they are feared NHL fighters but there is also false heroics. Choosing to engage in a contest you can not win gains one nothing, so what does Ovechkin really have to gain from fighting except shutting up his detractors? Shows more intelligence than anything else, it's not a good idea Ovechkin to allow himself to get beaten up by goons because he delivered a hit that the other team didn't like.
For Ovechkin's reckless hits, besides the latest example with Gleason, there are the these hits, which include the playoff knee-on-knee contact with Sergei Gonchar in the Washington-Pittsburgh series in the 2009 semi-finals. Some other examples would be the boarding of Jamie Heward, the Briere boarding or just any one of his jumping hits, you surely must remember some of them if you've ever seen Ovechkin play. I won't try and defend these hits, they are indefensible when I am in favour of a less brutal NHL game than the one I've been watching of late. Ovechkin needs to learn how to control himself and deliver safer, legal hits, the sooner the better. The league's refusal to discipline him is not likely to change anytime soon, if his knee injury from the Gleason hit sidelines him for any length of time, hopefully this might make him pause and reconsider how he plays his game, if his reckless hits are causing him to be injured and prevent him from playing.
Ovechkin clearly loves the game, the attention and the rush he gets from competing and I want him to be in the NHL for as long as he can, he is a magnificent player and a pleasure to watch. His own attitude will probably go against him more than anything else, if he can not adjust his game to keep up with the reality of his situation, that his playing style puts himself and others in danger and he needs to change, I fear his career could be cut short by half a decade or more. Nevertheless, he has breathed life into the game of hockey in Washington, making the Capitals the No. 1 team in the Washington D.C. area. Granted, their popularity is greatly enhanced by the local football, baseball and basketball teams generally being terrible. He entertains, sells the game and is the most dangerous offensive threat in the NHL. Fans love him because he scores and hits and entertains, his detractors focus on his negative attributes which he does have. What is the truth in the matter? I'm not sure, but Ovechkin remains my favourite NHL player. From my view, he is the best player in the NHL for the fact that there is no other skater in the NHL who can single handedly turn a game on it's head with their play like Ovechkin can. With a total of thirty-six skaters in each NHL game, it can be difficult for any man to make a major impact in more than a handful of games, but Ovechkin is always visible and always considered the largest threat on the ice. Team games are supposed to be about the team, but Ovechkin glosses over that fact with his play that makes it seem like everyone else is out there to simply give him a challenge, make it a little bit harder so he must do something even more spectacular to change the outcome of the game.
Note: For some reason I've either hit the number of links I can attach in a blog post or the Blogging software doesn't like me anymore, I can't attach any more YouTube Videos for Crosby so you'll have to rely solely upon my prose from now on.
Now let's consider Sidney Crosby, Sid the Kid as most of us call him, some disparagingly, some lovingly, I like him, but I'm not crazy about him either. He was the most sought-after first overall draft selection in many years, billed as "The Next One" before he'd even really hit puberty. The Next One has been a tricky phrase ever since Gretzky, who has set so many impossible NHL records that it's ridiculous to even imagine any of them being broken. I always have felt Mario Lemieux, with better health and a better Penguins team when he was first drafted might have closed the gap with Gretzky or surpassed him on a few records, but that's idle speculation from a fan's perspective. Crosby I would say models himself more like Yzerman or Gretzky, the playmaker with the scoring touch.
Many have been tagged with "The Next One", First overall picks are the most valuable resource in the NHL, considered can't-miss choices that are highly coveted, the chance to have the next NHL superstar that will lead your team to a Stanley Cup. Ovechkin was selected first overall in 2004, but Crosby. selected first overall in 2005 was the much bigger show. It was the draft following the o4-05 lockout, the Penguins had nearly been handed over to rogue billionaire Jim Balsillie, who has engaged in three battles with the NHL with the intention to bring a hockey team to Southern Ontario. The deal was reneged after Balsillie and the NHL had a disagreement about the conditions attached to the deal. The Penguins were to stay, they acquired the much sought-after first overall pick in the lottery thanks to their horrific standings in the NHL in the past couple of years. They selected Sidney Crosby. It wasn't soon after that they managed to work out the financing to build a new arena, as the Mellon Arena was close to 40 years old at that point and the team needed a new building. Crosby first became fodder for some critics around this point when there was talk that his parents would pressure him to sit out the draft and sign somewhere else, until Lemieux personally negotiated with his parents, stating he would have Crosby live with him if he were to start with the Penguins. The living arrangement has become a striking point against the Penguins captain in itself now, considering the young phenom is now in his 5th NHL season and still living with the Pittsburgh legend.
Sidney Crosby would be off to a rougher start in the NHL than his rival Ovechkin. Crosby was smaller, Ovechkin stands at 6'2" and generally weighed at least 220 pounds, although this season he's bulked up to about 235. Crosby is 5'11" and weighes 200 even and was less than that when he started in the NHL. Despite managing a 102-point season with 39 goals and 63 assists, he recieved a good deal of criticism. He whined too much, teams would target him for hits and he would take dives, gripe every time he was taken down and chirp a lot. Ovechkin would give as good as he got, Crosby far less so.
I won't deny Crosby's ability, he is perhaps the best playmaker in the game and while some might say Thornton is better, but for me Thornton goes down on the chart because he can't pull the trigger in the playoffs the way Crosby can. With Malkin in a mini-slump during the Washington-Pittsburgh series last year, Crosby would take over the scoring and keep his team in the series until Malkin got back into action later in the series. He is notable leader, having worn the C in Pittsburgh since May 31st of 2007. I don't think he's a new Yzerman and he's certainly no Messier, but he definitely has leadership attributes based upon his ability to elevate his play to inspire the team onwards. He's gotten tougher in past seasons, showing more fire and wilingness to give hits and take them, had a couple of fights including the one where after Evgeni Malkin was upended by Keith Ballard and Crosby dropped the gloves.
However I've noticed with Crosby as well that he does get into flights of aggressiveness where he'll be more active physically to no gain, get into a fight or take foolish penalties. I remember when he got into one of those streaks where he really started taking whacks at Ovechkin during a Capitals-Penguins match, they got in close, Ovechkin wrestled him close and I imagine said something like "are you nuts? This will end a lot worse for you than me comrade." It's part of his growing pains in the NHL, but it's an annoying part of the game's premiere young playmaker, I want to watch him score and set up great goals, I don't need him dropping the gloves or picking up foolish penalties because he feels the need to look tough. 'Hockey tough' I've always felt is getting up from the big check, shaking it off and getting the guy later, not a high-sticking or a hooking penalty on the guy because you took it personally or thought you were too important to get hit. However they are streaks and not a dominating measure of his play, I think he'll get over it as he gets older.
I've also found him a bit too arrogant, yes I'm talking about Sid and not Ovie on this one. His team was far too smug about their Stanley Cup run and their general success. All their 'aw shucks' crap and talk about what seemed like an impossible victory over Detroit. Impossible would have been the Carolina Hurricanes winning through perhaps, or Montreal to take it despite their injury problems and aging stars or the Colombus Blue Jackets with 1st-year captain Rick Nash and 20-year old rookie(but definitely not sophomore) sensation Steve Mason. The Penguins have enjoyed a hideous advantage in the draft because of their wretched record for most of the decade, allowing them to draft Marc-Andre Fleury (1st overall), Evgeni Malkin (2nd overall), Sidney Crosby (1st overall) and Jordan Staal (2nd overall). Crosby enjoys having Malkin as his PP partner so success is practically guaranteed on that team at times. They have a hideously stacked team in centres thanks to the draft and these players attract many of the best free agents to sign with the because they want to be part of a team where players like Malkin or Crosby will make them look great and the team will win championships. Crosby is a good leader and a great player, but he hasn't exactly managed the 1990 Oilers Cup victory like Messier did at the same time. He's got a stacked team with him and he owes a lot of success to the fact that for a long time, the Penguins were lousy so the parity of the draft lottery gave them undeserved high picks for their failures.
I'll say one thing about Crosby that I really hate, he shouldn't be allowed to grow any more playoff beards until he can do better than the Liberal Arts grad student look.
Crosby is definitely the less controversial star of course, he is more the clean-cut kid and relies upon a less reckless, more complete game that works with his skill set. Crosby has his fans and he's done well to earn them. He sells the game in Pittsburgh and the rest of the NHL, delivered a Stanley Cup to the city and is the face of the franchise there. He's earned accolades in his youth with his stellar play and will continue to be a defining star in the NHL for a very long time to come. He can change the outcome of a game at times, not as successfully as Ovechkin can but he has the ability and the talent to do so which makes him a true superstar in my mind. A brilliant player, he is good for the game and that can't be argued by anyone.
Would we in Montreal cheer for either of them if they played for Montreal? Definitely, although I suspect we'd be more in love with the constant entertainer Ovechkin than Crosby, as the Bell Centre faithful are a fickle crowd that wants the big play, the impossible goal, the fifty-goal scorer and the outspoken, entertaining players that are fun to interview. He is a natural entertainer and the city is hooked on such players. I imagine if he was one of ours, he'd get all the defenders in the city backing him up on these things because that's the nature of most fan crowds. If Crosby was here with his draft lottery crew, we'd explain away his rashes of angry play, immaturity and arrogance with "we won, you didn't" and so on.
These two will always be rivals and so will their fans, Ovechkin has more sins than Crosby, but Crosby is hardly the perfect player either. I hope they both do well in the 2010 games and if Ovechkin gets Olympic Gold for Russia, I honestly won't hate him because if Russia was the better team than so be it, Canada has more than enough talent on their roster going into the games to win and if they couldn't, that's on their heads and not his. I look forward to another Capitals-Penguins tilt in the Playoffs as that was one of the greatest playoff series of the decade, seeing the league's three best players in an all-or-nothing series.
I'm sure this has been tossed up in hundreds of other hockey blogs and numerous sports articles but I thought I'd take a shot at since the Ovechkin debate has sprung up once more. A star like Ovechkin will always be controversial and I do think he does need to change his game, but I don't think we hockey fans should delude ourselves that most of us wouldn't love to have him on our own team. The same for Crosby, while he's not my favourite star, I certainly wouldn't mind having him in Montreal.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
12 Seconds too many, Habs miss on Regulation win to lose in the shootout.
I knew the Montreal-Washington game wouldn't be pretty but I really had hope going into those last thirty seconds of regulation time.
The first period wasn't that bad, but Carey Price didn't have much of a first period really, missing out on two goals he should have stopped and I feel he would have under other circumstances. If this wasn't his eigth straight start of the season, with two sets of back-to-back games on his recent record plus his 53-save performance in Nashville. This is only his third NHL season and since his second one was the requisite sophomore slump all goalies seem to go through these days (see Steve Mason in Columbus!) it's only really his second in some ways as Carey Price, The Franchise. The first period was marred by the fact that Montreal again, doesn't have nearly enough NHL-calibre forwards to take on their opponents, kids like White, Pyatt and Pacioretty have all the heart but they haven't developed enough skills to score and handle the puck to make scoring chances happen in these games. Montreal's cardiac moments in the defensive zone led up to the goals, a weak deflection by Eric Fehr to make it 1-0 to beat Carey Price on something he should have stopped with his blocker, albeit Ryan O'Byrne wasn't that helpful on the play. Alexander Ovechkin would then notch his 18th goal of the season on a slapshot from the point, beating Price blocker side once more. Things did not look good as the period ended, Price had allowed two goals he probably should have had and while Montreal had outshot Washington 7-4, 2 of those Washington shots were on the scoreboard.
The second period saw the team come around and take the game right against the Capitals right after Price stoned Ovechkin when Ovechkin outmuscled Spacek for the puck alongside the boards and went straight in on a breakaway. I can only imagine how Jacques Martin must have felt about one of his players trying outmuscle a guy who at last count, weighed 237 pounds and was known for hitting like a battering ram when he was 20 pounds lighter. Montreal would first convert on a power-play when Washington rookie Jay Beagle was caught tripping and Jaroslav Spacek would release a slap shot from the point that would bring the game to 2-1 and help charge up the offensive drive of Montreal. There were several scoring chances that Montreal would fail to convert on later, but this owed to some brilliant netminding by Washington rookie netminder Semyon Varlamov as well. Varlamov is extremely difficult to beat down low, he always seems to find a way to get a leg pad or his stick in the way of any shot that comes low or someone attempts to force in. It was just over eight minutes later that the top line of Tomas Plekanec, Mike Cammalleri and Sergei Kostitsyn would create a scoring chance that allowed Plekanec to sneak a rebound from a Roman Hamrlik shot through Varlamov's 5-hole to tie the game. I should also take the time to mention that Hamrlik is continuing to impress me with each game he plays, this is his best season with Montreal yet by far. Montreal would continue to generate offence through the second, but the game stayed a tie, Montreal still held their shot advantage, 16-11 by the end of the second period.
The third period was a tightly contested game, Montreal would grab a 3rd goal when after drawing one penalty and then another on their power play, they enjoyed a 1:17 of 5-on-3 advantage, but getting too fancy and trying for a very peculiar sharp-angle shot saw the 5-on-3 end. The power play unit was not unsuccessful though, theyl managed to convert with 27 seconds left in the second penalty when they brute-forced the third goal by feeding PP specialist Marc-Andre Bergeron on the point multiple times, who let loose a series of successive shots until a Travis Moen redirection on his final shot slipped past Varlamov's glove side, giving Montreal their first lead in the game. Montreal played a strong defensive game for the rest of the third period, but Washington is a very persistent offensive force and with time winding down in the third period, Varlamov was pulled for a 6th attacker and Washington took over. Montreal lost a series of faceoffs and a mad scramble around the net saw Paul Mara caught for high-sticking on a rather bad crease-clearing attempt. With 15 seconds left on the clock, Washington had a 6-on-4 advantage, a faceoff win led to another Alex Ovechkin slapshot which Price stopped, but Eric Fehr tucked the rebound in to tie the game with 12 seconds remaining. Price wasn't good on the goal, but the penalty was what killed it, unnecessary and it prevented coverage that could have prevented Fehr from getting his hands on the puck. When a goalie's not having a good night, the defence needs to give him more help than usual, just as a goalie must step up and save his team now and then.
The overtime led to some scoring chances on either side, the 4-on-4 setup does very much favour the speed-based play of Montreal's forwards, but when half of their Top 6 is out of the lineup, it's rather worrisome since Plekanec-Cammalleri is your only truly reliable forward pair. Washington's also known for their offence but neither side got anything done, so the shootout was next.
Again, the injury situation killed Montreal on this. Of the three regular shooters they had to win their first three shootouts in Gomez, Gionta and Cammalleri, only Cammalleri was available tonight. Lapierre and Plekanec were selected as second and third shooters. Cammalleri's a sniper and his shootout move was just a quick shot that Varlamov turned aside. Price stoned Tomas Fleischmann when he tried to get fancy and then it went to Lapierre. I really like Lapierre in the shootout, but he's been shaky this season and he's not up to 100% yet I find, his shot missed the net. Price beat Ovechkin when he tried a rush with a last-second shot, but he ran out of room as Price contained his shooting zone. I'm still not sure why we have Plekanec on shootouts, he's 1 for 13 now in his career and he didn't exactly do anything Datsyukian, it was a bad attempt and Montreal failed in three tries, Nicklas Backstrom for Washington didn't miss, snapping a quick shot over Price's blocker side, he was beat there three times on the night, none of them good.
Post-Game Thoughts: Montreal salvaged an OT point while playing without a number of key players, but when you think about how the night went, it's not that bad while Montreal fields so many rookies and patch-in replacements for the regular roster.
Offence: There is only one scoring line right now in truth, Plekanec, Cammalleri and Sergei Kostitsyn, they created the most offensive chances and they will continue to do so until Andrei Kostitsyn, Scott Gomez and Brian Gionta return from injury. Glen Metropolit, Travis Moen and Max Pacioretty do an admirable job working as hard as they can on the 2nd line, but they're not scorers, they're grinders and Pacioretty is a rookie power forward with 60 NHL games under his belt, 6 goals and 14 assists to go with them. Lapierre's starting to pick up his game more, but he'll need to keep playing every game harder as that is how he improved last season, by working as hard as he could every game. Pyatt and White are good linemates for Max when it comes to checking line work, but they're too slow with their reactions to create effective scoring chances in NHL games, they need more time in Hamilton. Chipchura, I don't care what people say about his heart, he doesn't have the legs for the NHL, his slow speed is irritating for a youngster who doesn't possess the muscle or stick skills to be an effective NHL forward from seeing him last season and this one. J.T. Wyman is the definition of a call-up forward and showed it, Jay Leach was the definition of a plug-in replacement, a defencemen put on forward because of the injury situation.
Defence: Hamrlik and Spacek are champions for this team right now, without them it would have been a slaughterhouse with Ovechkin going into his next game with a hat trick, they continually broke up his control of the puck and offensive zone chances, shot-blocking and doing everything humanly possible to keep him from getting a scoring chance. Ryan O'Byrne, outside his mistake on the Fehr deflection goal did good things all night long, he blocked shots, broke up plays and gave out some big checks to go with his performance that including drawing the initial penalty that led to the Montreal 5-on-3 opportunity. Josh Gorges had another quiet, but productive night that saw him make very few mistakes and make a number of good moves, just the kind of guy you like to have on a team when it comes to your lower-tier defencemen. Marc-Andre Bergeron is continuing to improve in his own end, he seems to have trouble handling the puck in his own end at times but his bombardment of the net during the power play led to Montreal's 3rd goal and he did make several smart defensive plays through the night. Paul Mara's on my list though and that's not a good list to be on, he made a foolish crease-clearing move that led to the Washington power play, which led to the 3rd goal and cost Montreal the win. Price wasn't good on the rebound goal, but Mara made the situation happen at the same time so the blame has to be cast on to him as well. Mara's career as a minus player is starting to tell, I remember him failing to break up the play when Patrick Kane set up the game-winning goal when Montreal played Chicago, his screening Carey Price when Sidney Crosby scored the first goal in Wednesday's Pittsburgh game, I can't remember the specific incidents right now, but there's at least two more situations like that were Mara has forgotten to manage the basics of his position in a close game and it's led to a goal that cost Montreal.
Goaltending: Carey Price needs a rest, he's been a great goalie over the last eight games but his goals allowed tonight were not particularly good and while he made brilliant saves several times to rob Washington of goals and keep Montreal in the game, I get the feeling three games ago, this would have been a shutout for him. There's no shame in it, he played eight games in a row and as I mentioned above, four of those were a set of back-to-back performances and his 53-save game in Nashville, all goaltenders need a rest now and then. Calgary hasn't figured that out yet though, which is why I don't see Kiprusoff in Calgary leading his team to any Stanley Cup Finals while he's playing 70+ games per regular season. Jaroslav Halak is a good backup goaltender and he's more than capable of taking the next series of starts provided he plays a good game and gives Montreal the chance to win provided they score 3 goals or more a game, which is a key to victory as we can't expect our goaltenders in Montreal to post shutouts or a 1.00 GAA to the team to win off 1 or 2 goals a game. Let Halak get his feet wet and take a few games for the team if they can score enough to say they earned the wins, Price can take some time off, refocus and have that blocker side ready for the next time that tries to beat him by going to that side.
Three Canadiens Stars
- Roman Hamrlik, his blue-line work was dominant and kept Montreal in the game.
- Tomas Plekanec, he scored a goal to tie the match and helped set up a number of scoring chances that could have put the game out of Washington's reach.
- Marc-Andre Bergeron, he played his best game yet for Montreal, managing both great offence and his best defensive game yet.
Recognition of Ex-Habs tonight:
- Alex Tanguay assisted on the game-tying goal by Tampa Bay to force an Overtime the team would lose, but they gained 1 point thanks to his work.
- Guillaume Latendresse scored the game-tying goal for Minnesota in the 3rd period of the Colorado-Minnesota game, he must have figured out he might have to play hockey to keep his job there.
The first period wasn't that bad, but Carey Price didn't have much of a first period really, missing out on two goals he should have stopped and I feel he would have under other circumstances. If this wasn't his eigth straight start of the season, with two sets of back-to-back games on his recent record plus his 53-save performance in Nashville. This is only his third NHL season and since his second one was the requisite sophomore slump all goalies seem to go through these days (see Steve Mason in Columbus!) it's only really his second in some ways as Carey Price, The Franchise. The first period was marred by the fact that Montreal again, doesn't have nearly enough NHL-calibre forwards to take on their opponents, kids like White, Pyatt and Pacioretty have all the heart but they haven't developed enough skills to score and handle the puck to make scoring chances happen in these games. Montreal's cardiac moments in the defensive zone led up to the goals, a weak deflection by Eric Fehr to make it 1-0 to beat Carey Price on something he should have stopped with his blocker, albeit Ryan O'Byrne wasn't that helpful on the play. Alexander Ovechkin would then notch his 18th goal of the season on a slapshot from the point, beating Price blocker side once more. Things did not look good as the period ended, Price had allowed two goals he probably should have had and while Montreal had outshot Washington 7-4, 2 of those Washington shots were on the scoreboard.
The second period saw the team come around and take the game right against the Capitals right after Price stoned Ovechkin when Ovechkin outmuscled Spacek for the puck alongside the boards and went straight in on a breakaway. I can only imagine how Jacques Martin must have felt about one of his players trying outmuscle a guy who at last count, weighed 237 pounds and was known for hitting like a battering ram when he was 20 pounds lighter. Montreal would first convert on a power-play when Washington rookie Jay Beagle was caught tripping and Jaroslav Spacek would release a slap shot from the point that would bring the game to 2-1 and help charge up the offensive drive of Montreal. There were several scoring chances that Montreal would fail to convert on later, but this owed to some brilliant netminding by Washington rookie netminder Semyon Varlamov as well. Varlamov is extremely difficult to beat down low, he always seems to find a way to get a leg pad or his stick in the way of any shot that comes low or someone attempts to force in. It was just over eight minutes later that the top line of Tomas Plekanec, Mike Cammalleri and Sergei Kostitsyn would create a scoring chance that allowed Plekanec to sneak a rebound from a Roman Hamrlik shot through Varlamov's 5-hole to tie the game. I should also take the time to mention that Hamrlik is continuing to impress me with each game he plays, this is his best season with Montreal yet by far. Montreal would continue to generate offence through the second, but the game stayed a tie, Montreal still held their shot advantage, 16-11 by the end of the second period.
The third period was a tightly contested game, Montreal would grab a 3rd goal when after drawing one penalty and then another on their power play, they enjoyed a 1:17 of 5-on-3 advantage, but getting too fancy and trying for a very peculiar sharp-angle shot saw the 5-on-3 end. The power play unit was not unsuccessful though, theyl managed to convert with 27 seconds left in the second penalty when they brute-forced the third goal by feeding PP specialist Marc-Andre Bergeron on the point multiple times, who let loose a series of successive shots until a Travis Moen redirection on his final shot slipped past Varlamov's glove side, giving Montreal their first lead in the game. Montreal played a strong defensive game for the rest of the third period, but Washington is a very persistent offensive force and with time winding down in the third period, Varlamov was pulled for a 6th attacker and Washington took over. Montreal lost a series of faceoffs and a mad scramble around the net saw Paul Mara caught for high-sticking on a rather bad crease-clearing attempt. With 15 seconds left on the clock, Washington had a 6-on-4 advantage, a faceoff win led to another Alex Ovechkin slapshot which Price stopped, but Eric Fehr tucked the rebound in to tie the game with 12 seconds remaining. Price wasn't good on the goal, but the penalty was what killed it, unnecessary and it prevented coverage that could have prevented Fehr from getting his hands on the puck. When a goalie's not having a good night, the defence needs to give him more help than usual, just as a goalie must step up and save his team now and then.
The overtime led to some scoring chances on either side, the 4-on-4 setup does very much favour the speed-based play of Montreal's forwards, but when half of their Top 6 is out of the lineup, it's rather worrisome since Plekanec-Cammalleri is your only truly reliable forward pair. Washington's also known for their offence but neither side got anything done, so the shootout was next.
Again, the injury situation killed Montreal on this. Of the three regular shooters they had to win their first three shootouts in Gomez, Gionta and Cammalleri, only Cammalleri was available tonight. Lapierre and Plekanec were selected as second and third shooters. Cammalleri's a sniper and his shootout move was just a quick shot that Varlamov turned aside. Price stoned Tomas Fleischmann when he tried to get fancy and then it went to Lapierre. I really like Lapierre in the shootout, but he's been shaky this season and he's not up to 100% yet I find, his shot missed the net. Price beat Ovechkin when he tried a rush with a last-second shot, but he ran out of room as Price contained his shooting zone. I'm still not sure why we have Plekanec on shootouts, he's 1 for 13 now in his career and he didn't exactly do anything Datsyukian, it was a bad attempt and Montreal failed in three tries, Nicklas Backstrom for Washington didn't miss, snapping a quick shot over Price's blocker side, he was beat there three times on the night, none of them good.
Post-Game Thoughts: Montreal salvaged an OT point while playing without a number of key players, but when you think about how the night went, it's not that bad while Montreal fields so many rookies and patch-in replacements for the regular roster.
Offence: There is only one scoring line right now in truth, Plekanec, Cammalleri and Sergei Kostitsyn, they created the most offensive chances and they will continue to do so until Andrei Kostitsyn, Scott Gomez and Brian Gionta return from injury. Glen Metropolit, Travis Moen and Max Pacioretty do an admirable job working as hard as they can on the 2nd line, but they're not scorers, they're grinders and Pacioretty is a rookie power forward with 60 NHL games under his belt, 6 goals and 14 assists to go with them. Lapierre's starting to pick up his game more, but he'll need to keep playing every game harder as that is how he improved last season, by working as hard as he could every game. Pyatt and White are good linemates for Max when it comes to checking line work, but they're too slow with their reactions to create effective scoring chances in NHL games, they need more time in Hamilton. Chipchura, I don't care what people say about his heart, he doesn't have the legs for the NHL, his slow speed is irritating for a youngster who doesn't possess the muscle or stick skills to be an effective NHL forward from seeing him last season and this one. J.T. Wyman is the definition of a call-up forward and showed it, Jay Leach was the definition of a plug-in replacement, a defencemen put on forward because of the injury situation.
Defence: Hamrlik and Spacek are champions for this team right now, without them it would have been a slaughterhouse with Ovechkin going into his next game with a hat trick, they continually broke up his control of the puck and offensive zone chances, shot-blocking and doing everything humanly possible to keep him from getting a scoring chance. Ryan O'Byrne, outside his mistake on the Fehr deflection goal did good things all night long, he blocked shots, broke up plays and gave out some big checks to go with his performance that including drawing the initial penalty that led to the Montreal 5-on-3 opportunity. Josh Gorges had another quiet, but productive night that saw him make very few mistakes and make a number of good moves, just the kind of guy you like to have on a team when it comes to your lower-tier defencemen. Marc-Andre Bergeron is continuing to improve in his own end, he seems to have trouble handling the puck in his own end at times but his bombardment of the net during the power play led to Montreal's 3rd goal and he did make several smart defensive plays through the night. Paul Mara's on my list though and that's not a good list to be on, he made a foolish crease-clearing move that led to the Washington power play, which led to the 3rd goal and cost Montreal the win. Price wasn't good on the rebound goal, but Mara made the situation happen at the same time so the blame has to be cast on to him as well. Mara's career as a minus player is starting to tell, I remember him failing to break up the play when Patrick Kane set up the game-winning goal when Montreal played Chicago, his screening Carey Price when Sidney Crosby scored the first goal in Wednesday's Pittsburgh game, I can't remember the specific incidents right now, but there's at least two more situations like that were Mara has forgotten to manage the basics of his position in a close game and it's led to a goal that cost Montreal.
Goaltending: Carey Price needs a rest, he's been a great goalie over the last eight games but his goals allowed tonight were not particularly good and while he made brilliant saves several times to rob Washington of goals and keep Montreal in the game, I get the feeling three games ago, this would have been a shutout for him. There's no shame in it, he played eight games in a row and as I mentioned above, four of those were a set of back-to-back performances and his 53-save game in Nashville, all goaltenders need a rest now and then. Calgary hasn't figured that out yet though, which is why I don't see Kiprusoff in Calgary leading his team to any Stanley Cup Finals while he's playing 70+ games per regular season. Jaroslav Halak is a good backup goaltender and he's more than capable of taking the next series of starts provided he plays a good game and gives Montreal the chance to win provided they score 3 goals or more a game, which is a key to victory as we can't expect our goaltenders in Montreal to post shutouts or a 1.00 GAA to the team to win off 1 or 2 goals a game. Let Halak get his feet wet and take a few games for the team if they can score enough to say they earned the wins, Price can take some time off, refocus and have that blocker side ready for the next time that tries to beat him by going to that side.
Three Canadiens Stars
- Roman Hamrlik, his blue-line work was dominant and kept Montreal in the game.
- Tomas Plekanec, he scored a goal to tie the match and helped set up a number of scoring chances that could have put the game out of Washington's reach.
- Marc-Andre Bergeron, he played his best game yet for Montreal, managing both great offence and his best defensive game yet.
Recognition of Ex-Habs tonight:
- Alex Tanguay assisted on the game-tying goal by Tampa Bay to force an Overtime the team would lose, but they gained 1 point thanks to his work.
- Guillaume Latendresse scored the game-tying goal for Minnesota in the 3rd period of the Colorado-Minnesota game, he must have figured out he might have to play hockey to keep his job there.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
On the Capitals and Blackhawks
I missed the Washington game as I was watching the Montreal Bulldogs V Pittsburgh Penguins match, but I am glad to see that Ovie and Co. managed to finally get a win in the Northeast Division on their second trip through it this season.
Capitals - Sabres
Ovechkin marked the eventual game-winner with the initial tally pulling a classic Ovechkin move, using the defence as his own screen, he whipped one of his wicked wrist shots past Ryan Miller to make it 1-0. The Great 8 now has 17 goals this season in 19 games and is likely to start scoring more to keep his team going as they wait for the return of sniper Alex Semin and crease-crash specialist Mike Knuble. They need Ovechkin and after only posting 2 goals in his 3 games against the Eastern Canadian teams last week, he needs to increase his production while the team recovers from health issues among their players. Ovechkin would see himself thrown from the game later on with a match penalty after he boarded Patrick Kaleta, but as a Montreal fan and tracker of the league's dirty bastards, the SOB had it coming. Eric Fehr, a good depth player on the checking lines got the insurance marker and Semyon Varlamov posted his first shutout of the season making 25 saves. Varlamov's had some rookie troubles this season, but when he is focused, he is a dominant goaltender, you can ask the New York Rangers 2009 Playoff team about it and they'll acknowledge the fact, but in far coarser terms I'd imagine.
I do not expect Ovechkin to receive any form of discipline for his boarding hit, the league's premiere superstar's been dirtier than this in his career and the league has yet to show that superstars have to follow the same rules as the rest of the NHL's players. They should, but for the time being it sets a dangerous precedent, as players begin to experiment with who can get away with these hits and who can't.
Blackhawks - Sharks
The second match I watched all the way through was the Chicago Blackhawks - San Jose Sharks game, which seemed like a fine competition between the two top competitors in the Western Conference, San Jose looking to get a good win streak going with 2 wins in a row already, while the Blackhawks were looking to pad a 7-game winning streak.
The Chicago Blackhawks would not get an even-strength goal until 30:38 of regulation time had passed in the game tonight. Why did it take the Blackhawks so long? They were busy scoring shorthanded goals, Troy Brouwer got the first one 56 seconds into a penalty kill during the first period. Marian Hossa decided to get his debut with the Blackhawks off to a good start in the second period as well by getting a shorthanded goal. 48 seconds into Troy Brouwer's penalty, Marian Hossa snapped a quick shot off on a breakaway that beat Sharks goaltender Evgeni Nabokov. However the crisis didn't end there, Patrick Sharp scored a shorthanded marker 28 seconds later to pretty much sink the Shark's morale and eliminate any possible fear of the Shark's power play unit. That ended the Hawk's shorthanded scoring and they decided to focus on even-strength goals from this point on to make it less humilating for the Sharks it seems.
Dustin Byfuglien, the defencemen turned Power Forward got a rebound just over five minutes later to make it a 4-0 game. At that point, the Sharks had been outshot 24-6, or 4-1. The Blackhawks had a 29-11 shot advantage over two periods. Nabokov did not start in nets in the 3rd period, Thomas Greiss would step in to give the besieged netminder some relief. Patrick Sharp would make it 5-0 in the 3rd period on after the Hawks killed off a Sharks penalty, redirecting a Brent Seabrook slapshot with his stick just after 5 minutes into the third period. Marian Hossa then cashed in on a slick Brent Sopel pass exactly one minute later, giving him a 2-goal game in his first game of the season and increasing the lead to 6-0. The team's eldest player John Madden (36 years old) would convert an Andrew Ladd pass that came from Duncan Keith on a strong neutral zone rush to beat Greiss and would make the game 7-0 with 8:22 left in the 3rd period. Slopiness by Chicago would spoil Huet's shutout bid, a 5-on-3 power play by San Jose would start the scoring, after some good shot blocking by the defence and wild saves by Huet, Blake would get a goal in to prevent the shutout, but far too little, too late for the Sharks. Pavelski would make it a 7-2 game with 2:10 left in the game but at this point, it was a moral victory for a single player and nothing that could change anything.
The Blackhawks walked in and served notice, the Blackhawks were the finest team in the Western Conference and they play better than any other team in the NHL right now. No team considered a serious contender had been as thoroughly destroyed by another team until now, the Blackhawks disassembled them piece by piece tonight and skated away with an incredible victory, a mere two points behind San Jose in the standings and with three games in hand. Chicago has scored 77 goals this season and allowed only 50. Only the New Jersey Devils have allowed fewer goals and Chicago has managed 18 more goals than New Jersey having played just one more game than them. The newly formed Toews-Kane-Hossa line played together like they'd been doing it for five years, even though neither Toews or Kane had that much NHL experience combined. Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook should be a defensive pair on Canada's Olympic Team, they are simply far too good to ignore.
My father and I have often joked that it is rather unsporting of the Chicago Blackhawks not to sport their opponents a 2 or 3 goal lead going into most games, this team seems almost unstoppable, better than last season's Bruins or Sharks, they are possibly the finest team I've seen in the last several years. Albeit they could use a more solid goaltending tandem than Huet and Niemi, but they have the defence and offence to make up for the lapses there to deliver a Cup this year I believe.
Tonight's shout-out to recent Ex Habs:
- Alex Tanguay assisted on a Vincent Lecavalier goal in Tampa Bay, in a 4-3 loss to the Maple Leafs.
- Tom The Bomb Kostopolous scored a goal for the Carolina Hurricanes tonight against the Anaheim Ducks, in a 3-2 loss for the Hurricanes.
- Saku Koivu assisted on a Teemu Selanne goal to give the Anaheim Ducks a 3-2 win, Selanne himself is on track to have more goals scored any other Finnish player in NHL history with 591, a mere 10 behind all-time Finish scorer Jarri Kurri. Although Selanne will likely retire this season following the Olympics and will not score the necessary 171 points total to outdo his fellow countrymen in total points.
- Christobal Huet didn't have to work that hard against a San Jose team that lost all life for the most part after suffering three shorthanded goals, but he still made some good saves to keep the game from getting to the 7-4, 7-5 range it could have ended up at if he hadn't been pretty quick here and there.
Question for EA Sports and their NHL series development team:
Why the hell is Dustin Byfuglien a white guy when you see him on the ice in the game?
Capitals - Sabres
Ovechkin marked the eventual game-winner with the initial tally pulling a classic Ovechkin move, using the defence as his own screen, he whipped one of his wicked wrist shots past Ryan Miller to make it 1-0. The Great 8 now has 17 goals this season in 19 games and is likely to start scoring more to keep his team going as they wait for the return of sniper Alex Semin and crease-crash specialist Mike Knuble. They need Ovechkin and after only posting 2 goals in his 3 games against the Eastern Canadian teams last week, he needs to increase his production while the team recovers from health issues among their players. Ovechkin would see himself thrown from the game later on with a match penalty after he boarded Patrick Kaleta, but as a Montreal fan and tracker of the league's dirty bastards, the SOB had it coming. Eric Fehr, a good depth player on the checking lines got the insurance marker and Semyon Varlamov posted his first shutout of the season making 25 saves. Varlamov's had some rookie troubles this season, but when he is focused, he is a dominant goaltender, you can ask the New York Rangers 2009 Playoff team about it and they'll acknowledge the fact, but in far coarser terms I'd imagine.
I do not expect Ovechkin to receive any form of discipline for his boarding hit, the league's premiere superstar's been dirtier than this in his career and the league has yet to show that superstars have to follow the same rules as the rest of the NHL's players. They should, but for the time being it sets a dangerous precedent, as players begin to experiment with who can get away with these hits and who can't.
Blackhawks - Sharks
The second match I watched all the way through was the Chicago Blackhawks - San Jose Sharks game, which seemed like a fine competition between the two top competitors in the Western Conference, San Jose looking to get a good win streak going with 2 wins in a row already, while the Blackhawks were looking to pad a 7-game winning streak.
The Chicago Blackhawks would not get an even-strength goal until 30:38 of regulation time had passed in the game tonight. Why did it take the Blackhawks so long? They were busy scoring shorthanded goals, Troy Brouwer got the first one 56 seconds into a penalty kill during the first period. Marian Hossa decided to get his debut with the Blackhawks off to a good start in the second period as well by getting a shorthanded goal. 48 seconds into Troy Brouwer's penalty, Marian Hossa snapped a quick shot off on a breakaway that beat Sharks goaltender Evgeni Nabokov. However the crisis didn't end there, Patrick Sharp scored a shorthanded marker 28 seconds later to pretty much sink the Shark's morale and eliminate any possible fear of the Shark's power play unit. That ended the Hawk's shorthanded scoring and they decided to focus on even-strength goals from this point on to make it less humilating for the Sharks it seems.
Dustin Byfuglien, the defencemen turned Power Forward got a rebound just over five minutes later to make it a 4-0 game. At that point, the Sharks had been outshot 24-6, or 4-1. The Blackhawks had a 29-11 shot advantage over two periods. Nabokov did not start in nets in the 3rd period, Thomas Greiss would step in to give the besieged netminder some relief. Patrick Sharp would make it 5-0 in the 3rd period on after the Hawks killed off a Sharks penalty, redirecting a Brent Seabrook slapshot with his stick just after 5 minutes into the third period. Marian Hossa then cashed in on a slick Brent Sopel pass exactly one minute later, giving him a 2-goal game in his first game of the season and increasing the lead to 6-0. The team's eldest player John Madden (36 years old) would convert an Andrew Ladd pass that came from Duncan Keith on a strong neutral zone rush to beat Greiss and would make the game 7-0 with 8:22 left in the 3rd period. Slopiness by Chicago would spoil Huet's shutout bid, a 5-on-3 power play by San Jose would start the scoring, after some good shot blocking by the defence and wild saves by Huet, Blake would get a goal in to prevent the shutout, but far too little, too late for the Sharks. Pavelski would make it a 7-2 game with 2:10 left in the game but at this point, it was a moral victory for a single player and nothing that could change anything.
The Blackhawks walked in and served notice, the Blackhawks were the finest team in the Western Conference and they play better than any other team in the NHL right now. No team considered a serious contender had been as thoroughly destroyed by another team until now, the Blackhawks disassembled them piece by piece tonight and skated away with an incredible victory, a mere two points behind San Jose in the standings and with three games in hand. Chicago has scored 77 goals this season and allowed only 50. Only the New Jersey Devils have allowed fewer goals and Chicago has managed 18 more goals than New Jersey having played just one more game than them. The newly formed Toews-Kane-Hossa line played together like they'd been doing it for five years, even though neither Toews or Kane had that much NHL experience combined. Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook should be a defensive pair on Canada's Olympic Team, they are simply far too good to ignore.
My father and I have often joked that it is rather unsporting of the Chicago Blackhawks not to sport their opponents a 2 or 3 goal lead going into most games, this team seems almost unstoppable, better than last season's Bruins or Sharks, they are possibly the finest team I've seen in the last several years. Albeit they could use a more solid goaltending tandem than Huet and Niemi, but they have the defence and offence to make up for the lapses there to deliver a Cup this year I believe.
Tonight's shout-out to recent Ex Habs:
- Alex Tanguay assisted on a Vincent Lecavalier goal in Tampa Bay, in a 4-3 loss to the Maple Leafs.
- Tom The Bomb Kostopolous scored a goal for the Carolina Hurricanes tonight against the Anaheim Ducks, in a 3-2 loss for the Hurricanes.
- Saku Koivu assisted on a Teemu Selanne goal to give the Anaheim Ducks a 3-2 win, Selanne himself is on track to have more goals scored any other Finnish player in NHL history with 591, a mere 10 behind all-time Finish scorer Jarri Kurri. Although Selanne will likely retire this season following the Olympics and will not score the necessary 171 points total to outdo his fellow countrymen in total points.
- Christobal Huet didn't have to work that hard against a San Jose team that lost all life for the most part after suffering three shorthanded goals, but he still made some good saves to keep the game from getting to the 7-4, 7-5 range it could have ended up at if he hadn't been pretty quick here and there.
Question for EA Sports and their NHL series development team:
Why the hell is Dustin Byfuglien a white guy when you see him on the ice in the game?
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