Tuesday, March 4, 2008

The Perfect Loss


Last nights game was the first game of a 4 game road trip out West. The Habs came in and blew it against a strong team. After 12 hours since the game ended, I've heard dozens of scapegoats for the loss. Here are some of them:

1)" The refs were horrible..."
Romo says: The refs are usually horrible and sometimes its against the other team so you cant blame something thats never perfect in the first place.

2) "Price is cracking under pressure and we need Halak to lead this team..."
Romo says: Price had a BAD game...It happens to the best goalies of all-time. Lets analyze his game last night. First goal, quick goal, defense lets Marleau right in. Second goal, Smolinski trips Price letting Joe put it in. 2 quick goals and Price lost his cool, was angry at refs, and his head was all over the place. Third goal, powerplay goal, Price hit into his own net and Boom, no call and an easy goal for JT. Fourth goal, now this was ugly and the blame can only be put on Price. This goal was a double whammy because we just tied it up and then Boom, the first goal of the season for Jody Shelley??, a guy who plays 5 minutes a game. The guys lost their momentum and Price lost all focus (if he even had any left). The fifth goal, one word, Horrible defense, The Cheech puts up a highlight play and undresses Gorges. (I think). Price was watching the play and didnt focus. And then the last goal, Powerplay goal, after Streit screws up on OUR powerplay, Markov forced to take a penalty and prevent breakaway. Campbell, one of the best offensive defenseman in the league, undresses Komisarek and Price again was watching the goal instead of reacting and trying to save it. All the goals were ugly, BUT we cant just blame price when we have so many factors to breakdown for the goals. Price is the leader, and this game will give him experience for the future. He is still learning and I'm sure he'll come back on Thursday and play a great game. Halak will play, but it wont be Thursday. Price is the #1, Gainey has confidence, Guy has confidence, I have confidence and so should you!

3) "Latendresse should be sent down to Bulldogs..."
Romo says: I agree that he would benefit from Don Lever's coaching in the AHL, but you cant blame the guy for the loss. You can blame him for not scoring in the last 15 games, but not for last night. I agree hes slow, but he tries hard and doesn't necessarily do more harm to the team than he does good (cough cough Smolinksi).

The Canadiens played a bad game defensively, probably worst of the season, but again we see the character in the players to never quit and continue fighting for the win. We tied the game up 3 times and almost came back to win it. We put up 4 goals, away, in the west coast, against a great team.

4) "The team was tired..."
Habdul says:
after playing their third game in four nights and having just taken a 5 hour flight, to a time zone where they are 3 hours behind, YES, the team was in fact tired. It was seen on the ice as almost everyone looked like they were exhausted. On a positive note, the team still scored 4 goals and put up a decent effort.

Positives :
Lapierre - Played like a horse and deserved that goal.
The Kovy Line - 2 goals from Pleks, good chances, passing and speed. (BTW Kovalev is not playing hurt, that is Baloney)
Markov - The D was bad, but Markov not only stood his ground last night, he made great offensive plays including setting up the third goal. Showed some emotion and got a 1o minute misconduct in the end for mouthing off against refs.


The *fans* have to stop finding negatives and focus on the positives. This team is learning, and through it all is still tied for first place. Stop being bandwagoners, if you like the Habs praise them, if you don't, then we don't need you rambling on your 2 cents when clearly all you want to do is create chaos.

This team is great, its young, quick, exciting. It has leadership, and it has good coaching (Carbonneau is doing a good job.) We can score goals, we have all year, all we gotta do now is play good defense and we will be a much better team. The team will learn a lot from this loss and therefore it is great for the youth movement. They need these games to learn and improve. The future looks great.

Go Habs Go
Pheonix Watch OUT!

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