Ann 2Teams often say that the best way to prepare for the playoffs is to finish the regular season on a roll. It doesn't matter if you've been up and down all season, that final week helps you get in the groove of things. Well, the Montreal Canadiens weren't able to use that cliché on Saturday night after losing their fourth consecutive game – they grabbed one point out of eight in the final week - opting to use the “playoffs-is-another-season” justification instead.
Against the Pittsburgh Penguins, Bob Gainey brought four changes to the line-up that lasted until overtime against the Boston Bruins last Thursday. First, Alex Tanguay and Ryan O'Byrne were both healthy scratches, forcing Gainey to switch up two of his lines and one defensive pairings. Saku Koivu was thus assigned to play between Georges Laraque and Gregory Stewart in an effort to manage the captain's icetime while Kovalev was moved to Glen Metropolit's line alongside Chris Higgins. In defense, Yannick Weber was returned to his natural position after playing as a winger against Boston and played with Mathieu Schneider in order to get some veteran advice.
The game wasn't nearly as exciting as the confrontation against Boston since most of it looked like one-way traffic with the Penguins attacking and the Habs defending. Evgeni Malkin opened the scoring in the first minute of play by burying a juicy rebound given by Price right in front of the net. Roman Hamrlik equalized late in the first period on the Habs' fourth shot of the game, but they didn't grab any momentum from that goal.
As a matter of fact, Carey Price was the shining star of a scoreless second period, making superb saves on two odd-man rushes as the Pens outshot the home side 17-7 in those twenty minutes (the shot count was 34-13 Pittsburgh after forty minutes). The visitors finally got the lead by scoring two shorthanded goals ON THE SAME PENALTY(!), and the Habs basically folded after that.
The good news is that Montreal's penalty-kill seems to be set for the playoffs. They had no trouble blanking the Penguins' five powerplays with excellent work by Higgins, Metropolit, Kostopoulos, and Lapierre. Kovalev also showed some good stuff in that game. There was a sequence where he set up four possible goals but his teammates simply couldn't cash in. It was obvious that he was picking his moments but at least Gainey knows (or at least hopes) that he can count on him. Laraque probably had his best game in a Canadiens shirt, drawing two penalties and almost scoring himself on a couple of occasions but I still think that he's too damn slow. Finally, Price had a great game but the first and third goals definitely shouldn't have happened so I'm still having some reservation about him.
There wasn't much action in the offensive end on Saturday since the TKK line was broken up for that game. Montreal goes on to face Boston in the first round. They'll need all the scoring they can get if they want to pull another upset like in 2002 and 2004.
My 3 Stars:
3. Georges Laraque (who probably doesn't deserve this since that's how he's supposed to play in the first place but what the hell, I give him a star)
2. Pascal Dupuis
1. Carey Price
Against the Pittsburgh Penguins, Bob Gainey brought four changes to the line-up that lasted until overtime against the Boston Bruins last Thursday. First, Alex Tanguay and Ryan O'Byrne were both healthy scratches, forcing Gainey to switch up two of his lines and one defensive pairings. Saku Koivu was thus assigned to play between Georges Laraque and Gregory Stewart in an effort to manage the captain's icetime while Kovalev was moved to Glen Metropolit's line alongside Chris Higgins. In defense, Yannick Weber was returned to his natural position after playing as a winger against Boston and played with Mathieu Schneider in order to get some veteran advice.
The game wasn't nearly as exciting as the confrontation against Boston since most of it looked like one-way traffic with the Penguins attacking and the Habs defending. Evgeni Malkin opened the scoring in the first minute of play by burying a juicy rebound given by Price right in front of the net. Roman Hamrlik equalized late in the first period on the Habs' fourth shot of the game, but they didn't grab any momentum from that goal.
As a matter of fact, Carey Price was the shining star of a scoreless second period, making superb saves on two odd-man rushes as the Pens outshot the home side 17-7 in those twenty minutes (the shot count was 34-13 Pittsburgh after forty minutes). The visitors finally got the lead by scoring two shorthanded goals ON THE SAME PENALTY(!), and the Habs basically folded after that.
The good news is that Montreal's penalty-kill seems to be set for the playoffs. They had no trouble blanking the Penguins' five powerplays with excellent work by Higgins, Metropolit, Kostopoulos, and Lapierre. Kovalev also showed some good stuff in that game. There was a sequence where he set up four possible goals but his teammates simply couldn't cash in. It was obvious that he was picking his moments but at least Gainey knows (or at least hopes) that he can count on him. Laraque probably had his best game in a Canadiens shirt, drawing two penalties and almost scoring himself on a couple of occasions but I still think that he's too damn slow. Finally, Price had a great game but the first and third goals definitely shouldn't have happened so I'm still having some reservation about him.
There wasn't much action in the offensive end on Saturday since the TKK line was broken up for that game. Montreal goes on to face Boston in the first round. They'll need all the scoring they can get if they want to pull another upset like in 2002 and 2004.
My 3 Stars:
3. Georges Laraque (who probably doesn't deserve this since that's how he's supposed to play in the first place but what the hell, I give him a star)
2. Pascal Dupuis
1. Carey Price
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