Pittsburgh Musings, In-Game Scribbles
April 11, 2009, by Homme De Sept-Iles
Pittsburgh 3 at Montreal 1
Mike Boone told us earlier today that RDS reported the following as lineups for tonight:
Higgins – Metropolit – Kovalev
Latendresse – Lapierre – Kostopoulos
A. Kostitsyn – Plekanec – D’Agostini
Stewart – Koivu – Laraque
Gorges – Dandenault
Weber – Schneider
Hamrlik – Komisarek
Tanguay is not in the lineup. It’s a healthy sit-down. And not because he is playing badly. He is playing well. Demers says it’s an excellent decision by Bob Gainey. He congratulates Gainey (without mentioning any hats) for protecting his player.
Joel Bouchard lobs a few Easter Cream Eggs at Price. Says he is a great talent, very young and that the Canadiens are lucky to have this young and improving player.
If Montreal loses, they play Boston on Thursday. If they lose or gain a regulation tie, they will have to wait for the result for tomorrow’s Philadelphia-Ranger game. The other scenario would see Montreal face Washington.
Either matchup is winnable for Team Red.
Metropolit, Higgins and Dandenault are announced as the starting forwards along with Josh Gorges and Alex Kovalev. Price is in net. They announce Kovalev last. But he will be a forward, of course.
My guess is that Gainey is looking to shift Kovalev to the tune of 20 to 24 minutes.
Another anthem. Maybe the Beatles tunes should never be retired but some bands, some songs and all anthems have run their course. Does singing along with convincing patriotism and hearty gusto guarantee that we can count on this person in a combat situation? Or to pay their taxes?
Lapierre gets the unsung hero award. Carpet on ice is removed and we get ready for Les Poseurs. I mean the Penguins.
First Period
Metropolit wins the faceoff. Kovalev in early. Puck bounces off his stick. Pittsburgh has their first breakout. Stopped at the Montreal blueline. Kovalev sidles a backhand pass over to Higgins and his shot glances up into the stands.
Plekanec on next. With D’Agostini and AK46. Big brother is out with intent. Pittsburgh moves it back. Gets into the Montreal zone. Shot from the blue line. Rebound is big. Malkin backhands it in from the doorstep.
1-0, Pittsburgh.
Making (Montreal) believe.
Koivu with Laraque and Stewart. Weber behind his net. Can’t get it out.
Another shot from the point finds Price. Stops it. Canadiens then get it out. Houde says that Montreal is playing with a lot of nervousness.
Crosby is on the ice. And he makes something beautiful happen. Gets a shot, too. Too sharp an angle. Bell is quiet for him.
Stewart’s photo shows him with a John Leclair style smile. Bill Guerin is on Crosby’s line, we are shown.
Komisarek skates a bit before passing. Good sign. Haven’t seen a lot of that from him in recent months.
Plekanec line is playing well again on this shift… Second presence is active and in the Pittsburgh zone.
Kennedy gets in from the right and gives Price something to feel good about. An easy midriff shot that Prices freezes on knees, textbook. Pittsburgh controls for a moment. Short moment. Now Crosby steals it curling back in the neutral zone and finds a winger deep and backhand. Gretzky style. But it’s offside.
Kovalev from Hamrlik to Higgins in front but Higgins can’t reach it. Metropolit then sets up Kovalev for a direct shot in front. Fleury stops it. Best Montreal chance so far.
Brunet says that Kovalev is calm and has found his lustre again. This said on the replay.
Komisarek gets his stick on the puck in a one-on-two situation in the corner and gets it up to a forward. Very nice. He is slowly getting back to his game. Getting his hands on Lucic again without a bad outcome will be another factor in his return to confidence. Another Montreal player that is recovering.
Pittsburgh is still a high-turnover team. More safe with it than last year but in a different category from Boston. They will not be making the finals again. For quite a long time, I would guess.
They turn up their great speed and Crosby finds Sergei Gonchar for a certain goal. But Gonchar fires it wide. Lucky, lucky. Brunet says Price was beaten. Oh yes.
Andrei is winning battles on the boards. Wins two in short order and fires to the slot. D’Agostini wasn’t expecting it and was out of position. Pittsburgh moves it into Montreal territory and control for long enough that they draw a penalty. Komisarek. Hooking.
Subtle. Hooked Crosby as the speedster flew by the side of the net. Slight hook. Standing still. Legit call.
Now Montreal shows great tenacity in keeping the puck in the Pittsburgh end for almost a minute. Lapierre. Kostopoulos. Bien sure.
More good work from the next group. Pittsburgh hasn’t been able to set up yet. And Schneider now clears it.
Only twenty seconds left.
And again Montreal wins the corner battle. Fires it out. And then Gorges intercepts yet another Pittsburgh foray. The penalty ends, the crowd approves the team and then boos one of the Penguins. Perfect penalty-kill. At least if we look at the outcome of zero shots on goal for Pittsburgh. Good enough for me.
What an uplifting sequence for the team.
Weber plays with aplomb. He is paired with Schneider. Montreal’s depth is good on the blueline, too, it seems. And we haven’t even seen young David Fischer yet. He is considered to be one of the top-of-the-top prospects in the system. He is only 20.
Lapierre and Latendresse are like Green Lantern and the Flash. With Kostopoulos as Green Arrow, the line is giving the team consistent, quality, at times flashy hockey. And they draw a penalty.
Kovalev with Koivu Higgins and Weber and Schneider. It’s the best line Gainey can offer.
They move it around. A shot from Schneider. Hits a leg. They regroup. Kovalev always has dangerous ideas. This one almost works. Bounces away from Koivu. After an improbable journey. It’s as if Kovalev has a post-doc in physics. Soft pass that from anyone else would result in a breakout but with Kovalev advising the puck, it slithers and defies ice and stick.
Pascal Dupuis comes in alone now. What fumes. Forehand, trembling fuselage, backhand and an orangutan save by Price. Maxim Talbot follows, whacks it in, but it’ll be a high stick.
Quel arret de Price.
Crosby beat Theodore to usher in the new era. That little baby fake foot, remember? On the shootout. Years ago. On opening night.
Tonight…it may well be Price. Joining the new era.
They go to Toronto to check the replay. No goal. Not even close.
Montreal has only 10 seconds left on the power-play. Plekanec doesn’t see Gonchar sneaky in the lane and the powerplay ends on that interception.
Montreal re-enters quickly. Good give-and-go with Plekanec. And Kostitsyn now misses a deserted net.
Crosby comes down. Bit of flash, a turn and pass. Nothing. Gill fires it now from the other side and from a distance. Price seizes it. Freezes it.
Turn it up. Montreal scores.
Hamrlik from the point. From Komisarek on the other side.
1-1, tied.
Now Kovalev. Stops to shoot, it bounces off a defender. Just under two minutes left.
Plekanec pauses before going for the puck to bump a Penguin. Great chutzpa. AK46 now makes a sweet move. Very nice one-on-one. Then he later gets a good shot. He is moxie ce soir.
Koivu wins a deep faceoff. Koivu creates a good rebound. Nobody can get to it. Now back down in Montreal territory but not for long. Koivu and Kovalev are on the ice. Puck-like object appears in Price’s crease. Gets cleared.
Where is Bouillon?
When is Bouillon?
Period ends.
First Intermission
Lapierre has won three of three faceoffs. He is a broadly talented player. He could score twenty one day, too. He is a polite interview. He adds some story, some colour to his answers. And Chantal Machabee is one of the best journalists in hockey.
Second Period
Some mild puck chaos early. Turnovers aplenty. Both teams are livewire. Skating and cutting, looping and interruptive. A brisk pace. Finally Montreal get some control. Plekanec line. Been a while since I’ve typed that.
Now the puck is trapped in Montreal territory with Plekanec’ people still on ice. A long shot is captured by Price and the line-change can save the team from fatigue.
Defence pairing is changed, as well. Schneider is back with Weber. And the Koivu line. Something of a Carbo special.
Koivu gives Laraque his best chance of the season. Puck gets flubbered by the goalie. Rubber.
No shot.
Lapierre line is on. Pittsburgh get their first shot in a bit. And again the puck re-enters Montreal territory. Latendresse shows no imagination in clearing all of the sudden. End of shift type of play. Kovalev is on the ice.
Dekes to the middle, beats Fleury, puck trickles through the pads, flutters along the ice just outside the post.
Now Higgins gets a shot off a pass form Plekanec. Fleury stops it.
Plekanec’ game is solid every night. It’s hard to understand why the points aren’t coming. It must have something to do with respective positioning with linemates. Sort of like how Samsonov’s mini-figure eights didn’t match with Kovalev’s grand loops.
Pittsburgh gets a bit of pressure. Two shots. The distance blast is curtailed by Price. And held.
Back from some bad commercials.
Koivu fights along the boards and takes a holding call. It’s a slight infraction but they are calling these nowadays. And it’s good for the game. I’ll hazard a guess the Koivu was warned earlier in the game. Kristopher Letang is on the point. Now he is on the sideboard.
Mario Lemieux has put together a very francophone team.
Pittsburgh moves it around and Malkin hits the post. Crosby and Malkin and Gonchar. With Letang. And Chris Kunitz. What a power-play lineup.
Montreal is solid, though. Metropolit with Higgins now. Gonchar is very important to this Pittsburgh team. Montreal, Higgins, really kill the last segment. And Higgins gets over the Pittsburgh line for a shot.
Koivu is back on the e ice and a high shot from Boucher is gloved by Price.
Price was beaten on that post play. Couldn’t see the puck. McCown is right.
Weber has great quickness. Interesting attribute. I wonder how is fifth gear looks. PK Subban is also highly skilled. Also in the system.
Montreal creates brief but frightening chaos for Pittsburgh. Komisarek couldn’t get good composite on the puck or we might have seen a goal. Great skirmish. We go to commercial but Houde promises a Montreal power-play when we return.
Those little head fakes are very hard to see on TV or even from the stands. But they can work on goalies. We see a nice goal from Lafleur who recorded six points in one night on April 11, 1977. Against Philadelphia.
It’s Pittsburgh on the power-play after all that. And they create a decent chance early. Price is on his back and Gorges has to help him out. Does.
Boucher fires from the blue line and Price pads it. Then a puck squirts and spins on the blue. A moment becomes a vortex. And Montreal clears. Dandenault. Alert. Brisk.
Pittsburgh is controlling well. Metropolit and Higgins. Finally Kostopoulos gets out of the box and is on the ice. Penalty ends. Pressure ends.
Seven minutes.
Koivu can’t get the backhand and uses his weight sneakily to work the corner.
Now Price makes a great save. Kovalev controls deep. Komisarek from the point. Stopped. Fleury’s mask has a board-game intellect about it.
Fleury is good with his stick around the net. Quick and accurate.
Interference call deep on Montreal ice. Hamrlik. If they call like this in the playoffs, it will be a good post-season. For NHL fans, I mean.
Lapierre and Kostopoulos. Pittsburgh can control but nothing menacing yet. Montreal keeps clearing effectively.
Crosby bangs Higgins to the ice in the slot. Higgins gets up, regains control and gets the puck out. Penalty ends. Crowd and Houde ask whether or not that wasn’t a cross-check. Hard to tell from that angle. Houde earlier asked if the referees weren’t getting revenge on Montreal for Gainey’s criticisms of the refs last week.
Kovalev is creating calm havoc for Pittsburgh. Laraque misses a great chance.
He smashes his stick on the bench after his shift. He is angry at missing that chance.
Carey Krakatoa Price!!!!
Save of the season for him. And another great save. Price is a serpent coiled now. New body language. Or old.
Crowd is worshipping Price.
One minute left.
Price’s save will get reviewed by the suits tonight. High dive. Left. Body block.
Moments pass. Back and forth.
And another one!! Almost the same. Not as hard but very good. Body block going left.
This kid is a goalie.
Second Intermission
Demers says that aside from Carey Price the Canadiens’ best player tonight is Mathieu Dandenault. Nice to see the former Detroit Red Wing getting props.
They show his goal-saving clear. The team is playing one for another and it’s increasing. With a group of great athletes, anything can happen. If the intangibles smooth.
We are informed that Vincent Damphousse will be a guest on Anti-Chambre tonight. Our last captain (before Koivu).
Bergeron is complaining. He mentions the 34 shots given up in the first two periods. Does he know how to measure things like quality scoring chances? He suggests that Montreal’s lines don’t make sense and asks if they want to lose the game on purpose in order to face Boston. He adds that if Montreal keeps playing this way it is a terrible way to enter the playoffs.
I wonder if Machabee puts any stock in Bergeron’s conclusions. It’s hard to tell. Either way.
Three yards and a cloud of dust.
Montreal is playing well against a fast, dangerous Pittsburgh team that is working. Most of the 34 shots are not that great. Granted Price has kept Montreal close on Pittsburgh’s quality shots. And the Canadiens must keep the sticks down and get the power-play advantage in the third.
But Montreal has also generated about the same level of quality chances.
Joel Bouchard responds to a Demers blurb by saying the coach is right. Demers is touched. It’s nice to see.
Third Period
Yanick Weber’s mouth is like Ovechkin’s. His countenance somehow. Thinner, sure.
Kostopoulos beats the crowd and wins a small puck battle. Puck squirts free and goes down to the other end. Both teams are up-tempo. First period, first shift type of pace. So far.
Next game won’t be till Wednesday at the earliest for either club so why not.
AK46 gets a chance backhand. D’Agostini and Plekanec have something to prove.
Puck lies there. Waiting to be shot into the Pittsburgh net. Nobody wants to do anything tonight. Maybe because Georges Laraque is dressed. Thinking about it, I think it’s a good thing to let the team find out just how tough they can be without Laraque. Which is what they learned last game against. Boston.
Kovalev has a mind to win this game. As usual. Big game player. Jordan attitude.
Price and Komisarek survive a great entry by Dupuis.
Sticks are fierce. But only pucks are touched. Plekanec is on again. Metropolit gives a dangerous shot. Fleury finds it short side.
Laraque goes around and fans on it.
Stewart trips Fleury and nearly takes the puck from the bulky player. The climax is nearing. And either team can achieve it.
Koivu with Kovalev again. And Higgins. Pressure line.
Kovalev intercepts. Shoots. Stopped. Latendresse sets up Lapierre. Near miss. Lapierre now misses a good set up backhand. Lapierre. Again. Habs are pressuring. Houde says that Kovalev set up three potential goals.
Kovalev was two-shifting.
Crowd booed. Then the referee called Orpik. Have some cashews. It was the right call but call it when you see it. And not when the crowd disapproves. Boarding. On Laraque.
Finally, a powerplay.
Plekanec line first. To give Kovalev a breather.
And here he comes. Andrei gets it back to Schneider. Blast is stopped high by Fleury.
Two on one. Pittsburgh. They score.
2-1, Pittsburgh.
Just terrible.
The goal was great. Very PS2. Or PS3, if you prefer.
Just under ten minutes left. Koivu tries to make it happen. Jams it into the pads on a wraparound.
Now Kovie. But the team loses the puck a little later. Pittsburgh scores a softie.
3-1, Pittsburgh.
Letang. How did that go in. Just a bad goal short side to his right.
Looks like Boston, then. Still a lot of time but how damaged is the team confidence?
Lapierre line is still confident. Shot from Latendresse forces Fleury to his knees.
Metropolit line has Stewart on it now. Must mean that Koivu will be with Kovalev for the rest of the game. They keep showing this dude behind the Pittsburgh players and I finally clue in that it’s the new coach. Never seen him before.
Plekanec line is still confident. Working as hard as before.
Koivu is on . With Kovalev. And Higgins. It’s easier to know Gainey’s mind than it is Carbonneau’s. Carbonneau is an innovator, a tinkerer. Gainey is, too but it doesn’t show up so much in his lines as in his personnel choices.
Six minutes. Who will get us back in this game. Kostopoulos almost does. And then Lapierre. But they jam away and it’s a whistle. Pittsburgh plays it smart and don’t do the I’M IN CHARGE OF THIS CREASE act after the whistle.
Fleury whacks Letang to get him to go further up in the faceoff circle. Laraque draws a penalty along the boards. Hal Gill.
Man is Hal Gill a dumb hockey player.
So many announcers just love saying that about the players they don’t like. Pay attention whenever a media person calls a player dumb. Then see who else they call dumb. There is often a pattern.
As for me, I just learned it’s really easy and satisfying to say or write something like that. Too easy. Though in Gill’s case it’s probably somewhat earned.
Watch him, too. You’ll see what I mean.
Montreal powerplay. Laraque is on the ice. It’s like a nod to Carbo. Exoneration by imitation. I wonder if Gainey was ordered to fire Carbonneau.
Kovalev unleashes a good wrister. Stopped.
Laraque bangs at a Koivu rebound and again is miffed.
Weber has good control of the puck as a shooter. Two-on-one for Pittsburgh but a good stop this time from Price. Plekanec gets it to Kovalev across the crease. No shot.
And then Kovalev takes a penalty of frustration. Tripping. He’s a lot smarter than Hal Gill. Have a chat with both. You tell me.
Just under four minutes. It will take a minor miracle tonight. I dimly recall a game that Montreal won against Quebec by scoring two goals in the last minute. But that was a long time ago.
Well, I’m told that Boston is nice in the spring.
Gretzky used to come out of the box and make something happen. Pittsburgh is doing nothing with their power-play.
They have no commitment left. I guess it’s like the last day of school. Give away your marbles, eat some cake and pretend you didn’t hear the teacher ask you to stop talking loudly.
Kovalev is out. Just over a minute left. Metropolit hasn’t given up at all. I admire his resolve.
Thirty seconds. Lots of nonchalance from Pittsburgh. And good commitment from Montreal. They are going to get it on Anti-Chambre. I hope they win a few series just to show those guys.
HDS Stars: Maxim Lapierre, Kris Letang, Carey Price
RDS Stars: Carey Price, Kristopher Letang, Pascal Dupuis
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