Atlanta Musings and In-Game Scribbles
October 20, 2009, by Homme De Sept-Iles
My English is as good as yours, I just write these in a stream-of-consciousness mode that I insist excuses me from small things like rules of grammar or general etiquette. Let’s call it conversational English, hopped up on beans. You know what kind of beans (no, Carl Mellesmoen, not the magic ones)
Montreal Canadiens (2-5) host Atlanta Thrashers (4-1)
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Game Eight (score posted following scribbles)
Musings and In-Game Scribbles are a “live blogging” of the game that are compiled (typed, actually) during the game and edited and posted shortly after the game.
Montreal 2-5
Atlanta 4-1
The blue carpet is out on the ice again. We’re becoming the great dust celebrators and nostalgists of the game. This time the Bell Centre and their staff will be honouring the 2009 USL champions, Montreal Impact. And the team brings out their modest trophy and their Quebec blue and white uniforms. Not a very diverse group on the carpet. Oh wait. A few African dudes.
Crowd loves it and they cheer. Finally. A champion in the Bell Centre.
Thankfully we don’t have to endure the anthem. We are at 7:39PM EST and the anthem was a bit earlier in the night’s events.
First Period
Halak starts.
Line two is on the ice first. Plekanec with Pacioretty and Kostitsyn. Afinogenov has landed in Atlanta and he’s on a line with Vyacheslav Kozlov. That sounds remarkably dangerous.
Colour is good tonight. I wonder if it’s time to go HD.
Hainsey is also on the ice. The former first round choice of the Canadiens. Don’t say it. Don’t even think it. And I won’t write it.
(Price was picked fifth overall, first by Montreal)
Lapierre line is playing with some ferocity. And a Les Paul expert is watching as fervently, I imagine.
Christoph Schubert’s shot makes it through and a tennis-ball on cardboard sound echoes in the rink. And Bergeron is penalized. Marc-Andre Bergeron. His first accomplishment as a Canadien. Brunet says it was a good penalty.
Atlanta controls early and they pass twice before a shot results in a clear out.
Then Montréal moves quickly, Gomez with Lapierre. Gomez fires off the post and Lapierre is taken down. Atlanta gets called for interference. Todd White. They spell it Tood White on the RDS graphic.
Four on four and Plekanec can’t control well enough to score on a wide-open net.
I refuse to look at the laptop screen and my typing resembles the puck movement. Messy. Suddenly some good movement Gomez to Gionta. They enter. Lots of good passing. Finally. Kovalchuk moves in alone and Halak stops him. Huge save. Price would have let it in.
But Montreal gets called for slashing. Back to the penalty-kill. But first, the four-on-four. Quick clear to start and Plekanec is on to start. Second pairing is Gomez with Moen. Gomez sets up Gionta quickly, quick fire, post. Again. I really don’t want to hear about posts, post-game.
Atlanta has a short advantage. Little gets a perfect pass in the slot abut he shoots wide. Little gets it in a shot again and this time he gets it on net. Not enough power and it doesn’t get up off the ice and Halak stops it.
Atlanta logs a penalty.
Bergeron is on the power-play with Plekanec, Cammalleri and Kostitsyn. Atlanta repels the early entries. And continues to hamper the Montreal control. With a minute left, Latendresse is on with Gionta, Hamrlik and Spacek and Gomez. A deep faceoff to the right of Pavelec.
Montreal controls. Moves it around. Three good passes. Gomez is the hub. Shot from the point from Spacek is stopped and frozen by Atlanta goaltender Ondrej Pavelec.
Canadiens control again after the faceoff. Hamrlik takes a shot from the right point. Rebound is caught in a blade skirmish. Both kinds. No shot results. Atlanta clear. And in retrieving the puck, Montreal sees the penalty end.
Lapierre won’t sacrifice to save an error in the Montreal zone. He’s become a bit of a passenger again this season.
Just over ten minutes left in the first period.
Latendresse leaves feathers on a check. What’s a Thrasher look like anyway? Is it dangerous?
Five-on-five and, as usual, Lapierre’s line allows Atlanta to control the puck outside. It works to some degree here and they clear it out.
On the breakout, Boulton takes an interference call. Knocks Moen down. Boulton has a goatee. I wonder if Bidini’s rule applies to pro players.
Gionta nearly scores while falling backward. But a solid pad save from Pavelec.
Kostitsyn uses no energy. Loses the puck at the blue line and doesn’t go hard after it. He is so done.
This power-play has great wiring. Crackling. Plekanec, Mara and others make the passes bend angles. Montreal has done well in this period.
Gomez frees Cammalleri to advance the puck for a hard shot to Pavelec’s left.
Four and a half minutes. Now a Gill point shot deflects upward and out of play.
We hear some useless information from Kirk Muller. Joel Bouchard asks the questions. Houde and Brunet remark that we heard all the clichés.
Laraque and Chipchura are on with Moen. A rare appearance tonight. With all the power-plays, what do you expect?
Kostitsyn shows enthusiasm when looking for a cheap hit in the corner. Knocks down a guy bent low in the first place. Dangerous-looking hit.
Kane makes a great effort to strip Bergeron of the puck and executes a wrap-around that results in a point-blank shot on Halak. Save.
Puck moves out.
Moments later, Gionta scores.
Gionta takes the puck from the corner, curves around, shoots it from a sharp angle and finds netting.
Montreal 1, Atlanta 0.
Just over two minutes in the period.
Crowd loves it. Lapierre line follows. D’Agostini is there with Latendresse.
Bouchard tells us (standing by the bench) that Martin said “Enfin” when the goal was scored; at last.
Pacioretty takes a wild shot with bad intentions. Just as he crossed over the blue line. Kostitsyn is so gassed and lazy. He’s playing like Higgins used to. He just doesn’t care. Get rid of him.
Chasing the puck like a wet, stoned dog.
Period ends.
First Intermission
Norman Bouchard touches on the new book from Bob Sirois and says that its points have merit and that the numbers that stood out to him most were the numbers that showed the numbers of players in the NHL, province by province. Don’t expect the guardians of privilege and the status quo to be moved by facts.
Joel Bouchard interviews Brian Gionta just prior to the period. Bouchard’s purple shirt is tieless and satiny. Bouchard takes a we’re-in-it-together tone with the Canadiens’ lone goal-scorer. Nothing interesting happened verbally.
Joel Bouchard played some 300 NHL games before an injury ended his unremarkable career. He is a student and teacher of the game, however, and his expertise is reminiscent in some ways of CBC’s Kelly Hrudey.
Second Period
Second period starts. Kostitsyn sputters. He’s on with Plekanec. Slow to accelerate one might think. Unless one sees AK46 on a spirited night. Or more accurately, a spirited moment.
Hainsey is behind his net surveying passing options. He wears number six in that pointy Atlanta font and has the “A” on his jersey.
Point shot from Spacek causes problems for the Atlanta defensive. Ricochets high and behind the net.
Joel Bouchard lectures us via Brunet and Houde, warning that Kovalchuk is logging 90-second shifts and that he could cause a problem at any time. I suppose this is an all-ages viewing experience.
Kostitsyn is showing a bit more jump on this shift. Not a lot of result but good optics. It’s a bit early in the game for him to start skating at medium speed. What motivates this guy? Not hockey, obviously.
If he was on my caseload, he’d be a lot of work. Plenty of Excel goal-setting spreadsheets and micro-managing. I wonder how much he’d lie about his job-search.
Now we have an interlude with a Manic player. Supra, whatever. Maniacs? I can’t even remember. Soccer, the sport of imperialists. Non merci. He’s up in the booth with Houde and Brunet.
A fight breaks out. A real one. Lapierre. A third guy from Atlanta tries to get in but is intercepted by two Canadiens.
Bergeron took a dirty hit and Lapierre dropped his gloves right away. It was Armstrong. Typical CEO-type callousness from the Atlanta alternate captain.
Francophone anti-anglophones should just switch to soccer. We don’t need you. The other Francophones … we hope they stick around.
This interview with the Manic player is going on far too long. It’s almost Leaf Hee-Haw in its length. Finally, it ends.
Gomez teases the more sentimental members of the viewing audience with a Kovie-like dipsy-doodle. Loses the puck about three seconds sooner than Kovie normally would.
No sainted or salted dogs here.
Montreal has been killing a penalty extraordinarily well while I’ve been contemplating Tabasco bottles and cheese-tastic artificial spread. Just under eleven minutes left.
Hab penalty-kill bravura transfers to the five-on-five. Pavelec is having trouble with rebounds on the past three shots.
Halak makes another important save. Looks for it. It’s bounced out and the Canadiens move it out quickly.
Cammalleri line is causing problems. Serious problems. Brunet starts chirping about how effort changes everything. Who is he trying to convince?
I wonder what a Canadiens telecast in English would be. I’ve been told that Sirius allows me to find out.
Canadiens are standing around now. In their own zone. Kostitsyn is always right by the blue line these days. Just browsin’.
Both teams are fetching pepper. Now Gionta hits the post. Then Kovalchuk (my queasy stomach) is faster than anyone in the building as he skates down the right side. His blast doesn’t trouble Halak. And the puck goes away for a while so that Ford can offend my sensibilities.
Moen drives in with gorilla on arm. Too much arm. Too much gorilla. Shot skitters wide. Penalty against Tobias Enstrom. More of a skinny gorilla.
Gomez, Kostitsyn and Cammalleri. Martin desperate to get Kostitsyn going somehow. I’d like to see him get going. Ahem. Yes, I am getting redundant.
Canadiens control. They work it around. Cammalleri walks in from the goalie’s left. Had the right idea.
The fates are now intervening. Habs get about four great opportunities but white pantaloons stumble-bumble and pucks hit them.
Still a solid minute left as the Canadiens lose a faceoff deep.
Atlanta kills the remaining time easily. Gomez line stayed on for the entire power-play. Different.
Gomez is still on the ice as the team goes to five-on-five. About twenty seconds beyond. Finally, Pavelec gloves the puck for a commercial. I mean faceoff.
Subway has great ads. But they have slipped past number three in the submarine sandwich steeplechase (I’ll bet nobody knows that “a sub” is short for submarine sandwich. Well, the Gen Y folks may not know). Quizno’s is better. Mr. Sub, after years of hubris, have finally surpassed the once-underdog Subway. My theory? Always go with number two. Unless number two is on the decline.
Kostitsyn curls over the high slot and everyone is out of position. A woman screeches twice. She sounds too young to be his mother. Nothing else results. Canadiens continue to dominate following this sequence, however. Atlanta is showing the disinterest of a perennial 7-9 team.
Marc-Andre Bergeron was interviewed this week and said that he is hurt or disappointed that people think he is a defensive liability. He said that he will try and show otherwise. So let’s see.
Did Kovalev’s lurking get misidentified as justified floating by AK46? Is it more complex than that?
Atlanta goes to the power-play.
Enstrom fires a fast cartoon disc, bulging and screaming with big eyes at Halak. It deflects somewhere before it reaches the crease and the Canadiens clear. They make it out. And with their first second-period lead of the season.
A quick shot of the Bell Centre gift shop shows that the layout hasn’t changed. Won’t need a GPS, then.
Second Intermission
This is kind of obvious but alcohol ads should be illegal. Or maybe it doesn’t seem obvious.
Marc Denis is sitting with Alain Crete and they are both tieless. Denis’ overconfidence is irritating. It’s his first time on RDS and I don’t know if his presence is a permanent one. He is a former third-string goalie with the Canadiens (one game in 2008-09) but played 349 NHL games, most with the Columbus Blue Jackets.
This tieless thing is like Freaky Fridays or whatever they call it in the corporate world. Now, for the viewer, is this supposed to relax me? When I see an overweight guy in a suit and his tie is missing, my first conclusion is: gettin’ drunk. Hard drinkin’ and hard starin’ after a hard day at the office. Uh. Yeah. Creepy.
Should it be legal for advertisers to use pathos to sell products? I think not. Here’s what it should be like. Plain text only. No music. And half the screen only. The other half has a community-sponsored set of complementary text to balance whatever lies the product-maker is emphasizing. I guess the text could be in the same colour and font. Just the facts. There’s been too much persuasion going on over the past century or so, I’d say.
Penguins are roaring along. They were 7-0 a few nights ago and are leading 5-1 over the Blues in the third period tonight. So says RDS. I said Pittsburgh would miss the playoffs this year. But I didn’t publish it anywhere. That may have been wise.
Denis’ head moves around too much. Rookie. Crete notices and makes a note to himself. Will he give Denis some tips? Or will he sabotage him? It’s hard to tell. But I know this: Alain Crete reminds me of Ken Dryden. Not on the ice. Off the ice.
Slow-motion domestic scenes like gift-giving, walking or eating cake are for advertising chumps.
Lapierre is wearing an unattractive baseball hat for his interview prior to the third (some are attractive … and to be clear, attractive like a magnet). Joel Bouchard does a lot of nodding and spirited question-asking. When Bouchard thanks Lapierre, the player just looks away like an ashamed mother who ate too much meringue. I’ll never know.
Third Period
Cammalleri is beside and talking to AK46 on the bench and Andrei doesn’t look but says “ok.” One of those “why are you talking to me?” ok’s.
Atlanta’s power-play resumes. Canadiens are effective in messing it up. Chipchura works well on this sequence. And so does Lapierre.
Kane gets a shot top-of-the-circle late in the penalty and Halak gloves it. The fresh ice looks nice and the camera angle reminds me of the Saddledome in its earlier days. The mid-eighties.
Plekanec is playing a great game. So are Gionta and Gomez.
Just a 1-0 lead, though. Not enough outcome to go with all that great process.
Cheese.
Marty Reasoner breaks in and is relieved of the puck by Chipchura. (I always think of “60 Minutes”) Chipchura is smart and works hard but he’s too slow.
Now Laraque chases a puck down into the corner. Atlanta soon exits with the puck. Nik Antropov is with the Thrashers. Former Leaf. Well, it’s easy to go unnoticed in Atlanta. But Antropov is rather huge. And rather un-African. Maybe he gets mistaken for a Falcon offensive lineman.
Pacioretty tries to get fancy on going over the blue line and gets knocked down for his awkward effort.
Now Gionta goes over the blue line. He drives down and gets the puck in front but the pass doesn’t work.
Pavelec. Faceoff to his left. He’s tall. Plays low. Houde pronounces it PAH-va-LITS.
Gill’s trucking speed has found a rhythm. One that works for the team and for the defensive zone. And then he is on ice for a goal against.
I’ve never liked guys who congratulate other people when they get a goal. You know, they pat someone else’s helmet and say something motivational to them. Colby Armstrong got the goal and that’s what he does.
Atlanta 1, Montreal 1.
I just remembered that Molson Export is supposed to be cooler than Molson Canadian. Can someone explain that to me?
Well, now the passport-less Thrashers feel like they belong in this airport. Montreal will have to remind them who the security people are really working for.
They begin by holding the puck down deep. Gionta’s line. Some cycling underneath the end line and after about 30 seconds, Atlanta exit with the puck.
Kostitsyn shows more jump than in the first, goes back for the puck, stickhandles nicely, then lobs it away.
I could claim anything, couldn’t I? Who’s watching a tape of this game while reading this? Who? I dare you.
Kovalev jumps on the ice. Koivu’s with him. They generate a two-on-one. Pavelec has trouble with the rebound and suddenly a whistle. Why would they whistle during a K2 rush?
Ok. Ca suffit. (That’s enough)
Back to October, 2009.
Where this team is now a study in ice zoology. A lab where Petri dishes are oval and frosty.
Nine and a half minutes left. Atlanta doesn’t want this game. Montreal just has to give it. How much damage does it do when one guy doesn’t work hard? Two? Three? Domino effect. More pressure on the others.
Plekanec is working hard enough for two and his effort draws a penalty.
My ligaments are working hard enough for some condition to develop. I should be able to dictate these games. Then, of course, I wouldn’t hear the play-by-play. And with RDS, that is a loss.
Evander Kane gets called for tripping. He should get another two minutes for playing under the age of 14. He looks like a pee-wee player. Baby-face.
Montreal controls early. Spacek’s pass is intercepted. And a two-on-one results. Shot misses.
Montreal goes back down and make a few people nervous. A bowl-full. Two huge chances. Nothing. Could be worse. It could be 2-1, Minnesota with just over a minute left in the quarter-final.
But this power-play has been refuted.
Kovalchuk is one of about five Thrashers that really worked hard tonight. With purpose.
Six and a half minutes. Another shoot-out against your buddies, the Thrashers.
Two things I love. Writing. And watching the Canadiens. Like AK46, I’m getting my own late-game wake-up.
Cammalleri dumps it in. Gomez chases it down. It’s end of shift for him and Plekanec jumps on. Montreal handles an Atlanta entry easily but then they ice it. No commercial this time. Faceoff. Brunet says that Gill was lacking imagination on the last sequence. Houde chuckles and says that Brunet is being polite.
Kubina is also on Atlanta now.
Here comes Pacioretty with Lapierre and another red jersey. Andrei. Pacioretty is working harder and with more urgency. He wants to make something happen. He comes up with the puck near the top of the circles. Tries to wrist it but is interrupted by an Atlanta stick. He isn’t thinking fast enough. He shouldn’t be thinking at all.
Jut over two minutes left. Gomez is on.
Marc-Andre Bergeron is wearing number 47 for this game. I see him as more of a 25. Or 27. Well, maybe not a 27.
Under two minutes. Action outside the Atlanta blue and a puck bounces over the boards.
Pavelec has a lot of sea-ice blue on his mask. Huey McDuck feel to the mask.
Now Kostitsyn misses an open net. Houde says that he has played well tonight. Generous.
Fifty seconds. Atlanta dump it in. Armstrong is on with Kane. Cammalleri gets it out and Hainsey sends Afinogenov (Mr. Absentia) down the right side. Play moves behind the net and Kovalchuk has the puck in front of and to the right of Halak. Direct shot. Halak. Huge save.
Faceoff to the right of Halak with 13.3 seconds left. Plekanec and Lapierre are both on the ice. Smart. Because Lapierre got kicked out of the circle. Plekanec wins the faceoff. The Canadiens move it around in their zone to kill the clock and the siren goes.
Shots on goal are 28-23 in favour of Montreal. Atlanta lost the first two periods on that stat but won the third, 11-7.
Canadiens bring a 2-0 overtime record into this period, we are told. Two and five. Only wins came in OT.
Then, a shot of Carbonneau behind the glass and smiling. In the rink. Man. He’s smiling. On his cell. Fashionable leather jacket. I can’t believe everything that has happened with this team.
Épouvantable.
Overtime
Early incursion from red. Gomez and Gionta. Finally Bogosian carries it out. And then he gets a second chance to do the same. Fires it into Montreal territory.
Bergeron exits with it. Mara with Plekanec and Cammalleri. Cammalleri crumples space with his advance. Thrashers are backward and panicking. But as he rounds the net he can’t create anything further.
Kostitsyn is skating around dangerously. Then he fires from the blue. Long wrister that creates a problem. It’s his second shot on the sequence.
Brunet says Kostitsyn is playing better but he’s not quite there yet.
Bergeron has a very Anglophone face. Yup. I’m sayin’ it. Like a Canadian Army face.
Gionta. Gomez. Drop-pass. And then Gomez is flattened by Kozlov. Dirty hit, it seems. Let’s see the replay. More than a scrum ensues. But everyone, all four guys fall to the ice by the boards in Atlanta territory. Very dangerous. Kozlov didn’t mean it, it seems. But they call it. Gomez has to go to the dressing room to get looked at. He walks there on his own.
Kozlov shoved Gomez in the hip area as Gomez was just three feet off the boards. Maybe five feet. It’s a major penalty. Michael Caine remains calm. I forgot he coaches the Thrashers.
Gomez is back after being examined.
The penalty against Kozlov is for intent to injure and is five minutes. So Montreal has a four-on-three.
Two and a half minutes.
First entry is nixed by Hainsey. Fires it down.
Now another stop. Montreal get it in with just under two minutes.
Cammalleri with Plekanec and Bergeron at the blue. Kostitsyn is with them.
Spacek hops on. They control and pass it around in opposition territory. A shot from Spacek is stopped. Knees and biscuit. Whistle. Then Jacques Martin calls a timeout for Montreal.
Whiteboard and Don Shula expression on his face. How well can he relate with these young guys? I’m guessing better than Shula.
Montreal wins the faceoff and then lose it on the blue line, Spacek.
It’s moved back in. Spacek shoot-passes it but it deflects and Montreal has to regroup. Plekanec misses a certain goal. Again. Montreal continues to control. Plekanec prevents Pavelec from freezing it. Another long shot. Another save. Number thirty-one. Pavelec. I can’t remember the last time a Montreal goalie stole a game. That Toronto game does not count.
Hamrlik hits the post with two seconds left. A back-hander coming into the slot. Great pass reception of a difficult pass. Third post. All of them real.
OT ends.
Shootout
First one of the season. And about the third against this team in the past two seasons.
Canadiens have the option and they choose to shoot first. Joel Bouchard says Halak can win this for Montreal. He adds that Halak is good in shootouts.
Cammalleri is first. He looks strange in a Montreal uniform.
Three chances each. And if it’s tied it goes to one and one. One chance each til a lead occurs. First lead wins the game.
Zamboni goes over the shooting and crease areas. They shouldn’t do that. The moisture can ruin puck control. I realise that the chipped ice can, too but it’s easier to control a puck on old ice than on brand new ice. The best is five-minute old, very cold ice. Very cold.
Cammalleri is talking to the ref. They talk like men of the same cloth.
Here he goes.
Accelerates. Pavelec challenges. Retreats. Cammalleri fakes once. Twice. Shoots. Off the pad.
Kovalchuk for Atlanta. To boos.
Casual fake and dangerous backhand. Goes too high.
Gomez. Takes it up. Wrister. Scores. High over the glove side. Gloves high. A little lean.
Rich Peverley for Atlanta. Fakes. Shoots. Halak. Save. Sharp.
Gionta last for Montreal. Scores. Scores. Scores. Scores! Scores.
Something to feel good about this season. Deke. Right to left. Very smooth. Pavelec looked beaten. Flopped like a skinny cabbage patch kid.
Montreal 2
Atlanta 1 (SO)
HDS Stars: Gomez, Halak, Plekanec
RDS Stars: Gomez Pavelec, Gionta
;
Montreal 2-5
Atlanta 4-1
The blue carpet is out on the ice again. We’re becoming the great dust celebrators and nostalgists of the game. This time the Bell Centre and their staff will be honouring the 2009 USL champions, Montreal Impact. And the team brings out their modest trophy and their Quebec blue and white uniforms. Not a very diverse group on the carpet. Oh wait. A few African dudes.
Crowd loves it and they cheer. Finally. A champion in the Bell Centre.
Thankfully we don’t have to endure the anthem. We are at 7:39PM EST and the anthem is a bit earlier in the night’s events.
First Period
Halak starts.
Line two is on the ice first. Plekanec with Pacioretty and Kostitsyn. Afinogenov has landed in Atlanta and he’s on a line with Vyacheslav Kozlov. That sounds remarkably dangerous.
Colour is good tonight. I wonder if it’s time to go HD.
Hainsey is also on the ice. The former first round choice of the Canadiens. Don’t say it. Don’t even think it. And I won’t write it.
(Price was picked fifth overall, first by Montreal)
Lapierre line is playing with some ferocity. And a Les Paul expert is watching as fervently, I imagine.
Christoph Schubert’s shot makes it through and a tennis-ball on cardboard sound echoes in the rink. And Bergeron is penalized. Marc-Andre Bergeron. His first accomplishment as a Canadien. Brunet says it was a good penalty.
Atlanta controls early and they pass twice before a shot results in a clear out.
Then Montréal moves quickly, Gomez with Lapierre. Gomez fires off the post and Lapierre is taken down. Atlanta gets called for interference. Todd White. They spell it Tood White on the RDS graphic.
Four on four and Plekanec can’t control well enough to score on a wide-open net.
I refuse to look at the laptop screen and my typing resembles the puck movement. Messy. Suddenly some good movement Gomez to Gionta. They enter. Lots of good passing. Finally. Kovalchuk moves in alone and Halak stops him. Huge save. Price would have let it in.
But Montreal gets called for slashing. Back to the penalty-kill. But first, the four-on-four. Quick clear to start and Plekanec is on to start. Second pairing is Gomez with Moen. Gomez sets up Gionta quickly, quick fire, post. Again. I really don’t want to hear about posts, post-game.
Atlanta has a short advantage. Little gets a perfect pass in the slot abut he shoots wide. Little gets it in a shot again and this time he gets it on net. Not enough power and it doesn’t get up off the ice and Halak stops it.
Atlanta logs a penalty.
Bergeron is on the power-play with Plekanec, Cammalleri and Kostitsyn. Atlanta repels the early entries. And continues to hamper the Montreal control. With a minute left, Latendresse is on with Gionta, Hamrlik and Spacek and Gomez. A deep faceoff to the right of Lehtonen.
Montreal controls. Moves it around. Three good passes. Gomez is the hub. Shot from the point from Spacek is stopped and frozen by Lehtonen.
Canadiens control again after the faceoff. Hamrlik takes a shot from the right point. Rebound is caught in a blade skirmish. Both kinds. No shot results. Atlanta clear. And in retrieving the puck, Montreal sees the penalty end.
Lapierre won’t sacrifice to save an error in the Montreal zone. He’s become a bit of a passenger again this season.
Just over ten minutes left in the first period.
Latendresse leaves feathers on a check. What’s a Thrasher look like anyway? Is it dangerous?
Five-on-five and, as usual, Lapierre’s line allows Atlanta to control the puck outside. It works to some degree here and they clear it out.
On the breakout, Boulton takes an interference call. Knocks Moen down. Boulton has a goatee. I wonder if Bidini’s rule applies to pro players.
Gionta nearly scores while falling backward. But a solid pad save from Pavelec.
Kostitsyn uses no energy. Loses the puck at the blue line and doesn’t go hard after it. He is so done.
This power-play has great wiring. Crackling. Plekanec, Mara and others make the passes bend angles. Montreal has done well in this period.
Gomez frees Cammalleri to advance the puck for a hard shot to Pavelec’s left.
Four and a half minutes. Now a Gill point shot deflects upward and out of play.
We hear some useless information from Kirk Muller. Joel Bouchard asks the questions. Houde and Brunet remark that we heard all the clichés.
Laraque and Chipchura are on with Moen. A rare appearance tonight. With all the power-plays, what do you expect?
Kostitsyn shows enthusiasm when looking for a cheap hit in the corner. Knocks down a guy bent low in the first place. Dangerous-looking hit.
Kane makes a great effort to strip Bergeron of the puck and executes a wrap-around that results in a point-blank shot on Halak. Save.
Puck moves out.
Moments later, Gionta scores.
Gionta takes the puck from the corner, curves around, shoots it from a sharp angle and finds netting.
Montreal 1, Atlanta 0.
Just over two minutes in the period.
Crowd loves it. Lapierre line follows. D’Agostini is there with Latendresse.
Bouchard tells us (standing by the bench) that Martin said “Enfin” when the goal was scored; at last.
Pacioretty takes a wild shot with bad intentions. Just as he crossed over the blue line. Kostitsyn is so gassed and lazy. He’s playing like Higgins used to. He just doesn’t care. Get rid of him.
Chasing the puck like a wet, stoned dog.
Period ends.
First Intermission
Norman Bouchard touches on the new book from Bob Sirois and says that its points have merit and that the numbers that stood out to him most were the numbers that showed the numbers of players in the NHL, province by province. Don’t expect the guardians of privilege and the status quo to be moved by facts.
Joel Bouchard interviews Brian Gionta just prior to the period. Bouchard’s purple shirt is tieless and satiny. Bouchard takes a we’re-in-it-together tone with the Canadiens’ lone goal-scorer. Nothing interesting happened verbally.
Joel Bouchard played some 300 NHL games before an injury ended his unremarkable career. He is a student and teacher of the game, however, and his expertise is reminiscent in some ways of CBC’s Kelly Hrudey.
Second Period
Second period starts. Kostitsyn sputters. He’s on with Plekanec. Slow to accelerate one might think. Unless one sees AK46 on a spirited night. Or more accurately, a spirited moment.
Hainsey is behind his net surveying passing options. He wears number six in that pointy Atlanta font and has the “A” on his jersey.
Point shot from Spacek causes problems for the Atlanta defensive. Ricochets high and behind the net.
Joel Bouchard lectures us via Brunet and Houde, warning that Kovalchuk is logging 90-second shifts and that he could cause a problem at any time. I suppose this is an all-ages viewing experience.
Kostitsyn is showing a bit more jump on this shift. Not a lot of result but good optics. It’s a bit early in the game for him to start skating at medium speed. What motivates this guy? Not hockey, obviously.
If he was on my caseload, he’d be a lot of work. Plenty of Excel goal-setting spreadsheets and micro-managing. I wonder how much he’d lie about his job-search.
Now we have an interlude with a Manic player. Supra, whatever. Maniacs? I can’t even remember. Soccer, the sport of imperialists. Non merci. He’s up in the booth with Houde and Brunet.
A fight breaks out. A real one. Lapierre. A third guy from Atlanta tries to get in but is intercepted by two Canadiens.
Bergeron took a dirty hit and Lapierre dropped his gloves right away. It was Armstrong. Typical CEO-type callousness from the Atlanta alternate captain.
Francophone anti-anglophones should just switch to soccer. We don’t need you. The other Francophones … we hope they stick around.
This interview with the Manic player is going on far too long. It’s almost Leaf Hee-Haw in its length. Finally, it ends.
Gomez teases the more sentimental members of the viewing audience with a Kovie-like dipsy-doodle. Loses the puck about three seconds sooner than Kovie normally would.
No sainted or salted dogs here.
Montreal has been killing a penalty extraordinarily well while I’ve been contemplating Tabasco bottles and cheese-tastic artificial spread. Just under eleven minutes left.
Hab penalty-kill bravura transfers to the five-on-five. Pavelec is having trouble with rebounds on the past three shots.
Halak makes another important save. Looks for it. It’s bounced out and the Canadiens move it out quickly.
Cammalleri line is causing problems. Serious problems. Brunet starts chirping about how effort changes everything. Who is he trying to convince?
I wonder what a Canadiens telecast in English would be. I’ve been told that Sirius allows me to find out.
Canadiens are standing around now. In their own zone. Kostitsyn is always right by the blue line these days. Just browsin’.
Both teams are fetching pepper. Now Gionta hits the post. Then Kovalchuk (my queasy stomach) is faster than anyone in the building as he skates down the right side. His blast doesn’t trouble Halak. And the puck goes away for a while so that Ford can offend my sensibilities.
Moen drives in with gorilla on arm. Too much arm. Too much gorilla. Shot skitters wide. Penalty against Tobias Enstrom. More of a skinny gorilla.
Gomez, Kostitsyn and Cammalleri. Martin desperate to get Kostitsyn going somehow. I’d like to see him get going. Ahem. Yes, I am getting redundant.
Canadiens control. They work it around. Cammalleri walks in from the goalie’s left. Had the right idea.
The fates are now intervening. Habs get about four great opportunities but white pantaloons stumble-bumble and pucks hit them.
Still a solid minute left as the Canadiens lose a faceoff deep.
Atlanta kills the remaining time easily. Gomez line stayed on for the entire power-play. Different.
Gomez is still on the ice as the team goes to five-on-five. About twenty seconds beyond. Finally, Pavelec gloves the puck for a commercial. I mean faceoff.
Subway has great ads. But they have slipped past number three in the submarine sandwich steeplechase (I’ll bet nobody knows that “a sub” is short for submarine sandwich. Well, the Gen Y folks may not know). Quizno’s is better. Mr. Sub, after years of hubris, have finally surpassed the once-underdog Subway. My theory? Always go with number two. Unless number two is on the decline.
Kostitsyn curls over the high slot and everyone is out of position. A woman screeches twice. She sounds too young to be his mother. Nothing else results. Canadiens continue to dominate following this sequence, however. Atlanta is showing the disinterest of a perennial 7-9 team.
Marc-Andre Bergeron was interviewed this week and said that he is hurt or disappointed that people think he is a defensive liability. He said that he will try and show otherwise. So let’s see.
Did Kovalev’s lurking get misidentified as justified floating by AK46? Is it more complex than that?
Atlanta goes to the power-play.
Enstrom fires a fast cartoon disc, bulging and screaming with big eyes at Halak. It deflects somewhere before it reaches the crease and the Canadiens clear. They make it out. And with their first second-period lead of the season.
A quick shot of the Bell Centre gift shop shows that the layout hasn’t changed. Won’t need a GPS, then.
Second Intermission
This is kind of obvious but alcohol ads should be illegal. Or maybe it doesn’t seem obvious.
Marc Denis is sitting with Alain Crete and they are both tieless. Denis’ overconfidence is irritating. It’s his first time on RDS and I don’t know if his presence is a permanent one. He is a former third-string goalie with the Canadiens (one game in 2008-09) but played 349 NHL games, most with the Columbus Blue Jackets.
This tieless thing is like Freaky Fridays or whatever they call it in the corporate world. Now, for the viewer, is this supposed to relax me? When I see an overweight guy in a suit and his tie is missing, my first conclusion is: gettin’ drunk. Hard drinkin’ and hard starin’ after a hard day at the office. Uh. Yeah. Creepy.
Should it be legal for advertisers to use pathos to sell products? I think not. Here’s what it should be like. Plain text only. No music. And half the screen only. The other half has a community-sponsored set of complementary text to balance whatever lies the product-maker is emphasizing. I guess the text could be in the same colour and font. Just the facts. There’s been too much persuasion going on over the past century or so, I’d say.
Penguins are roaring along. They were 7-0 a few nights ago and are leading 5-1 over the Blues in the third period tonight. So says RDS. I said Pittsburgh would miss the playoffs this year. But I didn’t publish it anywhere. That may have been wise.
Denis’ head moves around too much. Rookie. Crete notices and makes a note to himself. Will he give Denis some tips? Or will he sabotage him? It’s hard to tell. But I know this: Alain Crete reminds me of Ken Dryden. Not on the ice. Off the ice.
Slow-motion domestic scenes like gift-giving, walking or eating cake are for advertising chumps.
Lapierre is wearing an unattractive baseball hat for his interview prior to the third (some are attractive … and to be clear, attractive like a magnet). Joel Bouchard does a lot of nodding and spirited question-asking. When Bouchard thanks Lapierre, the player just looks away like an ashamed mother who ate too much meringue. I’ll never know.
Third Period
Cammalleri is beside and talking to AK46 on the bench and Andrei doesn’t look but says “ok.” One of those “why are you talking to me?” ok’s.
Atlanta’s power-play resumes. Canadiens are effective in messing it up. Chipchura works well on this sequence. And so does Lapierre.
Kane gets a shot top-of-the-circle late in the penalty and Halak gloves it. The fresh ice looks nice and the camera angle reminds me of the Saddledome in its earlier days. The mid-eighties.
Plekanec is playing a great game. So are Gionta and Gomez.
Just a 1-0 lead, though. Not enough outcome to go with all that great process.
Cheese.
Marty Reasoner breaks in and is relieved of the puck by Chipchura. (I always think of “60 Minutes”) Chipchura is smart and works hard but he’s too slow.
Now Laraque chases a puck down into the corner. Atlanta soon exits with the puck. Nik Antropov is with the Thrashers. Former Leaf. Well, it’s easy to go unnoticed in Atlanta. But Antropov is rather huge. And rather un-African. Maybe he gets mistaken for a Falcon offensive lineman.
Pacioretty tries to get fancy on going over the blue line and gets knocked down for his awkward effort.
Now Gionta goes over the blue line. He drives down and gets the puck in front but the pass doesn’t work.
Pavelec. Faceoff to his left. He’s tall. Plays low. Houde pronounces it PAH-va-LITS.
Gill’s trucking speed has found a rhythm. One that works for the team and for the defensive zone. And then he is on ice for a goal against.
I’ve never liked guys who congratulate other people when they get a goal. You know, they pat someone else’s helmet and say something motivational to them. Colby Armstrong got the goal and that’s what he does.
Atlanta 1, Montreal 1.
I just remembered that Molson Export is supposed to be cooler than Molson Canadian. Can someone explain that to me?
Well, now the passport-less Thrashers feel like they belong in this airport. Montreal will have to remind them who the security people are really working for.
They begin by holding the puck down deep. Gionta’s line. Some cycling underneath the end line and after about 30 seconds, Atlanta exit with the puck.
Kostitsyn shows more jump than in the first, goes back for the puck, stickhandles nicely, then lobs it away.
I could claim anything, couldn’t I? Who’s watching a tape of this game while reading this? Who? I dare you.
Kovalev jumps on the ice. Koivu’s with him. They generate a two-on-one. Pavelec has trouble with the rebound and suddenly a whistle. Why would they whistle during a K2 rush?
Ok. Ca suffit. (That’s enough)
Back to October, 2009.
Where this team is now a study in ice zoology. A lab where Petri dishes are oval and frosty.
Nine and a half minutes left. Atlanta doesn’t want this game. Montreal just has to give it. How much damage does it do when one guy doesn’t work hard? Two? Three? Domino effect. More pressure on the others.
Plekanec is working hard enough for two and his effort draws a penalty.
My ligaments are working hard enough for some condition to develop. I should be able to dictate these games. Then, of course, I wouldn’t hear the play-by-play. And with RDS, that is a loss.
Evander Kane gets called for tripping. He should get another two minutes for playing under the age of 14. He looks like a pee-wee player. Baby-face.
Montreal controls early. Spacek’s pass is intercepted. And a two-on-one results. Shot misses.
Montreal goes back down and make a few people nervous. A bowl-full. Two huge chances. Nothing. Could be worse. It could be 2-1, Minnesota with just over a minute left in the quarter-final.
But this power-play has been refuted.
Kovalchuk is one of about five Thrashers that really worked hard tonight. With purpose.
Six and a half minutes. Another shoot-out against your buddies, the Thrashers.
Two things I love. Writing. And watching the Canadiens. Like AK46, I’m getting my own late-game wake-up.
Cammalleri dumps it in. Gomez chases it down. It’s end of shift for him and Plekanec jumps on. Montreal handles an Atlanta entry easily but then they ice it. No commercial this time. Faceoff. Brunet says that Gill was lacking imagination on the last sequence. Houde chuckles and says that Brunet is being polite.
Kubina is also on Atlanta now.
Here comes Pacioretty with Lapierre and another red jersey. Andrei. Pacioretty is working harder and with more urgency. He wants to make something happen. He comes up with the puck near the top of the circles. Tries to wrist it but is interrupted by an Atlanta stick. He isn’t thinking fast enough. He shouldn’t be thinking at all.
Jut over two minutes left. Gomez is on.
Marc-Andre Bergeron is wearing number 47 for this game. I see him as more of a 25. Or 27. Well, maybe not a 27.
Under two minutes. Action outside the Atlanta blue and a puck bounces over the boards.
Pavelec has a lot of sea-ice blue on his mask. Huey McDuck feel to the mask.
Now Kostitsyn misses an open net. Houde says that he has played well tonight. Generous.
Fifty seconds. Atlanta dump it in. Armstrong is on with Kane. Cammalleri gets it out and Hainsey sends Afinogenov (Mr. Absentia) down the right side. Play moves behind the net and Kovalchuk has the puck in front of and to the right of Halak. Direct shot. Halak. Huge save.
Faceoff to the right of Halak with 13.3 seconds left. Plekanec and Lapierre are both on the ice. Smart. Because Lapierre got kicked out of the circle. Plekanec wins the faceoff. The Canadiens move it around in their zone to kill the clock and the siren goes.
Shots on goal are 28-23 in favour of Montreal. Atlanta lost the first two periods on that stat but won the third, 11-7.
Canadiens bring a 2-0 overtime record into this period, we are told. Two and five. Only wins came in OT.
Then, a shot of Carbonneau behind the glass and smiling. In the rink. Man. He’s smiling. On his cell. Fashionable leather jacket. I can’t believe everything that has happened with this team.
Epouvantable.
Overtime
Early incursion from red. Gomez and Gionta. Finally Bogosian carries it out. And then he gets a second chance to do the same. Fires it into Montreal territory.
Bergeron exits with it. Mara with Plekanec and Cammalleri. Cammalleri crumples space with his advance. Thrashers are backward and panicking. But as he rounds the net he can’t create anything further.
Kostitsyn is skating around dangerously. Then he fires from the blue. Long wrister that creates a problem. It’s his second shot on the sequence.
Brunet says Kostitsyn is playing better but he’s not quite there yet.
Bergeron has a very Anglophone face. Yup. I’m sayin’ it. Like a Canadian Army face.
Gionta. Gomez. Drop-pass. And then Gomez is flattened by Kozlov. Dirty hit, it seems. Let’s see the replay. More than a scrum ensues. But everyone, all four guys fall to the ice by the boards in Atlanta territory. Very dangerous. Kozlov didn’t mean it, it seems. But they call it. Gomez has to go to the dressing room to get looked at. He walks there on his own.
Kozlov shoved Gomez in the hip area as Gomez was just three feet off the boards. Maybe five feet. It’s a major penalty. Michael Caine remains calm. I forgot he coaches the Thrashers.
Gomez is back after being examined.
The penalty against Kozlov is for intent to injure and is five minutes. So Montreal has a four-on-three.
Two and a half minutes.
First entry is nixed by Hainsey. Fires it down.
Now another stop. Montreal get it in with just under two minutes.
Cammalleri with Plekanec and Bergeron at the blue. Kostitsyn is with them.
Spacek hops on. They control and pass it around in opposition territory. A shot from Spacek is stopped. Knees and biscuit. Whistle. Then Jacques Martin calls a timeout for Montreal.
Whiteboard and Don Shula expression on his face. How well can he relate with these young guys? I’m guessing better than Shula.
Montreal wins the faceoff and then lose it on the blue line, Spacek.
It’s moved back in. Spacek shoot-passes it but it deflects and Montreal has to regroup. Plekanec misses a certain goal. Again. Montreal continues to control. Plekanec prevents Pavelec from freezing it. Another long shot. Another save. Number thirty-one. Pavelec. I can’t remember the last time a Montreal goalie stole a game. That Toronto game does not count.
Hamrlik hits the post with two seconds left. A back-hander coming into the slot. Great pass reception of a difficult pass. Third post. All of them real.
OT ends.
Shootout
First one of the season. And about the third against this team in the past two seasons.
Canadiens have the option and they choose to shoot first. Joel Bouchard says Halak can win this for Montreal. He adds that Halak is good in shootouts.
Cammalleri is first. He looks strange in a Montreal uniform.
Three chances each. And if it’s tied it goes to one and one. One chance each til a lead occurs. First lead wins the game.
Zamboni goes over the shooting and crease areas. They shouldn’t do that. The moisture can ruin puck control. I realise that the chipped ice can, too but it’s easier to control a puck on old ice than on brand new ice. The best is five-minute old, very cold ice. Very cold.
Cammalleri is talking to the ref. They talk like men of the same cloth.
Here he goes.
Accelerates. Pavelec challenges. Retreats. Cammalleri fakes once. Twice. Shoots. Off the pad.
Kovalchuk for Atlanta. To boos.
Casual fake and dangerous backhand. Goes too high.
Gomez. Takes it up. Wrister. Scores. High over the glove side. Gloves high. A little lean.
Rich Peverley for Atlanta. Fakes. Shoots. Halak. Save. Sharp.
Gionta last for Montreal. Scores. Scores. Scores. Scores! Scores.
Something to feel good about this season. Deke. Right to left. Very smooth. Pavelec looked beaten. Flopped like a skinny cabbage patch kid.
Montreal 2
Atlanta 1 (SO)
HDS Stars: Gomez, Halak, Plekanec
RDS Stars: Gomez Pavelec, Gionta
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2 comments
Doesn’t 3 wins and five losses sound much better than 2 and five? And wouldn’t 4 wins and 5 losses be almost magical? And 5 and 5 almost makes them a contender!
I like your math.
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