Montreal Canadiens vs. Pittsburgh Penguins (Gm 5)
May 8, 2010, by Homme De Sept-Iles
Musings and In-Game Scribbles playoffs
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
visit
Pittsburgh Penguins
Saturday, May 8th, 2010
Round Two – Playoffs (Series tied 2-2)
Game Five (score posted following scribbles)
Missed it? Musings capture the game in writing. A written transcript typed during the game, posted and edited about thirty minutes afterward. Based on the RDS French telecast of the Montreal Canadiens game, Musings take about 20 minutes to read. More detailed than an article, fresher than a looping highlight and good with morning coffee. Or late-night chocolate. A unique way to re-experience the game.
Joel Bouchard shows us some strong explanatory numbers for this series. Pittsburgh has registered far less goals, shot and checks against Montreal than against their previous-round opponent, Ottawa Senators.
This best-of-seven game series is tied at two games apiece with tonight’s game in Pittsburgh. Game six is in Montreal with game seven, if needed, set again for Pittsburgh.
In the vernacular, it’s a best-of-three series now. This will be and will have been stated by sportscasters with mathematical pomp but don’t be alarmed. They have far less time on air than their print brethren do on, uh, paper. So what is lacking in depth is made up for with tone.
Reseau des Sports (RDS, the French TSN) is an exception and they enact many more journalistic principles than most of the other hockey coverage teams. There may be some just as strong in the States but I have yet to discover those.
The NHL Centre Ice package may help me do so next season. That sounds like an ad, eh.
We are shown both teams as they are about to enter the ice surface. Tunnel shot. It’s a Nigel Tufnel moment of sorts as we see into the catacombs. The helpless, animated big swing cartoon elephant music adds to the lampooning. Pittsburgh’s theme song. Something only a nine-year old could love.
I’m not nine anymore. But as I’ve admitted before, I’ve been twelve for a long time.
Pittsburgh’s anthem singer is the same. They have not taken my advice. And neither has he. He speeds up and slows down as he sings it. What’s the technical musical term for that, I wonder to myself.
The dank lighting makes a doctor’s office waiting room of the ice surface. Or is it a camera road-trip nuance?
More than ninety percent of Pittsburgh’s fans are dressed in white and waving similarly white towel-like objects. I believe they are towels.
Stephen Walkom (the NHL’s former director of officiating) and Kelly Sutherland are the refs, Fleury and Halak are the goalies. Walkom’s move to the ice is strange. And it reminds me of that huge wrestler from the seventies who’d do the announcing for the most part and then on the odd enraged occasion, righteously enter the ring to shut some villain up.
Why is Walkom allowed to skate on the ice after an administrative role? Give me a real reason. Use reason.
First Period
Gomez line goes up against Jordan Staal’s. Cooke and Kennedy accompany Staal and he wins the faceoff.
Moen and Gionta are the wingers for Montreal.
Early action is started with a wide shot by Pittsburgh. Two on one battle under the end line with Montreal winning it. Gorges and Gill against one Pittsburgh forward. Icing follows.
Faceoff to Halak’s right.
Habs come up with it (les Habitants a throwback nickname, a reference to the coureurs de bois of Quebec history). They are often referred to as “habitants”.
Andrei Kostitsyn. Drives. Sends a perfect pass to the slot for Cammalleri. Yeah. Perfect. Cammalleri takes a free, direct shot from the slot. Fleury is in position. Houde remarks that this save will help Fleury’s confidence.
Stoppage after a Penguin exit. Faceoff to Halak’s right. O’Byrne and Bergeron hop on as the pairing for Montreal. Yes, this is of concern.
Gomez line is on.
Adams and Gonchar combine for a shot. Houde says that Halak is staying low and may be shaken up. He is slow to get up. Houde murmurs in concern. We are shown the replay of the sequence. Halak may have taken a puck in the shoulder.
He nods to his teammates, stays in net and readies himself for the faceoff to his left. Montreal wins it.
Moen carries it through the neutral zone. Up for Pouliot. Shot. High.
Pens are in now.
They effect another solid sequence with yet another successful pass to the blue. If a team can get a pass to the blue line during an even-strength (five-on-five) possession it reflects well on their being able to stay ahead of their opponent.
Pittsburgh has stayed ahead of Montreal but the Canadiens manage a response entry for each seven-second sequence. Those responses include the most dangerous passes we’ve seen in this game. Slot passes.
And another such pass sails across Fleury’s field of vision. Montreal’s defence is giving up less quality chances but longer possessions.
Gomez line is on for a third time. Pouliot helped create that last slot chance.
Now Lapierre blocks a shot inside the Montreal blue line. He is helped off, limping and sits on the bench grimacing and assisted by a member of Montreal’s medical staff. Training staff, they say.
Crosby line.
Gomez is still on.
Long shot from Leopold. Wide of the net.
Gomez and Kunitz combine under the end-line. Kunitz hooks Gomez. A subtle one and Houde notices.
Andrei Kostitsyn is hooked on a right-side entry. Houde remarks on it and says that now we are getting a sense of the level of tolerance we’ll see from the refs tonight. Yes, that is how this league is run. On the subjective whims of its most senior front-line workers.
For tonight, Montreal fans are hoping just for consistent application of those unscientific and unsportsmanlike spiritual terms; to both teams fairly.
Mediocre beverage break.
Markov is shown in a suit and in the bench area. The injured Montreal defenceman accompanied the team.
Quick stoppage following the faceoff. O’Byrne and Cooke get into it. Cooke’s expression suggests he expected and expects less aggression from O’Byrne than he is getting. “Look at you, whelp.”
If a young player like O’Byrne decides to wake up in that way … won’t be good for Pittsburgh. O’Byrne has great size.
Another stoppage after all is cleared up without penalty.
Whenever you hear the term “let ‘em play” keep in mind that the premise is goon-friendly and arguing against it will evoke responses which include trees, pink dresses and pacifism. And don’t let ad hominem arguments deter you. And if someone says they served their country, ask them if they’ve actually killed anyone. Helicopter shots don’t count. Distance shots don’t count.
Plekanec line. Ten minutes on the clock. Pittsburgh’s pace has slowed. Montreal’s lowers somewhat in response but they are now permitted about double the entries and are able to extend their entries beyond just a three-second prong and pass followed by a quick exit.
Subban steps in to intercept a puck and extend this most recent possession.
And while I was typing that previous paragraph, Montreal came up with two more good chances.
Gill makes a mistake underneath in the corner to Halak’s left. Doesn’t get after it in his usual robust form and the explanation follows five seconds later. It was the end of his shift. Defencemen like Gill will have much longer shifts than corresponding forwards. Less cardio to play defence. More responsibility; a turnover from a defenceman is more immediately threatening than one by a forward.
I view both dimly.
(What do you think of adverbs?)
Small skirmish following a puck stoppage outside the Montreal blue line.
Gomez line. Montreal wins the faceoff. Back to Bergeron in his own zone. Long puck. Fleury has to stop and play it in his crease. Moen chases it into the Pittsburgh zone. The puck is moved out but within seven seconds, the Canadiens are back and shooting. This time Fleury has to stop a well-placed long wrister that he didn’t see all the way. The athletic goalie drops and saves it. Holds on for a faceoff.
From his left the Penguins eventually come up with it and exit. They are stopped outside the Montreal blue and the Canadiens respond with an offside entry.
Pittsburgh’s progress is ending at the blue lines rather than in Montreal ice now. The game momentum has shifted.
Long shot from Pittsburgh. Halak gloves it. Brunet says that Montreal is doing well to give up only long shots at this point.
Faceoff to Halak’s left. Turnover by Montreal. Pens get two passes and two long harmless shots.
They are exited and re-enter. Malkin swerves at the hash. Passes up to the blue line. Across the blue. Another long shot.
Crosby, more and more, is becoming a skinny, mild-mannered Eric Lindros. He exudes the air of someone who finally believes they are beautiful even though they are not. Each of his shifts is accompanied by that whiff of self-importance that the near-great can effect so well. His charming humility is long gone.
We see a shot of Crosby telling Bylsma what he thinks of an on-ice situation. Wrong guy. Wrong attitude.
Just over four minutes left in the first period.
Paint on blackboard feeling won’t go away. I feel as if I’m watching a taped game.
Something in my psyche is protecting me. Or maybe something in some little known brain sector has issued an electrics-saving warning.
Subban misses a backhand pass attempt, swooping in to his own end boards. He gets support. But seconds later Pittsburgh send two dangerous pucks flying across the slot. Houde’s voice rises. Dupuis misses the second one, a dangerous chance.
Crowd starts their first chant. Lasts about four seconds.
Gorges is called.
I wonder how much of a “we’re in charge here” message the Canadiens are going to have to endure from the refs here tonight. No team, no fan-base, no media is going to tell US how to do OUR jobs. The refs are both different but they are, I’m sure, well aware of the controversy generated by last game’s officiating. The world has changed. Bad moments and their resulting spin management are more high profile and longer-lasting problems to solve.
Penguins control for the first segment and minute of the power-play.
Halak makes two early saves.
Puck stays in motion. Now a long shot from Letang results in a five-hole blast that eludes the goalie.
We hear banal goal music and the paying patrons come alive for each goal credit statement.
Pittsburgh 1, Montreal 0
Penguins manage one dangerous early-shift chance before the Canadiens resume their one-man-extra to the puck theme and keep Penguins from the puck.
Gorges is taken out after touching a puck briefly. He is hit just as he does it. Good hit. Replay shows that it was legal.
Period ends soon afterward.
Officials and one or two members of both teams (Lapierre, Gill, Crosby included) are in discussion following the end of the period. We are told that Chris Kunitz will be penalized. Unrelated to the Gorges hit.
Confronted with this information from the officials, Crosby rolls his eyes, complains and swears and then skates off.
First Intermission
Pittsburgh 1, Montreal 0
Alain Crete has new glasses. Or just new rims. He reminds me of Henry Kissinger. I have no explanation.
Francois discusses some of San Jose’s ice tragedies over the past several seasons. He gives just the facts and leaves us to conclude as we will.
Tragedies, at their best, are interesting, complex narratives. Viewers and readers are shown a sympathetic, sometimes antagonistic character with whom they can identify.
But hubris is one flaw that I find most difficult to sympathize with. And it is, I suspect, the most damning of many flaws in that organization.
Sidney Crosby is becoming more and more difficult to like. And we are going to be made to like him for a long time to come. He will have more defenders than Gretzky but may accomplish less than Kariya (as far as I’m concerned, Kariya’s game seven loss to New Jersey in the Stanley Cup finals counts as a win).
And Kariya stayed real.
Granted, far more has been done to primp #87 and I’m sure it’s difficult to maintain perspective when every ad man in the National Hockey League keeps tellin’ ya how good ya look. Aaay, Sidnay, you da greatest, da greatest.
And since when did winning a Cup become the sole criteria for determining greatness? As I recall, that’s one of the reasons why the Hall of Fame was developed; in order to honour those players who may not have won a championship but had long, distinguished careers.
Marcel Dionne comes to mind. And Ray Bourque would have been a good example had he not moved from Boston Bruins to Colorado Avalanche in 2000-01, to help them secure a Cup in his final months as a hockey player.
Second Period
Pittsburgh 1, Montreal 0
Montreal power-play.
Early entry by Montreal. Six seconds of precision. And now Cammalleri is knocked down by Staal at the blue line. No call.
Now some danger bell pressure. Puck stays alive for long, pear-shaped moments of golden Penguin horror. Plekanec misses an open net.
Finally the net goes off its moorings and play ends.
Replay shows that the puck hit the post after a Cammalleri end-line to crease jam attempt. The rebound was the post-piece.
Montreal’s Subban took down Talbot somewhere in that power-play. And that went uncalled to confirm that the Canadiens will get the usual decent standard, after all. The refs plan on being consistent.
Penalty is over.
Orpik. Long shot. Tough save. Rebound. Malkin. In close. Halak stops it.
Andrei Kostitsyn is down after a hit on an entry. He leaves the ice in pain.
Took a hip to the knee. Orpik knew what he was doing. Nods as he takes his chair. What a great man.
Staal takes a faceoff deep in Montreal ice. To Halak’s right. Staal wins the faceoff.
Puck rolls along the boards. Is sent to the slot. Quality chance can’t be had.
Gomez in the neutral zone. Not much results.
In Montreal ice, Halak makes a save.
Moen is on with Metropolit and Pyatt now. Change-up.
Gorges and Gill are the defence pairing. The two combine to exit the puck without a shot.
Cammalleri and Gionta create two huge net chances. My heart forgets. And when it remembers, the puck is at the other end where Halak sprawls to his right to stop a nearly as dangerous Malkin to-the-crease entry.
When I played minor hockey, there were always kids like Crosby around. Good players who believed what they were told about themselves. Banged sticks, glaring at officials, throwing water-bottles, spitting on other kids in the hand-shake lineup. It’s not rocket science. It’s not even weak pop-psychology.
Just under thirteen minutes in the period.
Long puck by Montreal is called for icing.
Cammalleri and company need to stay on the ice.
Moen carries it up. They make a sequence of it. Plekanec gets a backhander after taking the puck from Letang behind the net. Very physical play and a nice result. But Fleury closes the door and the faceoff is to his left.
Moore wins it. To the point. Long shot. Gloved. Held.
Pouliot hits Goligoski hard under the Pittsburgh end line. Moore and Leopold battle for the puck. Everyone else waits to see the result. Moore wins it. Shot. Rebound is handled by Pittsburgh.
Long period of basic hockey with few errors by both teams.
Finally the Penguins manage a pass to the point and across the blue to Gonchar. He shoots. And scores. One-timer slapshot.
Pittsburgh 2, Montreal 0
Gonchar wears the “A” for his team. Alternate captain.
Canadiens have to take more risks now.
Giveaway by Pittsburgh. Gionta has a backhand chance in the slot. Houde gets fierce. But it’s wide.
Pyatt and Crosby work against each other on the boards. Not much.
Now Moore effects an entry. Very nice non-puck move to push the disc ahead and follow it. He gets free but can’t quite capture the black .
Penguins exit.
Malkin. Four Habs in position. A square. Malkin advances. He has so many different moves. After being forced under the end-line he comes back out and tries a circle-shot. Halak is on his knees quickly and has the angles (the angels) and the stop.
Faceoff to his left.
Dynamism will come from defence.
I focus on the two underneath. In the meantime, Malkin forces Halak to paddle down and control. Malkin and Crosby are on together again. Oh yeah, Malkin is better than Crosby. One son gets all the praise and the other is ignored or minimized. What does the DSM say?
Gorges and Gill.
Perimeter passing by Pittsburgh.
Canadiens can’t work it out. They have to wait. Now a long shot from Crosby goes out of play.
There will be a lot of false modesty.
And why are people proud when they are told they look young? What’s to be proud of? Being young means being followed around the HMV. Or stared down in the Seven Eleven.
Plekanec gets a chance. Open net, side-look. Fleury closes it.
On the other end, O’Byrne goes too far back in coverage and bumps his goalie mildly. Halak is able to make a play on a puck nonetheless.
Now Pyatt and a buddy are called for offside entering on the left side.
If Tom Pyatt wants to make some Ontario grownups happy, maybe he should go get his second-ever playoff goal.
And Dave Sapungis, Darren Flutie and Ray Elgaard are not better than Allen Pitts, Tony Champion and Don Narcisse.
Hockey is about thirty years behind baseball for integration dynamics.
Montreal is called. Dominic Moore. Tripping.
Canadiens survive the first ninety seconds.
Man, Crosby is an elastic player. Great skills on receiving an errant pass at the Montreal blue and turning it into another pass.
One last incursion.
Staal enters on the right. Covered. One of those backhanders that goes behind the net uselessly.
Just under a minute left in the period.
Moore is on with Lapierre. Penguins continue to control for about fifteen seconds.
Plekanec line hops on.
Thirty seconds.
Long pass to Lapierre from Hamrlik at the Pittsburgh blue.
Maybe I just need my coffee.
Three seconds. Pens manage some perimeter puck movement.
Shot. Blocked. Period ends quietly. Houde says that the Canadiens could say, maybe, that they survived. Brunet agrees and then lists a few men who need to step up on the goal-scoring front.
Pittsburgh led 9-6 after one and Montreal leads 12-10 for this period. Shots, I’m talking.
Second Intermission
Pittsburgh 2, Montreal 0
Alain Crete says that Crosby is absent tonight, his worst game of the series. Demers responds with the new propaganda saying that Crosby is the best player in the league and blah, blah, blah. When Evgeni Malkin won the Stanley Cup last season and the Conn Smythe for playoff MVP, where were all the reporters hustling to crown the other Penguin king of the hockey world?
Crosby can go goalless (as he did last game, as he did the game before, as he did the game before, as he did the game before) and he will be king. What people want to believe, they will believe.
Evgeni Malkin can go headless and he won’t be noticed.
Welcome to Disneyworld Canada. Walt CBC is your host. And you wonder why I don’t watch English hockey telecasts.
Now a Tim Horton’s commercial showing Crosby smiling in slow motion. Now he’s patting a kid on the head. Now he’s helping the kids out onto the ice. Harper should do some Tim Horton’s commercials.
I wonder if Max Schmeling continues to have supporters. I think about it and have to conclude, yes, he must. But they must be quite old. Quite old. Very quite old. (Like that?)
Hitler said that whites were superior athletes. Canadians say that Canadians are superior hockey players. Who’s right? Oh, Hitler is too strong to bring up. Hitler is too strong to bring up. Hitler is too strong to bring up. It’s a comparison.
Oh, and in this case both Hitler and Canadians are wrong. Certain Canadians.
Third Period
Pittsburgh 2, Montreal 0
Crosby is hilarious. Even when he’s sitting at the bench he has an I-am-imposing-my-will-on-this-game scowl on his face.
Gomez line.
Pyatt deep. Works the boards.
Gomez has it now. Behind the Pen net. To the slot. Pyatt gets his stick on it but is bumped as he connects. Malkin.
Lapierre gets back. Pens enter. Kunitz checks Gill unexpectedly and Gill falls.
Montreal is emotionally drained from last game. As a group. The extra isn’t there. Pittsburgh is about the same.
Letestu comes up with a free entry. O’Byrne and Bergeron. Direct shot. High glove save. Save of the night. Brunet chuckles and compliments Halak.
We continue. The great Penguins are pushed back.
What a fool believes.
Huge shot. From the blue. Stopped. Staal pushed Kostitsyn’s face and head backwards into the glass we see on the replay. What a Canadian hero that Jordan Staal.
Gomez line is back on.
To the point. For Gorges. Long shot.
Shot-pass, really.
Canadiens are pressuring.
Fifteen and a half minutes left in the period. Canadiens are pressuring and controlling at their highest level tonight.
Leaving it to next game is really not a good idea. One game. Too mercurial.
Crosby steals a puck. Shoots. Stopped. Crosby has very quick hands and good vision. Hey, he’s good. I’m just not going to roll out any carpets. Nobody needs me to.
Subban is called. Delay of game.
Penguin power-play. When’s the last time Montreal scored a short-handed goal? Christopher Higgins had his moments.
Perimeter puck movement. Long shot. Glove save. Halak. Full extension.
Malkin hits Gorges in the face. It’s called.
We go to four-on-four. And it will go to a power-play for Montreal once Subban gets back on the ice.
Legit call as we see from the replay.
Plekanec loses the faceoff to Staal.
Staal enters on the right side. Tries a feint. Hamrlik is unaffected. Staal brakes at the hash, then. And sends it on its way.
Bergeron ties up Staal in the slot. No shot.
Habs respond.
Long shot. Blocked in front of the net.
Just a long, boring loss. It’s the bedrock for my thoughts.
Shots. Passes. Gomez. Bergeron delivers two strong ones. To the low slot. Gionta pokes it twice. Whistle. Candies can’t make it sweet.
Finally Bergeron and his weird mouth motions are on the bench. He is quite a strangeoid.
Just over eleven minutes in the game.
I can’t see anything. That would get Montreal out and along.
Canadiens enter on the right. Puck is moved horizontally. Gorges comes up.
Gionta, Pyatt and Gorges have pepper. So does Gill. And Subban.
Lapierre, too.
But there are some unexpected passengers tonight.
Maybe “passenger” is too strong a word.
Metropolit line is on. Metropolit steals a puck. Pass. Shot. Rebound. Metropolit nearly picks it up for a goal.
Am I watching the end of this team’s season? Does this team believe it’s done enough? I think no. But what am I watching then?
Emotional exhaustion.
And how long does it take? And what does one take? And, and.
RDS respondents vote 48-38-18, Ovechkin, Malkin, Crosby regarding which of the three has had the most success against Montreal this playoff season. The RDS viewers are a different bunch from the CBC Sudbury viewers, eh. Et al. Some of em, some of em.
Faceoff to Halak’s right.
Seven minutes.
I suppose most folks have their own minds, eh? Fifty-one and ninety-nine both count as “most”.
Letang dives to block a Moore entry shot. He keeps sliding with the puck underneath him. And I briefly wonder why delay-of-game isn’t called. Then I remember that I’m a hockey viewer now.
Pouliot is shown watching the action from the bench. He stares at the ice. Then he shakes his head. Houde and Brunet are clear in their assessment of Pouliot’s third period nothingness.
The whole series. The whole playoff season. Pouliot has one goal in his past twenty-six games. More defenders there.
Four and a half minutes.
Gionta delivers a check.
Eaton’s long pass goes long.
Canadiens enter. Subban pinches. Rupp and Adams move it out. Can’t effect a rush.
Metropolit, Moore and Andrei Kostitsyn are together. I have a feeling that some major things are going to happen to the lineup for game six. Maybe it’s the end. The end of the brotherhood.
Major in Martin’s world would be two position changes. Two healthy scratches. Maybe three.
And we still don’t the official word on Markov.
The Canadiens did well. But.
Well, we’ll remember. Pittsburgh in six. Boston in whatever. Boston in seven. Boston in seven. Carolina that year we should have gone all the way. And so on.
Penalty. Dupuis. It’s a bit late for story-tellers. Or is it.
Houde says this is a good chance for the Canadiens.
Replay shows a Canadien on his knees. Penalty is not shown but Houde and Brunet continue watching the tape and they find it and are in accord with the call.
Subban is hooked. No call. Halak is on the bench.
Pass with the hand.
Bush league reffing.
Pittsburgh could have scored on the play. There is no logic to the position. Well, there is. It’s just not sound nor consistent.
Gomez, Gionta, Cammalleri and Plekanec. With Subban and Bergeron on the blue line. Big shot. Rebound. Almost.
Subban shows great athleticism.
Bergeron fired the shot.
Now Bergeron enters and shoots down the left. Nearly sees a deflection go in.
Another Pittsburgh clear. Second one. Both bound dangerously close to the nets’s entry.
Canadiens score.
How.
Pittsburgh 2, Montreal 1
Brunet says that it was a hard work goal and that hard work pays.
Trickle-in goal on the replay. Fleury’s paddle down wasn’t enough.
Halak stays on the bench.
Pens win the faceoff.
Habs enter.
They make some moments of it. Cammalleri. Subban. But the Pens get it out. And the siren goes.
In some ways this “W” should go unawarded. To both teams.
But Pittsburgh has the two points, unearned or otherwise. And where were the Canadiens in the first period? And after the second goal against? Not a fair pair of questions.
Pittsburgh 2
Montreal 1
HDS Stars: Brian Gionta, Evgeni Malkin, Jaroslav Halak
RDS Stars: Marc-Andre Fleury, Evgeni Malkin, Kristopher Letang
You can’t allow a goal like that and be a star. Sorry. The homer picks continue for RDS. Pittsburgh coach Dan Bylsma is interviewed and the coach uses the phrase “stay the course”. Maybe he’s a disciple.
But maybe it would be even nicer if people I like take back the terminology. I miss “awesome”, too.
And yeah, I know that Jacques Demers tends to pick the stars. Demers is one of my favourites but he still gets homer at times.
Bouchard says that the Canadiens played very, very well, maybe their best of their series. He measures things using criteria like smart defensive play and things like turnovers. And I agree with him in his assessment in terms of tonight’s decision-making aspects of the game.
Bergeron says that Crosby has lost the majority of his faceoffs, that he has not scored and his manchette says Victoire Sans Crosby. He says that perhaps Crosby is injured but that he doubts it. Based on some of the motion he has shown, his on-ice moves. He concludes that Crosby is healthy.
Canadiens Express – Thoughts while watching the game again in compacted format
Trailing an opponent, a goalie has to send the message, the consistent message to his teammates that the game is still there. We all need to care. It is one of the righteous responsibilities on a long list for a player who spends the full sixty minutes on the ice.
Sergei Gonchar has quick intelligence as a shooter. He can wind up and deliver a high-velocity Chara or Souray-style blast but more dangerously, he can take a bit off the puck in order to aim a near-slapshot velocity shot to different target areas on net. The fact that blue line shots (or passes) need quick execution (to prevent odd-man breakout plays by the opponent) makes Gonchar’s quickly applied on-ice intelligence even more impressive.
In Pittsburgh, the Canadiens are just another hockey team. I’m sure Pen fans are mindful of the history but the mystique just isn’t the same to them. But the French Canadian members of the Penguins see the crest and it resonates with them.
Letang and Dupuis come to mind.
Boy, Bergeron is making more blunders in the past two games than in the previous ten. Turnovers.
Yes, the Canadiens, in many on-ice ways, are an ordinary team. As an organization, however, they remain (or have returned some might suggest to) living legend status, a continued presence and a true heritage franchise. Eventually, that will translate to on-ice brilliance.
The edge that progressive teams hold (or have held in previous eras) is a willingness to look at all players using the same calibrating tools. That advantage has lessened in the modern NHL but because so many teams remain staffed by old-school thinkers, there may yet be subtle methods to effect an advantage. But the results will or are less pronounced. Less obvious to the casual observer.
Again, the third period of this game feels as if it is not a closing chapter; rather it is part of the next game. Some narrative threads don’t end at the buzzer. They are just paused.
Maybe I should have given Fleury a star, after all. Great closing save on Cammalleri.
By Homme de Sept-Iles
hommedeseptiles@gmail.com
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