Montreal Canadiens vs. Toronto Maple Leafs
October 22, 2011, by Homme de Sept-Îles
Musings and In-Game Scribbles
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 (1-4-1) host Toronto Maple Leafs (4-1-1)
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Game Seven (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.
click here to expand post (it looks prettier)
The leaders have spoken, the outcomes have been dire and the Leafs are in town.
Montreal Canadiens are off to one of their worst starts while Toronto has found some hockey geometry to brag about.
The blue carpet is out, ending in a “t” shape near centre ice.
Travis Moen, Tomas Plekanec and Andrei Kostitsyn will start tonight. Raphael Diaz and Hal Gill down low.
Someone named Ima is singing the national anthem. Subban shakes in a prep dance. Diaz moves back and forth in readiness on the ice. Price’s pads bear a long stripe on each in honour of the fight against breast cancer.
Homage a Hal Gill. Michel Lacroix announces that the Concord MA native continues to be a mentor and leader to this team. Or was it “his” team?
Polite applause. Many stand. Gill’s mother and Barbara, his wife and his three children are on the carpet to join the hulking, humourous defenceman. Now some NHL veep is escorted onto the ice to present Gill with a gift. I hope I got her name right.
One thousand games played.
Well.
Former captain Henri Richard approaches the ice. Gill seems very pleased. The two exchange words on the carpet. Gill’s graciousness is touching.
One thousand games. Does this seem a bit much to you? The celebration, I mean.
It’s better than skipping a meal, I suppose.
We’d prefer a Cup. Or nine.
James Reimer and Carey Price are the starting goalies.
Price is at 0.890.
Eller, Moen and Kostitsyn start, my mistake.
First Period
Into Toronto ice.
And out. MacArthur. Swift, cuts, wiggle-jiggles the puck and launches the wrister. Price’s pad is quick as ever.
One minute gone. Plekanec line. Cammalleri with him. Reimer is spilled into his net. Mask is off. Delayed call.
Reimer is slow to put it back on. Marc Denis says the goalie is a bit shaken up. Gionta crossed the crease to handle a puck and his shoulder hit Reimer’s head. Interference was the call and though it appeared accidental and both Martin and Gionta are shaking their heads, the Canadiens go to the penalty-kill.
First sequence ends in an interception and a Montreal two-on-two. Moen finishes it. Jams it in off a pass from Eller. Backhand, unlovely. Lovely result.
The Bell bellhorn, the save-our-souls screams and all is red and white and blue again.
Veteran goal. Talk. Then act. Though Moen probably skipped the talk part.
Montreal 1, Toronto 0
Under a minute. Grabovski. MacArthur. And Kulemin. One slot attempt. Canadiens close to the puck. One blocked shot by Gill. Butt block.
Whistle.
Moen is back. Subban slices one down.
Eller on the right hash as the puck re-enters. Stoppage after a puck scoots behind the Montreal net.
Martin is pointing a player into the correct spot. More involved than usual. The new theme.
Leafs control.
Right point. Across. Left hash. Shot. Price stops it. Controls. Whistle. He stands and mini-juggles the puck in his glove.
Penalty has ended. Desharnais, Pacioretty and Cole. Weber and Emelin.
At the circle. Whistle. Pass with the hand.
Outside the Montreal blue.
Montreal possession.
Long puck. Desharnais shoves a man away from the puck. He also reminds me of Dionne. That singularity of focus.
A real man, as once was said.
Fifteen and a half.
Subban spoons a puck along the boards. Darche waiting at the hash, has to keep waiting.
Delayed call against Montreal. Crowd catches on a bit late and boos mildly.
Moen touches it inside his blue and play is stopped. Engqvist. Unintentional. Hit Rosehill in the face. Legit call. It’s the outcome that’s whistled with high sticking.
Cammalleri and Plekanec are on the first kill pair. Cammalleri is much better on the diamond-top than I’ve seen him. Gill and Weber low. One stoppage.
Faceoff to Price’s right.
Eller and Moen, now. Deep to Price’s left. Subban digs it out. Long puck to the opposite corner.
Gionta and Desharnais. Desharnais beats a man to the puck in his own zone. Long puck follows.
Leafs reset. And are stopped under the Montreal end line again.
Plekanec and Cammalleri are the twosome.
Nearly a two-on-one for Montreal. Whistled. Two-line pass? No, wait. That was in 1975.
Faceoff.
To the blue. Shot. Eludes Price between the pads.
Moen was asked to take the draw. Tipped Gardiner shot. Long one. Very nice work.
Price is annoyed.
Toronto 1, Montreal 1
Desharnais, Pacioretty and Cole. Gill and Diaz underneath.
Schenn sends a puck down the right side. Diaz. To Cole. Puck is lost on the Toronto boards, right side.
Steckel on for the visitors. Gardiner at the cage as Toronto wins the faceoff to their goalie’s right.
Behind the net.
Gardiner. Searching. Exiting. Finally a short pass.
Steckel plays it ahead to the Montreal end boards.
But it’s out again.
Eleven and a half. Lines change.
Komisarek in his own zone. Pass. Into traffic. Darche passes it to the low slot. Reimer puts a lid on that. Puck stays alive. And now in the neutral a flattened and smiling Subban reacts. Whistle. Small melee. Ruffled feathers.
Canadiens start slow. Crowd in the slot. Gionta kicks the puck for lack of other options. Is punched to the ice for his troubles. Luke Schenn. Called for it.
Resulting five-on-three yields one good chance. But Darche’s parked stick doesn’t tremble. Centring pass is knocked away by Reimer. Both teams are playing well. Or is this just two cellarish teams entangled in entertaining similarity.
Canadiens called for too many men. Kostitsyn is designated.
This happens too often. The men thing.
Leafs go to the power-play.
Nothing good early.
One last segment. Twenty seconds.
Kadri passes to Phaneuf on the left point. Puck flounces out. Sent in long and whistled.
One thousand games. Houde touches on it again. Neidermayer got a celebration when he hit a thousand games. And they (les Ducks) put a banner up for him. No banner for Gill.
Maybe fifty years from now. If the Canadiens are 68 years cupless.
An official patches the ice in Reimer’s crease. Using a puck. Cold on cold. They freeze those things.
Six minutes.
Canadiens are carrying the play. Cammalleri is working hard, bumping his man, going to the net. Now an extra stick to the back after he is hooked.
Kessel’s hard work is the difference this season, Mario (Tremblay) informed us prior to the game. He spoke with Ron Wilson. Maybe that’s true for the beginning of Kessel’s 10-11 season but I doubt it. He’s been playing well for the Leafs for a season and several games more. He scored 32 last season in a league where only a handful break forty. The pucks are going in at a great clip now, true. I attribute to chemistry and confidence.
Kessel can shoot it in (to the net) from any point inside the opponent’s blue. Like your buddy Heatley can. There are others who can but just don’t. Or won’t. For a variety of unfortunate reasons. Chris Higgins comes to mind. He should have been a regular forty goal scorer. He’ll go unnoticed and unpressured now. He’s in Vancouver and will bounce around the league for years. Maybe he’ll wake up, evolve, start scoring …. say, at 33 in Detroit or some other veteran-laden team.
Ting. Price is beaten. Puck stays out. Now Price is down. Pulled into the sands by a Leaf. No call?
Canadiens are robbed on the other end by Reimer. Cole to Plekanec at the muzzle. And how did that stay out?
Good distance horizontal, ice-level view. New. Hard to get, normally? Too many bodies in the way for a camera angle like that.
Pace increases.
Steckel down the left. Backhand pass fails.
Darche’s return rush, with two beside results in a high puck off a stick.
Price lost his mask on the quicksand play. He got tangled up with Grabovski.
Deep right. Eller is asked to leave. Moen steps in. To the back boards. Kostitsyn falls to a knee trying to corral a puck.
Into Montreal ice. Eller to Gorges who falls. Along the boards. Stopped on the blue.
But the Canadiens work it out and manage a line change.
Stoppage.
Some nearly non-descript woman is behind Martin wearing a magenta top and an analytical expression. Martin is unplugged. Running on batteries. Poor fellow.
Houde’s voice goes up. Puck stays out.
Another Montreal net crush. Pacioretty jabs and flips at the side of the net but the puck won’t cooperate. Not a place for suits and ties.
Siren.
Montreal led on shots 10-8.
First Intermission
Toronto 1, Montreal 1
I didn’t know that line of scrimmage is ligne de melee in French.
Tyler Seguin is better than Phil Kessel according to Benoit Brunet. Not according to Mario. Kessel is 24. Seguin is 19.
Brunet doesn’t think Kessel is the real deal. And that the Leafs will miss the playoffs so Kessel’s mention is moot.
I don’t know much about Seguin yet. But from what I’ve seen, he is not living up to his billing. But he may yet develop. Seguin is slower than advertised. And less talented than advertised. But I suppose it depends who’s wearing the sandwich board.
As for Kessel, he has it all. And anyone watching can see it. He just needed an attitude adjustment. The deed is done.
Second Period
Montreal 1, Toronto 1
Jonas Gustavsson takes Reimer’s place.
Ting. This one’s in.
Eller’s shot is into legs in the slot. Rebound. Kostitsyn. Goal.
Twenty-nine seconds in.
Montreal 2, Toronto 1
Gorges gives it away. Kessel. Freebie from the slot. One move. Beats Price high to his left.
Toronto 2, Montreal 2
Subban falls in a corner. Into the boards. No foul play. He is slow to rise but seems ok.
Leaf power-play from an unrelated incident.
Subban is back for the penalty-kill.
One clear in the first segment.
Gionta and Engqvist are paired. Unusual. Engqvist is slow. Earnest, yes.
Diaz lost his stick. Phaneuf one-timer. In the net. Under the blocker. The so-called captain’s second goal of the season. Both against Montreal.
Toronto 3, Montreal 2
Kadri into the net. Bumped by Cole. Kadri takes a post-whistle stick-whack to the head from Price for his troubles. No call. Cole follows with some head slapping. You there, Kadri.
Oh, there is a call. Fair enough.
Even if we’re not Kadri fans.
Cole is in the box to serve Price’s penalty. Coup de baton.
Toronto power-play.
Cammalleri produces the first shot. Short-handed and on the Toronto end-line. Right corner.
Toronto and the wall. And now Gill exits. A move. A look. Carries. Yes, you read that right. Now he booms one into the pads from the centre line. I watch the rebound with great interest.
Canadiens have to do it, ugly or not.
Penalty expires. Canadiens begin to control play.
But.
Montreal. Too many men on the ice.
Good thing none of the cups can be rescinded.
Gill and Phaneuf tangled on the previous shift.
Phaneuf didn’t like a hit from Gill entering the Montreal zone. Went after Gill twice.
Nobody can take a hit anymore. I mean without taking offence. Except Ovie. He’ll laugh, congratulate you and hit you fair and square later. I’m sure there are other exceptions and examples.
Toronto man advantage is gridless.
Cole is an old pro. Give him that. The scoring slump, if that’s what it is (one assist in six games, counting this one) has powered up his game in other ways. He drives to the net and not getting the shot he wants, chases the puck around the net and checks a defender hard. Legally.
And the ornery work on Kadri is a self-starting arm-twist. Not the kind I like but it all adds up to a veteran doing what he can to work himself out of the hole and into the magma.
Montreal power. Joffrey Lupul. Called for who knows what.
Just score.
And smile.
Ninety seconds in the power-play.
Canadiens need to be desperate and for two minutes they are. Leafs fall or spin, the Subbans and Cammalleris make magic for moments and an eternity. But it’s gone just as quickly and we wonder.
Then Plekanec is in. Down the middle. He’ll peel them. Misses.
And then another break. Toronto penalty.
Two to close out this period. We never know which game will be the candidate for turning point of a season. The Lang achilles slice. The Komisarek beating at the hands of Lucic.
Sometimes it comes late in the season. It’s a discussion of symbols and highly subjective.
I hope it hasn’t happened already. Or worse, that it’s happening tonight.
Canadiens hear some murmuring to close out the period. But there’s one more. And this legion of Canadiens fans has more patience. But how much more?
Habs led on shots 12-6. And 22-14, overall.
Second Intermission
Toronto 3, Montreal 2
Cake is sweet.
Third Period
Toronto 3, Montreal 2
Canadiens have their first must-win period of the season. The lessons come early and so does the end of this power-play. No shots. Not even a set-up.
Eller, Cole and Kostitsyn. They managed to stay together.
Moen Gionta and Plekanec.
Gomez didn’t play tonight, by the way.
Plekanec, doing a bit more. Gets back. Scoops a puck. To Subban. Long for Cammalleri. From Lafleur distance. Winds up. Space. It’s in. Didn’t know he had that shot. Over Gustavsson’s shoulder.
Montreal 3, Toronto 3
That was Montreal’s 24th shot.
Cole from the corner. To Darche, blast. Stays out. Desharnais was flitting about.
Faceoff to Gustavsson’s left.
Ole, ole chant starts. A better crowd would lead instead of follow.
Where was the chant when the team needed the energy? Instead the energy is supplied by the team. Yes, there are rinks where the fans get the chants going before the goal happens.
Not Montreal. Maybe once. Maybe a long time ago. I wouldn’t know.
Cammalleri enters offside. Legit. Has a word or two for the official. The Ontario players are most comfortable in challenging authority. OF course. They are the most favoured by the hockey power-structure.
Doesn’t that plagiarized work of fiction talk about it? Prodigal son? I read today on a creationist website that those that believe in science are evolutionists. First, science is a method. Second, fuck off.
Five and a half elapsed.
I also read about the anti-abolitionist movement; the pro-slavery movement of the mid-eighteen hundreds. Or thereabouts. In England. There were people who wanted to keep it going. Keep it going. Keep slavery going. But think about it. There always are. Whether it’s cigarette companies and their nicotine-stained murder, or digging for oil, or fighting in hockey. Note the tactics. There are similarities.
Casting doubt about anything that stifles greed.
Habs pressure.
They make it look like a man-advantage.
Toronto has to lay back and absorb the emotional onslaught. And they do. Moen will go. Whistle. Penalty for boarding. Tried to stop at the end. Good shift otherwise for Moen. Shot on goal, great hustle.
Toronto man advantage.
Plekanec powers the first chance. Two on two with Cammalleri. Coverage. So what. Two men on him and he finds the shot, anyway. Rebound doesn’t go to Cammalleri.
Toronto fearsome. Off the post. And Gill falls. Price scrambles back. Everyone in sync, all men for one crest. And we waited six games for this.
Cammalleri. Carrying down the right. Plekanec with him. Every effort. Sticked away after the shot.
Price. Saves us and them. And again. An old miracle is new.
Here come les Canadiens. It’s a wash of blurred red and poured hearts. The puck is in and who in this drunken din can tell us how?
Josh Gorges can.
Montreal 4, Toronto 3
Ten minutes. Another incursion.
Habs have nothing better to do than care.
And this is why we tune in.
Price’s save is shown again. One way herky the other way paddle. He got the stick down, the stick and only the stick.
Plekanec is in a two-man heap. Booing. Accident? Stick gone. He skates to the bench. Pauses to kick the puck as it nears him. It’s along and the Leafs confused.
Energy goes damp, the blanket settles. The team must lift posts again.
Booing. Swooning. Can raspberries cheer?
Can blueberries boo. The crowd of blue and berry rasp and then moan. Leafs score.
Two leaves to the net. Four. Three Habs. Grabovski. Spits on the ice. Silenced crowd? No.
They cheer to lead this time. Under seven.
Toronto 4, Montreal 4
Cole entry. One forward through the slot and Subban trailing. Telegraphed pass is diverted. One Hab turns, a second. They chase. No Leafs are nearby.
Line change.
Under six. Deep Toronto boards. They hound and bump.
And it’s out. Price traps low. Weaker shot. Stoppage.
The team needed to lose to make it their team again. The winning’s more fun when you know it’s your own. Certainly, losing is yours alone. Isn’t it.
It’s not fair. And it’s mostly not easy.
Under five. Plekanec turns and sends one along the Toronto end-line, a Leaf reaching beyond him.
Out and then in.
Leafs are unruffled. Crowd is mild to medium.
Turnover. Right in the column. Two Habs. No. Desharnais under the end line. Pass. Pacioretty can’t.
Just can’t. Good coverage.
Three and nineteen.
Moen and Eller. Eller. Fakes to reach and reaching around gets the puck. Wraps to the net and the shot. Rebound. Another save. And held. Well-thought play by the clever Eller.
Eller is still on the ice.
Commercial timeout preceded.
Leafs are done. They have nothing left in the emotional tank. Just under three. Do the Canadiens?
Diaz blasts it along the end boards. To the hash. Murgled about. And in. And then out. Perimeter stuff.
Wanting to win is a learned thing. In Montreal, a player remembers how good it feels to talk about it after the game. How bad it is to discuss its opposite. If we’re going to get an adrenaline surge, endorphin rush; why not put in the extra to make sure a win goes with it?
Remembering how it feels to burn from pain yet push beyond, throats and neck stretched, the heart a muscle in the chest and the traces tear leather webbing behind.
Just over one.
Leafs control due to Canadiens nerveless sticks. Fear and anxiety, pressure and desire, sparks and hazard.
Under forty.
Long Eller puck. Komisarek retrieves. Long puck is intercepted.
Subban. Twenty-five. Starts and shoot-passes long left for Moen.
Gunnarsson shoots. Price pad. And the pad stays across for a rebound that never comes.
What a great game-closing save.
Remember Roy in the final sixteen seconds that year? Game five. Calgary. Saddledome
Cup.
Toronto led on shots 10-6.
Overtime
Toronto 4, Montreal 4
Oh! The feeling!
Do you remember? Do I?
Punctuation, lucky sticks, deserving pairs.
Cammalleri and Plekanec.
Subban low. Sent long. Bouncer. Trouble. Gustavsson hangs on to it. Tilts back the mask to show a human underneath. Water. Faceoff to his left.
Plekanec loses it to Steckel.
Phaneuf. Long pass. Too long.
Habs. One pass. Gorges on the off-wing. Keeps. Takes it from the hash-mark.
Steckel. Just inside the Montreal blue. Waits. Nothing else. Winds and shoots. Price saw enough if not all of it. Gloves and holds it.
Diaz off the faceoff and behind the end line. Outlet pass doesn’t work.
Leafs keep it in.
Kessel. The fear is legit. I forgot about that part, too. Grabovski with him. Good pair.
Grabovski from the end line. Back to front, turn and fun. He’s knocked down. But the puck is in.
He’s wearing the A for alternate. Long way and a day.
Final Score
Toronto Maple Leafs 5
Montreal Canadiens 4 (OT)
Very good effort two games out for the team. Peaking at playoff levels for segments of this game. But it’s not sixty minutes. And they’ll have to try again.
It’s too bad. There are teams that still haven’t lost.
Ours is 1-6 (or 1-4-2).
HDS Stars: Mikhail Grabovski, Tomas Plekanec, Phil Kessel
RDS Stars: Mikhail Grabovski, Travis Moen, Lars Eller
I like the RDS selection tonight. Might be more fair than mine. Viewers select the RDS stars. Team’s waking up. Saw a team tonight. Not for as long as I would have liked but the passion is returning. The cohesion will come.
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