Montreal Canadiens vs. Boston Bruins

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 (13-13-7) visit Boston Bruins (21-9-1)

Monday, December 19th, 2011

Game Thirty-Four (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 23 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)

 

Magnificent Monday.  No, not Detroit.  Boston.

First Period

Five minutes gone and both teams are showing signs of slow play.  Caution.

Cole ends that.  Down the middle, he brakes and finds Diaz advancing from the blue line.  One-timer. Stopped.  First good chance.

Eleven minutes left in the first.  Long Montreal puck is called for icing.

Bruins finally got a chance and Price was across, pad past the left post.  He lost sight but the puck never emerged in the crease.

A quiet Claude Julien evaluates his Boston team.  Faceoff outside the Montreal blue.  Boston wins it and fires it in.  Intercepted by Price behind his net.  Kept in by the Bruins on the right.
Desharnais gets out.  Pacioretty to the net.  Snow-works.  Failed jam.  Thomas stopped it with the pad.  Pacioretty’s brake caused much snow but most of it outside the crease bubble.

The team seems rudderless, listless.  Will they remember their coach’s instructions?  Will they apply them?

There’s only one way out as with all hockey problems; play your way out.

I suppose that could be elaborated to encompass many things.

Nine minutes.

Moen, back in the lineup, dumps it across mid-ice where it sidles slowly towards Chara’s stick.

Blunden is on with Nokelainen.

Subban hears some booing as he touches the puck in the Boston zone.

Montreal, Boston.  The embers are always there.

Faceoff.

Lost.

And the puck, too.  It’s behind Price.

Pouliot.

The former Hab.  And he’s been scoring some game-winners in recent times.

Boston 1, Montreal 0

Another response for some would be to give up.

Boston two-on-one.  Failed coverage.  Only Price.  And he stops it.  Holds it for the draw.

There will be yelling.

Plekanec responds with a goal.  Entry.  Backhand.  Stopped.  Rounds the net.  Takes a pass from Cammalleri, a lovely one between skates and the open net yawns open.

Montreal 1, Boston 1

The rest of the period sees me duelling with yet another technical issue.

Period ends with Montreal trailing on shots 9-8.

First Intermission
Montreal 1, Boston 1

Vincent Damphousse says that a unilingual Anglophone coach shouldn’t be eliminated from the running immediately.  It’s an easy thing to say but it needs to be said and it makes sense.  There are few things to point to.

But there are some that aren’t being discussed.  Why aren’t players more easily shipped out than coaches are?  The saying “it’s easier to replace one coach than 20 players” is an oversimplification.  A significant number of coach firings in the NHL since the lockout have been because players didn’t get the job done.  Some are unwilling to do the things a coach demands.  Ordinary (but essential) things like back-checking, playing team defence, controlling turnovers.

Coaches are, to a man, paid less than the highest-priced players in the league.  This dichotomy is part of the problem.  Coaches also lack a union, something the players have benefited from for decades.

Shouldn’t the man in charge, the man ultimately fired for so many team failures in league history, have more power?  More pay?

The resulting dynamic is dysfunctional; players with more power than most coaches but the most powerful, the most charismatic.

Additional variables include failings of the scouting staff and of course, of the general manager.  A scouting staff is much harder to hold accountable as their work is not easily evaluated in a short span.  Players take years to reach or fail to reach their potential.  Often, scouts aren’t around long enough to be praised or hanged.

In Montreal’s case there are many at fault.  But not the whole team.  Those certain guys should have been moved (benched first, sent down to Hamilton and so on, yes).  But a coach’s fear is that coming down too hard on certain veterans can have a backlash.  Should the coach lose the team’s support his job can follow very quickly.  Teams (or certain members) have gotten coaches fired in all the major leagues.

Second Period
Boston 1, Montreal 1

Boston scores the early goal.

The old-school Boston jerseys are rather school-age.  Clunky.  Big baking soda letters from a bygone age.

Boston responds with more pressure.  Chara backhanded from the slot after a snaking entry.  Boston is called.

Nathan Horton.

Montreal man-advantage.

A French coach is a nice-to-have and in a building with a large number of Francophones, the team can afford to have a unilingual Anglophone coach.  But the pressure to win will be more than with another coach.

It seems silly for an outsider and there are many valid clarifying responses available.  I’ll pose a question; what if the Calgary Flames hired a coach that could only speak Russian?  But he was great.

It’s worth weighing.

Montreal power-play dies with little to show.

Chara with a long shot.  Montreal continues to play in disarray.  The team has become even more a cast of individuals.  Some, because that’s who they are, will keep the team game going.  Others, in fear of possibly having the eye of Sauron turn on them, will finally play (albeit briefly) within the team concept demanded of them for so long.  Others will be lost in the void.

Fans can be grouped similarly.

Effort for a fan is the passion.

An old Habs compatriot announced today that he was sick of the second-tier efforts to win a championship.  He’s defected to Nashville.

Others are tuning out.  The rest?  Worried.  Desperate.  Defensive.  Or vaguely, perhaps naively, optimistic.

A Stanley Cup win is certainly possible.  But is it likely?  It’s December.  Let’s see where this team is in April.

Twelve and a half.

Nokelainen.  Left side.  Offwing.  Off the post.

Darche follows with a bumble-man bump on Chara.  Knocks the giant defenceman backward briefly.

Jaws comes to mind.  From the Bond films.

Tim Thomas gave it right to Nokelainen.  Careless.  A shot-pass from the crease up the gut.  Slot interception.

It doesn’t take much.  A shot here, a play there and the momentum shifts.  Momentum isn’t a grain of salt.  It’s a dam waiting to burst.

One wave leads another and players begin to believe.  They’re coached on process but nothing fires the imagination more than outcomes.  The scoreboard looms in judgement.

Eller takes the draw to Price’s left.

Eleven left.

Behind the net.  Nothing to do but work.  And the work is best done within the system.

Kostitsyn bumps a man.  Now Leblanc follows behind the Boston net with another hit.

Thornton spins after an offside entry and looks to see if his ire is needed.  He has the comfort level of an unchallenged bully.  And like a bully, he is best solved directly.  Someone stand up.  Someone take him out.  Preferably one of the more timid guys.

The Broad Street Bullies needed it.  And got it.  The Big Bad Bruins before them.  Béliveau spent a season fighting and in recent times, Lecavalier fought Iginla awkwardly but to a draw.  Montreal must solve the fists and elbows of the Bruins and Flyers of this day and age if they want to emerge from the conference.

But smaller details first.  No?

Maybe not.  In chaos, anything counts.

Boston power-play.  Gorges to the box.  He’s a regular on the number one penalty-kill unit.

Boston is able to generate one good chance. Slapshot by Chara off the post.  Lucky, lucky.

Windows Seven is a joke.  The starter version doesn’t allow for multiple monitors.  My Dell conked out again.  Yeah, I know.  Use the Mac.  Let’s see.  Maybe it’s time.

I prefer some of the features of Word. But there are better ways.

Under four minutes.  Plekanec is shaking his head on the bench after a missed chance.

Louis Leblanc is called for a high stick.

Accidental clip of Bergeron in the face. There was a cut, blood, and therefore it’s a four-minute deal.

Krejci and Plekanec face off.  Krejci tries to tap it forward through Plekanec’ legs.  Puck is cleared. Officials confer.  Gill is following them.  They’re discussing the possibility of a puck out of play over the glass. No.  Ruled legal.

Too polite to fight?  Let’s see.

It’s an unpleasant notion.  But it’s an unpleasant league.  And so forth.  (ed note: Dishwashers come to mind.  And dodgy sellers.)

Faceoff to Price’s left.  The goalie finds it and wrists it hard.  Stopped at the blue.  Always impressed at the blocking abilities of pro defencemen.  This one was blocked in the air.

Price shares a near-irritated head bobble with someone.

Under two in the period.

Boston lobs it in.  Pouliot follows it hard but is blocked behind his net.

They work the perimeter.  Peverley’s shot is off the post.

Peverley is on the centre of the blue. Chara is up a bit and on the left.  Sometimes fairness isn’t granted.  Sometimes?

Sometimes.

It has to be fought for.  Sometimes.  Maybe more than sometimes.

Does Jacques Martin sit back and say nothing?  Did he?  He had a clause that allowed him to be paid for an extra season should he get fired.  Good clause.

Siren.  Boston led on shots 11-9.

Second Intermission
Boston 2, Montreal 1

Microsoft greed.  End planned obsolescence.  Make it illegal.

Third Period
Boston 2, Montreal 1

Blunden looks unworried, unburdened by the recent change.  It shows on most of the players.  And with the RDS crew.  The sense is that the firing wasn’t fair.  But that words must be chosen carefully.  Some are less careful than others, of course.

Tremblay; blunt.  Carbonneau; honest.  Bergeron; appalled.

Pacioretty has a white carpet.  Fires from the left.  Blocker.  Big pillow rebound.  And Pacioretty wrists it into Thomas’ arm.  Wrist shots with a minimum of swing have less velocity than those with a longer wind-up.  A semi-long to long wind-up on a wrister is known as a sweep shot.

It’s five on five but Montreal is watching.  Waiting for Boston to give up the puck.  Nobody takes the man.  Finally Gorges does around his net.  Forces the pass. And a turnover.  Puck is iced.  Price is nearly openly annoyed.  It’s going to happen.  I don’t think it has yet.

Carey Price is going to take this team by its throat and make demands.  He’s almost at the point where he has that right.  He’s played well.  But he hasn’t had a string of great games yet.  Some very, very good ones.  But a string of great ones will give voice to his frustrations.  And I think it’s a speech that’s needed.

Some leaders are appointed, some seem inevitable, some are logical selections.  Others roar.  And the roar that silences the room is the roar of the real captain.

Thomas stops one.  Another.  A third.  A fourth rebound tempts from the crease but he Bruins get sticks on it if not bodies and the home team survives the moment.

Carey Price has come a long way.  And there is room on a team of twenty-something players for more than one leader, more than one style of leadership.  Some moments demand different voices.

A team’s best player will often lead.  Often it’s by example.  If he has the personality, that team is lucky.  But more often, the man with the brawn needs a man with brains.  A man who can reach the others, teach the others and bridge the gap between teacher and student; coach and player.

Campoli is roughed up.  Gets up.  It’s called.  He taps his opponent in annoyance.  On the shoulder.

Montreal man-advantage.

Desharnais.

Subban advancing.  Pacioretty’s black hole habit leads to an offwing shot from the circle top.  Another weak wrister.

This isn’t the AHL.  That isn’t Cleon Daskalakis.   (ed note:  Or Mike Moffat, if you prefer)

Click.

Thomas stops a one-timer from the same spot and the puck is cleared out.  And frozen.  Faceoff to Price’s left.

The pace finally heats up to NHL levels and Price makes the first impressive save of the night.  Maybe there were others but this one is in the heat of ten-man must.

Price stops another to cool off a second Bruin incursion and the network takes a break.

And I have solved my technical problems.  I will learn.  I may as well.

The diagonals spread and Marchand is sprawled and swinging at the puck.  Moen blooped a puck off a leg and didn’t get back with enough effort.  Marchand beat him.

Nobody is free.  Nobody is a king.

Get rid of Gionta, Cammalleri, Gomez and Moen.  The experiment is over.  Montreal shouldn’t have fired Carbonneau.  And they didn’t need to make the wholesale changes they did following the Centennial.

Begin.

And you can trace this disaster (ed note:  or series of disasters) back to Ronald Corey.  It all started there.  With the grand exodus of great players.

And is it true?  Are Montreal fans more concerned with what language the coach speaks than the fact the team is in twelfth in the conference and playing like below-average pikers?  Too many maybe.  Too many.

This isn’t a hockey team.

It’s the Montreal Canadiens.

Under four.

Kept in on the blue.  Plekanec chases it down.  Cammalleri is with him.  They turn and fail to find the puck.  Lobbed high and to the mid-ice area.

Dropping and drooping into Montreal ice.  Kaberle. PK Subban.  They combine to pass to Desharnais and the puck is turned over.  Desharnais corrects it be intercepting a pass in the low slot.  Under three.  Cole deep right.

Habs are showing the resolve and pursuit that champions show in the first period.  Games aren’t won in the third.  They’re won in the first two.

Darche. Nokelainen.  Blunden. They all brake at Thomas’ moat.  Thornton tries to start something, has Blunden by the stretched jersey.  Nothing develops.  I wouldn’t spark them.  Keep them bland.  Wearing what once were their proud home jerseys.  But Thornton isn’t known for ice philosophics.

My site.  My word.

Ninety seconds.

Montreal enters.  Pass across.  Cole.  Desharnais.  No.  But a second chance.  And they score.  Two of the guys the team needs around.
Desharnais to Cole.

Boston 3, Montreal 2

One ref asks for some time to get the video judgment from a remote official.

I don’t think I’m going to go away for another fourteen years.

Goal is good.

It’s my turn now.

I left after the elimination against Boston in 1990.  More for what I perceived as the deplorable state of the game than any loss to a respected Adams opponent could have done.  But.

Forty-five.

Plekanec, Pacioretty and Cole.  Cole at the crease.  They keep it in.  Pacioretty at the point.  Campoli.  Pauses. Relish it.  He fires.

No.

Boston ices.

Misses the net.

Thirteen seconds.

Boston is looking for two points.  Montreal is fighting for a mirror, some soap and some clean water.

They win the draw but turn it over.

One more try.

Long shot with four seconds left.

Off a leg.

The team needs to talk. And then bench a few guys.

It’ll be good to see.

Final Score
Boston 3
Montreal 2

HDS Stars: Erik Cole, Carey Price, David Desharnais
RDS Stars: Tim Thomas, David Krejci, Carey Price

Related posts:

1. Montreal Canadiens vs. Philadelphia Flyers
2. Le Temple De La Renommée Du Hockey (Redux)
3. Montreal Canadiens vs. Chicago Blackhawks
4. Montreal Canadiens vs. Los Angeles Kings
5. Montreal Canadiens vs. Boston Bruins
6. Montreal Canadiens vs. Boston Bruins