Them Lil’ Habs Is Frisky
March 5th, 2010, 8:50 am
I’m not sure what I expected last night when I went to the Canadiens game. I always try to see the Original Six teams when I can, there’s just so much history. I’m reminded of that one episode of the Simpsons where they sent Bart to military school, and the school’s motto is “A Tradition of Heritage”. Anyway, I just re-read The Game by Ken Dryden, and I agree with the blurb on the cover- it’s the best hockey book ever written. You get some great writing about day-to-day stuff of the Canadiens in the 70s, with some really excellent portraints of some of the players on that team. These are guys as hockey fans we know, but not because we remember them as players. Jacques Lemaire, Bob Gainey, Guy Lafleur, Mario Tremblay, Larry Robinson. The team of Béliveau (one of my all time favorites), Richard, Geoffiron, et al, is still a little something special, despite the fact that they haven’t won a Cup since ’93 and haven’t really been in contention for a while (#1 seed notwithstanding).
The big knock against the Habs this year is how small they are. They went out and got Mike Cammaleri, Brian Gionta, and Scott Gomez, giants none. The only giant they have is Hal Gill, a 6’7 behemoth, but he gets knocked a lot for being too slow. Think Alexei Semenov with bad ankles. Damn, I told myself I was done with Semenov cracks. Guess I need to take a new sobriety date.
There was a ton of extracurricular activity last night, lots of face-washing, pushing and shoving, and general nasty jabbering. No fights broke out- both teams have jettisoned their resident enforcers. We saw Tomas Plekanec get into a couple of altercations after some questionable play against Thornton and Marleau, then get decked by Heatley in the 3rd. We saw Nichol injured after getting run from behind into the boards without a call. We saw Josh Gorges (who almost led Montreal in ice time (!)) and Thornton trading a little bit of something. And we saw a beleageured goalie, Cary Price, stand on his friggin’ head for much of the game. The Sharks scored their second goal on their 35th shot. No NHL team averages 35 shots per game.
But now we know why he is beleageured. It wasn’t enough, and the Sharks turned a 2-1 third period deficit into a 3-2 victory on goals by Heatley and Malhotra. If you were looking at the box score very quickly, you might say that Price managed to cough up another one, but really he kept them in it for much of the game. Well, his friend The Post helped as well. Boyle hit the bar on a penalty shot after Hal Gill somehow accidentally-on-pupose threw Price’s errant goalie stick into his path. Then Heatley hit the post again less than a minute later on one of his signature one-timers. Those shots go in, or one of the other 30-odd shots go in, and the Sharks win going away.
I was a little surprised at the Habs’ pluck, but I suppose they are trying to make the playoffs. It turned into another test for the Sharks, and unlike the game against the Devils, it was a test they passed.
Update: Here’s the Lapierre hit on Nichol. I’m even more jazzed up about it after hearing Ray Ferraro rant.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nis1rZQWC8c[/youtube]
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That hit was gutless. What gets me is the Ref is standing right there, staring at Nichol crumple on the ice and somehow his arm doesn’t go up. That play was the definition of boarding, how does he not call it?
Such bullshit. Not that the Sharks weren’t playing well before that hit, but I think that pushed them over the edge, they were going to beat Montreal if it was the last thing they did this season. They completely owned the game from that point forward.
Oh, Remenda ranted for about 5 minutes after that hit, it’s been a while since I’ve heard him that worked up about anything. It was good to hear Ferraro was equally displeased with the hit.
I don’t understand how there is not even a minor penalty on that play.
**Warning: Rant Coming**
First this is what is wrong with the NHL schedule, ignoring the fact that of the obvious complaint being how do you sell a game where your poster boys don’t even play in every NHL city. The other problem is that now this gutless puke may or may not even see the Sharks next year, there is no retribution, no punishment on or off the ice (I doubt he’ll be suspended) he just gets to walk in and injure a guy and then sneak off to his bench and smile because he plays 15 years after a chance that the players will police themselves. There is going to be no justice other then the fact that it inspired us for a win which I will happily take any time.
Second, the refs in that game were brutal, not just on that play but in general. You want to talk about having the best league in the world, maybe they should find the best refs in the world those guys aren’t fit to ref a ‘AA’ game. I mean they didn’t even blow the play dead when it was obvious Nichol was hurt, I guess he didn’t want to draw too much attention to his non-call.
I have been a hockey fan for longer then the sharks have been in the league, and before that I cheered for Montreal and they have always held a special place behind the Sharks but after that my ties are totally cut, I might even cheer for the Leafs before I cheered for the Habs ever again and frankly hell would have to freeze over before that happened.
Rant +1
4 game suspension according to Kukla
http://www.kuklaskorner.com/index.php/hockey/comments/maxim_lapierre_suspended_4_games/
Although this is something I’d like to see the NHL really go after but 4 games feels about right for today’s NHL. Without going back into a full out rant it would be nice to know if the official standing right in front of the play was suspended as well… ahh in a perfect world 🙂
at this point the game is over and the Sharks got an important emotional win. I am simply waiting to see if there is any discipline coming. There should be.
I was looking at other boards and people were saying that Nichol is dirty and it was karma…. opinions sure are like assholes aren’t they!
I agree with Tmac last night. This was a good game for the Sharks to be involved in. It helps them elevate their game and get ready to play more desperate hockey against desperate teams.
What a bullshit play by Lapierre, I hope someone feeds him his lunch some day soon.
Contrary to what you guys had to say about this past trade deadline, I believe that most of the teams involved in trading did pretty well. Sure there’s a few head-scratchers like the Stempniak and Staios deals, but the majority of them seemed to make sense. The parity in this league just seems to keep getting tighter and tighter, all of this tinkering is pretty strong evidence of that I think.
And why do you guys keep proposing that we move Clowe? Is there a market out there for him? Why would anyone want to be saddled with his bloated cap hit considering that he’s basically not earning it? I like a lot of what you guys say, you’re funny and definitely know your Sharks. But after saying that you don’t recognize half of the names involved at the deadline leaves me wondering…
I’m convinced Wilson didn’t make his usual deadline moves for one simple reason: He’s already dealt away so much of our future that he can simply no longer afford it. We’re stuck with what we have for this year’s playoff run and I have the feeling that we’re gonna choke yet again. I’ll be the happiest hockey fan on the face of the earth if I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am.
if Clowe’s contract is bloated and he isn’t earning it, then doesn’t that explain why we would all like to trade him?
And there is always a way to get other GM’s to pick up bad contracts. Ottawa took Jonathan Cheechoo. And i’d argue that Clowe has much more value than Cheech had at the time of his trade.
Calgary took Toskala and Staios… I can’t even begin to imagine why they would do that unless Sutter knows he’s about to lose his job and is trying to burn the place down before losing it.
That’s our current working theory as well.
But after saying that you don’t recognize half of the names involved at the deadline leaves me wondering…
If I said “half”, I apologize. That’s not the case. There’s not a single roster player traded at the deadline that I didn’t recognize. The players that I didn’t know were prospects or AHLers for other teams, like the player we mentioned, Aaron Palushaj. Not to be confused with Nathan Paetsch, whom I know. Or Chris Peluso, who I thought I knew because I remembered Mike Peluso from the old Devils teams (turns out Chris is his nephew).
We might have been being a bit facetious as well, because I’m not sure how many Sharks fans, regardless of how hardcore they might be, would be interested in hearing the ins and outs of Craig Weller and Aaron Johnson.
Nate: First, thanks for listening – but now I must defend myself. If I knew who Cedric Lalonde-McNicoll was, I’d be working for the NHL Network and not just a Dude who podcasts from my friends house that occasionally has no running water. (Lalonde-McNicoll was traded to Carolina for Stephane Yelle, for the purpose of this joke being semi-interesting).
Mike’s right – we knew who most of these guys were – but how exciting would it be for me to break down Chad Kolarik’s future impact on the Columbus Blue Jackets? Our listenership would go down from ten to nine people.
But thanks for listening…
Ahh remember the days when people wanted to keep Vesa over Nabby! Crazy…
Those days were this summer, right after we lost the playoff series, and they lasted until about the month of November when it was clear that no matter how bad Nabby might have been last year, he’s still better than Toskala.
On a side note – is there any way to actually know how many people listen to the pod cast. I’m a little curious. I bet more people listen than you guys think.
Maybe even like 12 people. I kid.
Dudes. I really like Wallin’s new nickname – ‘hamburgers’
so are we going to eventually see the pickles and hamburgers duo??
Or how about this PP unit:
heated-jumbo-patty
pickles and burgers…
I think Tom deserves a DOH shirt.
I’m not a fan of all these injury’s so close to playoffs…