Habs 3, Bots 1: Victoire!

To the separatists outside the Bell Centre and their little protest: language laws do not apply in the hiring of a hockey coach. And the only bilingual coach I would want for this team is the guy the Habs beat tonight.

You can see it on the ice, on the faces of the players, and the results. It has taken some time for Cunney to change his shell shocked men who have been programmed to score a goal and sit back to wait for a counter-attack chance. The playbook on the Habs will need to be thrown out for the 3rd period now. The message is clear: the other team might score, they might get a lucky bounce, or a tough break, but we will not back down.

It's basically what happened tonight. Similarly to what happened last game against the Jets.

Dominic Moore, despite being accosted by Erik Cole by the left boards, tossed the puck to the net where my old nemesis Vince knocked into Emelin and Price allowing the puck to bounce in. Didn't really like the contact with Price but it looked like the puck hit his stick blade before he ran into them.

A lucky shot. A lucky bounce. Tough break. C'est la vie.

Moments later Price makes a sick toe save on St. Louis, saving them from going down 2-0. Deep breath, it's ok guys. You're playing a team that has Marc-Andre Bergeron in for nearly 20 minutes.

Pressure. Lars Eller gets the crowd to their feet every time he touches the puck now. You can see the confidence oozing out of him. AK46 razzle-dazzles, creates chances, hits hard, unfortunately the tic-tac-toe play hits the post. Emelin destroys a few guys. We had some face-cage on face-cage violence as he turned Martin St. Louis into a new board ad and found a fly swatting his windshield named Ryan Malone. Chip away. Frustrate them. Take away their speed.

Stamkos had 1 shot on net the whole game. It wasn't for lack of effort, rather it was because Lars Eller and his line kept them in check and Josh Gorges was there to back them up.

Two goals in 93 seconds. Fourth line with a solid shift, Blunden flips a dirtly little backhand over Garon. After Price makes a game saving save, PK flips the puck into the next time zone onto Patches' stick who breaks in and scores. Guy Boucher calls a timeout. Moments later, Lars Eller kicks the puck into their net because Bergeron--in fits of desperation--hooks him away. No call on the hook, no goal, Bolts still look for answers. The closest they get is after the buzzer to end the 2nd.

“There was a lot of communication on the bench between the players and the coaches in the third because of all the leads we’ve been giving up lately. That communication from the coaches was huge and because of that we knew we weren’t going to let things slip away,” continued Pacioretty on the Canadiens bench bosses. “Tonight I think you have to credit the biggest part of our victory to the coaches. If you had a camera on them you’d see how vocal they were. They tweaked a lot of things in the third and it helped us a lot.”

Truer words were never spoken. The camera caught a few of those chats between the players and the staff. Lightning tried. There was a shift that had them set up to start something when Gionta ran off the bench, stole the puck at the blueline and just flew down the ice. Too bad he hit the side of the net but that was super. Same from Eller after snuffing out any attempts by the Lightning, he took it to their net 2-on-1 with Kostitsyn. They were at the end of their shift and basically running on fumes but they still pressed hard. And with the empty net available, Patches forced Bergeron to take a penalty resulting in some Desharnais magic to give Erik Cole his 17th goal, on the powerplay, basically ending the game.

Habs bounce over the Bolts in the standings, who have now lost 3 in a row. Baby steps. We don't know where they'll go or end up but hey, at least it's not boring any more!

Protestors handed these out to fans waiting in line, asking them to wave them as the team took to the ice.

I saw about 5 during the Canadian anthem. Price thought they were for the Nordiques.

These were found in a Bell Centre poubelle.

Please keep politics away from hockey, thanks.

2012 has been kind to the Bulldogs as well. Though they lost Nathan Lawson to a head hit in yesterday's win over the Crunch and had to sign some dude in a local men's league to back up Mayer, the Dogs beat the Marlies 4-1 after smashing the Crunch 5-2.

And Brendan Gallagher returns from his bronze medal win, ready to terrorize the WHL again. Ho hum, a hat trick and four assists in a 8-4 win over the Portland Winterhawks in front of Guy Lafleur who visited the Giants for a Legends night.