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.

Habs 6, Sens 2: Je suis tres content

In your face, Denis Potvin.

Arrogant Sens' play-by-play guy last game commented on Michalek's return scheduled against Montreal and in his usual condescending voice proclaimed "another 4 point night for him then". Too bad so sad, he only got one assist.

Diaz got 3 though so IN YOUR FACE.

It really didn't start off so great though. Major cafouillage in the Habs zone, and the puck bouncing all over the place. Price made a few saves but with Gill screening him, he couldn't make the one off the guy hiding behind the giant defenceman. You know we all said it and they were thinking it. The "here we go again" crap. Then Lars Eller took charge of things shorthanded and scored on their first shot on net. Once the first period was over, Habs were up 3-1 on 5 shots.

Being the kid of a hockey coach, Lars knows and understands. He responded to his benching with a goal and some solid work. With the Sens being the highest scoring 3rd period team in the NHL (they usually win in OT or SO), his backcheck bump on Konopka's shorthanded breakaway not only did the job but saved PK's ass. And PK responded to his own benching with a goal and an assist on the powerplay.

And on the 8th day of Chanukah, Cammalleri scored a goal. Daniel Alfredsson is still looking for his 400th.

But I'm happiest for Randy Cunneyworth, who gets his first win in a town he once played. With a simple happy phrase in French, I'm also hoping those morons who are planning to protest the Bell Center soon will put down their placards and hang their heads in shame. Enough with the language stuff! We're looking for wins and competitive hockey, and what we saw tonight was just that. Even though the Habs were up 4 goals, they kept pushing for more. Right after Louis scored, Moen went off to try score another.

Of course one win doesn't put everything to rest, but it's a start. All we can do is hope the boys build on this. They're off to the Sunshine State for their annual Florida trip. Let's make it a triple!

Laughingstock

Look, I'm real sick and tired of the language debate. We fans who don't give two shits what language the coach speaks but just want what's best for this team and believe Cunney deserves his shot are merely angry at the disgusting garbage spewed by the Journal de Montreal and similar media outlets. Forgive me if I'm wrong but you can't legally fire a man who's perfectly qualified for the INTERIM job as decided by his employer just because he doesn't speak French which is not a set-in-stone qualification for coaching hockey (which is in English, like the rest of the League). It's an attack on Cunney's basic human rights, for one. And I'm pretty sure he's coaching the Habs, not media.

See, we'll deal with your draconian language laws and your silly rules for which school people can send their kids too. We'll deal with your petty little signage laws, and your checklisting little Nazi squad (I ran into one OLF agent when I worked at Sports Expert...dude was totally an SS Officer in a past life). But keep your politics out of hockey. We do not need the city's opposition leader to ask the Mayor to intervene in the team's affairs with who they hire on staff. We do not need provincial politicians to aim at "scoring points" by opening their big mouths and practically pass legislation while bridges are crumbling. We do not need some hack activist to go insane on television at the "insult" Cunney was given the job, nor do we need to hear him demand poor Cunney's immediate dismissal from the team. It's beyond ridiculous at this points, and supposed professionals are acting like a bunch of irrational spoiled children. We are currently the laughingstock of the hockey world, the NHL, and the world.

Of course if you want to boycott Molson beer because you're so narrow minded that you cannot stand the fact the Habs coach isn't automatically un gars de Chez Nous or can fluently answer the same stupid question twice in two languages when media can just translated it themselves, then go ahead. That shit is nasty anyway.

And can someone tell Brian Wilde that HE can go back to Edmonton instead of telling US who were born and live here to leave if we don't like it? You start talking like that you're bringing back a whole lot of bad referendum memories, and it's crossing a line you do not cross. Also I would like you to know that Randy Cunneyworth has more head coaching experience than Kirk Muller, so his bench isn't exactly completely green here. Eight years in Rochester is a hell of a lot more than 3 months in Milwaukee. Maybe do the research next time.

Personally I wished Molson wrote his letter a little better because to me it's just basic damage control...

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My brother's choice for Habs coach: Mr. Freeze, because he speaks neither French nor English but terrible one-timers.

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I'm rather intrigued with what Cunney is trying to bring to the team, which is pretty much what we saw with the Bulldogs. The "never say die cardiac canines" as Derek Wills called them. He's trying to get them to push the pace and eliminate the passive resistance Martin ingrained into their skulls. As evidence from the last game, only 2 and a half of the lines are actually following the directives so far. This is the Nokie and Eller lines, and Erik Cole is dragging his line along to do it. The system isn't much different from before, but he got the Dogs to execute the system better. Will it be just as effective with the Habs?

One of JM's faults was his stubborn on-ice decisions. You won't see much benching with Cunney. He'll have the team live and die by its errors, and we've see it, which is fine because these players are pros and understand they will be held accountable for their actions so it'll be up to them correct it and make up for it. (Something I've heard players say Carlyle did with the Ducks). And while most fans will bitch about Darche's ice time, realize this: JM never got a feel for what was happening in game. Cunney wants to roll four lines, use the speed the players have effectively, and play hard. His is a game of trust, and if the fourth line is responding to such trust by giving him a great performances like the one in Boston where they were changing the momentum every shift it is only beneficial to the team. Of course he's still gotta get the team to RESPOND to such momentum shifts...or at least get those players that are supposed to take advantage of such momentum shifts to respond...

I guess you can say, basically, he's trying to get them to work in a manner similar to what the Rangers are doing. Will they win more games? Well, you can't lose forever right...?

Now...if he would just start playing Emelin a bit more...