Honey, I Shrunk the Forward!

Clearly someone shrunk Brendan Gallagher or swapped his jersey with Price's.  (Yes I know he's modelling the new Habs Snuggie).

The little guys do matter

So as Team Canada was clawing it's way back from a 6-1 deficit for their one chance to play for gold, of which Brendan Gallagher's giant heart played a key role in, Montreal's ye olde radio host tweeted "No question Gallagher is special. But just another reason why Habs must get bigger & tougher."

So the goal and two assists and the constant drive by the smallest man on the ice wasn't enough eh? The little guy who took a hard hit that sent him face first into the glass but he continued on without even a stagger in his step while bigger players around him were dropping like flies... I'm pretty sure we all loved Oleksiak's 6'7" invisibility act this whole tourney. Or Huberdeau's terrible rage misconduct. Or Boone Jenner loosing his mind and spearing the guy who just elbowed him. Or Stone, who found the sweet spot to score almost every game, was completely shut down. Those are the big tough guys, right?

Gallagher never quits. And if you attempt to stop him, you'll be taking a penalty hauling him down. Or he'll just go right through you. Pretty sure he would have gotten another Player of the Game belt if he didn't get the one last game.

Sadly it wasn't meant to be, as the comeback came up short by a goal post and a terrible night for projected high pick Ryan Murray (who scored a hat trick plus an assist for the wrong team by accident). But the littlest engine that could didn't give up. Heartbreaking to see him after the game, trying desperately to hold back the tears, his eyes red, attempting to speak with a lump in his throat, desperately hiding his disappointment behind his great smile.

It was a great game in the end. Russian skill prevailed (and it was beautiful), but the grit and determination from the smallest player gets taken away and spun around to comment on the need for BIG TOUGH ROAR! when the big guys were doing little to support the little guys for most of the game...

(These are the same people who bitch about the Habs not drafting a little guy named Claude Giroux while poopooing Yakupov as a potential pick...even though they're the same height. Pretty sure if Habs got Giroux at the time, you would have heard "another fucking smurf"...which is what happened when Gallagher was selected. In the 5th round).

Besides, there's a guy named Jarred Tinordi who would like to have a word with you about big and tough Habs prospects...

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So the gold medal game will go down between Sweden and Russia (which I kind of predicted, though was hoping Canada would surprise), leaving Canada to fight for bronze against Finland (who were on the verge of surprising Sweden when lady luck turned around and kicked them real hard in the face). Both should be fantastic, unless Sweden does their super-efficient mechanically perfect shutdown thing and bore us all to death.

Habs 3: Leafs 0: Universal balance restored

The happy bulldog is happy

That felt good.

Nothing like beating the Leaf utterly after a 3-game losing streak.

Nothing like shutting out the Leaf when all TSN/CBC mentions all days is how they're only 14 points behind the Habs! No mention of the five teams ahead of them or the fact they feed off fellow non-playoff teams. It's a tale of two teams going in two different directions! Leafs won 4 of their last 6! Plan the parade!

Booya.
Should send that to CBC and their KesselTracker.

Also have to note that David Desharnais has finally scored in a game they WON! Hurray! Sadly looks like Patches' shoulder tweaked again. Sigh...

This is the second time the Habs have shutout a team while I was drawing my entry for that mask design contest. I best start printing out more blanks in case they need my help to slumpbust another day...

I need a video of what Price was doing at the end of the game. He's too funny.

Habs 2, Avs 3: Stormtrooper aim

Don't worry! We can't aim!

Story of the night:
- Powerplay.
- Giving up a goal with 5 seconds left. Is it possible guys just freeze 'cause they expect everyone else to wait it out 'til the next period or what?
- Turnovers.
- Holy fuck TURNOVERS.
- Picard is the new Breezer: able to do 2 wrongs and 1 right. And turnovers aplenty.
- Can't expect Price to be 100% perfect and frankly he had the other guy to think about considering the speed those two were going and how out of position Picard was.
- The way the guys were chugging along, I'm thinking the Swiss Mister's lungs were better suited for the high altitude.
- Guess mauling the goalie is allowed. Hey guys! Why not try that on Anderson?
- A lot of meh for the rest of the game.
- Sucking on said powerplay that earlier gave you 2 goals.
- Who's able to miss 3 crosschecking/interference penalties in under a minute? Wes McCauley and Tim Peel.
- On that note, remember when Rhino used to get penalties for doing that? Yea, another example for the conspiracy files...
- Who's able to miss 3 wide open empty nets in under a minute? The Habs.
- Know what Stormtrooper aim is? Six forwards trying to tie a game with two minutes left.
- Next time we try six defencemen, ya?

Guess holding the highest scoring team in the League to 3 goals is something...? Whatever, I'm on vacation for two weeks. Can't wait for the WJC! Also I'm happy the Caps won so the Habs won't play slump busters for HBO next week.

You Maybe Can't Aim