I'm not sure if this is for the Habs or the Flames right now...Lars Eller had a great game tonight. Perhaps his wife heard Tony Marinaro's daily snide and finally alerted him on the subject? Or perhaps the young man was finally at peace on a stable, offensive line with the team's best two-way centerman (and perfect role model for the Great Dane) and a somewhat healthy Mike Cammalleri. Eller opened the scoring for the Habs tonight, using his long stick to snap in the small rebound while falling to the side around Kipper. It was fantastic to see, and would be my play of the day if I were in charge of such things. He also showed us tremendous defensive awareness, screaming back to break up a play by the Flames. I feel like I'm watching a giant, budding Tomas Plekanec.
PK Subban and Andrei Kostitsyn had their own great games tonight. Building off the new energy he's receiving by Halpern's side and showing his fairly exemplary and underrated defensive awareness, the AK46 sprung to life and was one of the few forwards pushing hard on the Flames. In the end he was rewarded with a wicked goal that most claim Kipper would love to have back, but give him credit for shooting it! Benoit Brunet was saying how he was sure he would just dump it in and change. (Brunet was rather ornery tonight, even before the collapse). PK Subban was the best defenceman on the ice. As unfortunate Gorges' injury is, it forced the team to put PK back with an ol' faithful like Hal Gill where he's able to stabilize his play, ending the night with the game winning goal, an assist, +1, and lead ALL defencemen in ice time which included a shared lead in shorthanded time with his buddy Gill. They're destined for buddy cop movie or two.
I'm not going to harp on the meltdown because it's blue monday, the most depressing day of the year. We already know the story. It was like the 3rd period on Saturday. And I can't really fault Auld either because it was just a disaster in the defensive zone (also known as Hamr and Spacek and a flu-bugged Wisniewski which also kind of killed the powerplay). Auld is our Michael Leighton in that he's large enough to get in the way of a save (couple of posts) but the guys have to lock down and clear the rebounds (also known as standard play when the backup is in nets). They didn't after Kipper was pulled, and Flames capitalized. Change our own goalie to calm the back end, and went for the OT win.
He made four huge saves in relief, but Price picked up his League leading 23rd win. (Hey, he picked up many Ls in relief of Jaro for the past 2 years). He's only one behind his rookie season record right now with about the same save percentage/GAA. The youngest of the League leaders. Should have left his Heritage tuque on over his mask.
Prior to the game, Cammy proclaimed that he believes this team is sneaky good and believes despite not playing their best and with not much expected of them that they're optimistic to have a good second half because they feel they can squeak out these wins. They may not be pretty, they may have you reaching for the Advil, but a win is a win is a win no matter which way you put it.