Habs 3, Oilers 4: Signs

Do you know the giant oarfish?

According to Japanese mythology, the giant oarfish which normally lives deep in the ocean tend to surface and beach themselves as a warning bell to major earthquakes.

Two of them have washed ashore on the coast of California. Doom and gloom, folks. It's a sign!

Meanwhile the Habs come out like gangbusters, get a 2-0 lead, then piss away the rest of the game to lose 4-3 because without Lars and the Real Gallys, NO ONE ELSE DOES ANYTHING. And I think PK Subban's wheeling and dealing is being wasted of non-finishers. It's annoying. He creates so much magic, and then his target fails to complete anything. May as well just do it all yourself, PK. DAMN THE HATERS.

But if Dallas Eakins needed to use Lars Eller's misquoted pregame factual commentary on the Oilers to motivate his team, then he should probably quit his day job now. And his night job.

And by the way, Eller's comments essentially echoed Eakins and other Oilers staff own commentary on how their players need more structure and have to stop playing like a Junior team who focuses solely on personal stats with a more two-way game so I don't know what the fuck he's gloating about. You fucking scratched Yakupov last week over the same fucking thing you fucking asshat. Enjoy your win of the week.

(By the way, I'm not shocked at this outcome. Frankly I was shocked the Oilers didn't take the lead earlier. Habs always shit the bed against unstructured teams like this. See Islanders games).

However, this game wasted a gorgeous play by Gallagher. It's a shame. I haven't seen a Hab shoot off the bench, steal the puck at the blueline, walk around a defenceman and score top corner like that since Cammy did it in Winnipeg two years ago.

Habs 2, Flames 3: As per usual

It doesn't matter who's on the team, who coaches the team, who the GM is, what the culture is or how much character they get... The Habs enter Calgary and play like wet farts.

- At least we have PK. Beast Mode is always on.
- When he scored his goal he turned to the bench and screamed. If he's not our next captain, this team will forever be stuck on that halfway point.
- He also said they all had a terrible practice the day before and weren't prepared for tonight. Unlike most of the guys though he actually went out there and kicked this game's ass.
- I don't even want to talk about the rest of the defence tonight.
- That wide empty net is a terrible goaltender.
- Seriously. We have Price doing a fucking circus act and Francis Fucking Bubbles still clears the puck to a fucking Flames player while Curtis Glencross is owning the rest of the team.
- OK I'll talk about the defence. In 24CH I remember scaring Toaster as I burst out laughing when JJD singled out Diaz and told him to knock the guy on his ass, to take the body. Clearly you have no idea who you're dealing with here...
- SOFF.
- The fancy stats tell me the Habs were good at holding the puck and did fuck all with it for most of the game...
- Someone find a trunk and lock the Wunder Twins in it.
- If you're wondering who the Wunder Twins are, I'm talking Desharnais and Briere.
- Rene Bourque disappeared somewhere after puck drop. I think he went to have dinner with his family on the concourse.
- Easiest shit JoeyMac ever faced, save for that one Markov sequence.
- Therrien said ice time would be given to those who deserved it. Guess that was only last game. Or he forgot about it.
- LARS ELLER SCORES ALL THE GOALS.

- I didn't want to talk about the defence tonight but they were just so terrible that all they were missing was everything.
- They pulled the goalie with under 2 minutes left while on the PK and Bouillon cleared the puck to a Flames player THREE TIMES.
- Shockingly enough they didn't give up the empty net...but that was mostly because the Flames missed twice.

As they tiptoed through the first period, I said it looked like a terrible preseason game that ended in a 3-1 loss. You may as well play Beaulieu and Pateryn because unlike Diaz and Bouillon we can chalk up their errors to "learning experiences"! Also I'd rather have Tyler Fucking Bozak and David Desharnais. I SAID IT.

Oh yea, Gorges might be injured now.

Habs 3, Islanders 4: Too little too late (again)

Yea not entirely sure what was going on here. I spent most of this game playing with my dog.

The first period was spent trading pucks off the post. Seems like it took forever to get to intermission. My brother said they looked like they gave everything they had last night and didn't have much left tonight, especially towards the end of the period. Then Weber's shot killed Nabokov and in came DiPietro, reminding us all that yes indeed he's still alive! (Well, no, the shot didn't kill Nabokov but the save did).

The second period fell apart while I ate my dinner. For one, Budaj drew inspiration from Price and thought he could move the puck. Instead he flubbed it badly and Parenteau ended up with a wide open net. Habs freaked out from there on, melted down slowly. They did score two goals though! Who else but Patches and Cole. Amazing what happens when you give Eller scoring linemates eh? Problem was, Islanders scored 4 goals.

Both those periods seemed like they took 10 years to finish. The third period, meanwhile, went by in a flash. Captain America got them within one, but with Budaj finally pulled late for the 6th attacker it was facepalming amazing who Martin threw out on the ice. No Cole. Not Patches. Gomez was there though... And Cammy's one-timer got gobbled up by Hamonic's stomach as he craddled the puck carefully into the corner. Frustrating.

Hey, didn't I say if they would have put that kind of pressure on the Islanders they would have won? Well, they didn't. So they didn't win.

And Gomez did a 180 from yesterday. I really just think he's trying too hard... I'm all for sending him to Hamilton though. Either he revitalizes himself by finding whatever it is he lost last year (and help boost the kids down there who are currently shorthanded) or he stays there. Eller, regardless of his errors, needs to be a center. Sacrificing his production and growth for the sake of Gomez is detrimental to the team.

If they demote him, I will gladly buy a beer at a hockey game. Hear that, Molson?

In other news:
Apparently Gill had to be hospitalized because of his "undisclosed ailment". Holy fucking crap dude. Please get well soon!

 So long, Eddy...