Saturday, December 29, 2007

Miami Nice - Habs 5, Panthers 1

Yeah, yeah, I know the Panthers play in Sunrise now. Work with me here. Crockett and Tubbs rule.

Plan the parade - Habs beat the Panthers! That's something that apparently is hard to do. The season-killer road trip is now becoming a season-making road trip? Habs go 2 for 2 in Florida? Canadian snowbirds (seemingly more than half the Panthers biggest crowd ever) get rewarded for their chicken-shit hiding from winter.

Carbo's line-up du jour (ok, deux jours now) seems to be working out. All lines got involved (except maybe the Danse à 10, but they deserved a night off) and it was 5 on 5 for the second straight night. Ryder scored! I'll write that again 'cause I'm sure you don't believe it - Ryder scored! Habs score on their first 3 shots and while yes, Vokoun probably should have been yanked, none of them were really bad goals. That included Josh Gorges making the pass of the year on Ryder's goal to set up a beautiful 2 on 0. Tenderness continues to go to the net and gets one to give him 11 on the season. Koivu inspires with a flu-ridden solid performance. Suck on that, French media. Higgins turns his demotion to Line 4C into a positive with a goal and two helpers. Rhino lives up to his nickname and doesn't back down from about 3 different fights and throws his body around. We drool for his future. Kerry Fraser calls the elusive "triple minor" penalty for roughing; hilarity ensues.

The sky is falling - Habs coasting after the 3 early goals. Habs gave up 41 shots against, needing a sharp Huet in the 2nd and 3rd to keep the comfortable lead. When will the Habs goalies get rewarded with a shutout? (A: When dickwad ex-goalie TV announcers stop talking about them in the 3rd). Habs PP is beginning to struggle. Yes, we got one late but until then it totally sucked. I know we've made up for it with good 5 on 5, but at one point we couldn't even set it up in the O zone for 4 minutes.

And soon (ok, now) I will worry about the line-up. I don't like seeing Chips a healthy scratch, and eventually Bégin and Smolinski's salary will need to get back on the ice. That's a whole forward line we don't have room for. Maybe we can move one of El Dandy or Streit back to D and push Breezer that much further down the depth chart. Bears watching.

Chez Parée bound? You bet. We beat the mighty Panthers! That deserves a celebration.

Next evil, evil foe - the road trip comes to an end with the Rangers on Sunday night. Sunday night??? WTF? Since when do the Habs play Sunday night? That's whack. It's weird when there is no Saturday night game, but at least the FHF can focus on football and the Pats drive for history.

2 comments:

Young HF29 said...

FUCK FUCK FUCK. RDS reports Rhino broke his thumb in his 3rd fight and is on his way home. and with Bouillon maybe hurt too it's a major Breezer warning for the Rangers.

HFF33 aka Panger said...

<< Suck on that, French media.

Oh I'm sure they'll find something to pin on Capttain K, like global warming or the price of oil.