Phantom Penalties to the Rescuuuuue! Habs 4 - Flyers 3 (O.T)

Alex Kovalev's family celebrates another three-point showing for the talented Russian

At first, it looked like the train wreck we have often shielded our eyes from. Two quick goals, a slow and stunned Canadiens' squad once again hurt by terrible mistakes in their own zone and an unwillingness to pay the price in front of their own net.

It must have been a weird opening faceoff for Glen Metropolit, who grinned a helpless grin at his former teammates at centre ice. 

It was a clumsy first for Roman Hamrlik who has looked nothing like the man Bob Gainey acquired last year. In the spectrum of giveaways, Hamrlik didn't simply "cough" the puck up, he "tuberculosised" the puck up. I'm not kidding. It looked like this.

- Mike Richards: Hey, Roman, here's the puck.

-Roman: No thanks, I have tuberculosis, you can have it.

-Mike Richards: Geez, thanks Roman! Hope you feel better.

With 5 minutes left in the first, the Habs had had enough. They had been able to get some good shots on Antero Niittymaki, a name RDS strangely makes sound like a Japanese Formula 1 driver. "Nitoumaki's still in third, Matsuzaka's just behind! Button has overtaken Barrichiello but this race in Nuremberg is all about Nitoumaki!   The man's from Finland people. Finland. The only thing remotely Japanese about Finland is Mika Hakkinen, you know, in that strange David Hasselhoff in Germany kind of way.

The team finally came to life with Zombie Pleks doing the Zombie dance. Another goal on his resume over the last few games, and while he still stands as the worst 17-goal scorer in the league, we'll take'em all and do the Zombie with him every single time.

Greek Lightning hits a few seconds later and makes it a game. The Habs wouldn't stop there, with Kovalev wristing one right by Nakataka Nitoumaki. Flyer fans got mad, several Habs fans were probably molested in the washrooms during the first intermission but it's a small price to pay for victory, and trust me Habs fans, if you make the trek in a Habs uniform to watch a Habs game in Philly, you're all in this together. 

The game settled into a more tight checking affair, with Philly tying the score at 3 and Montreal incapable of getting anymore Zombie love, or Kovy After The Nap magic. Both teams traded chances throughout the third with nothing giving.

Can you all tell I stepped out after the first period and went out for supper? That's how you bullshit people. You just throw in the ambiguous "tight-checking game", "traded chances", yadayada. 

But I did watch the overtime and the Flyers got screwed by some less than reffing. Upshall gets called for goalie interference, while I don't think he so much as blinked at Halak. The power play was obviously designed to ignite fireworks in Jerusalem and make all observing Jews regret keeping the Sabbath and missing the game. Matty finally ended it after several attempts and we all broke out the chopped liver.

Kovy made a great move to thread the pass over to Matty on the winning goal and thousands of miles away, the strong Kovalev women pictured above celebrated into the wee hours of the afternoon.

Call it a great night for the Russians, the Zombies, and the Jews and a less than great one for the Japanese. Nitoumaki was seen after the game drunk at a karaoke bar.