The New Jersey Devils, the living embodiment of Earth Hour, shut the power off for 60 minutes. Like always. David Suzuki approves of their conservation efforts ... saving red lights from going off since 1994.The Sky is Falling: Well, with the Devils, the sky never actually falls. The Devils inexorable grinding down of opposing teams is a lot like the booby trapped ceiling in an Indiana Jones movie. It slowly, surely comes towards you until it squeezes your breath out and ends it with a whimper instead of a bang. For the past 15 years, it's usually the ending the Habs get. Montreal didn't play terribly, and New Jersey wasn't at their best, but their system is freakishly effective unless you have the otherworldly talents that can unlock it. The Habs don't. And now it looks more and more likely that they could be playing for their playoff lives until game 82. Fourth line lynchpin and surprise power play ace Glen Metropolit went down with what appears to be a shoulder injury, taking away some of the sneaky offensive menace in the bottom two rungs.
Plan the Parade: Things to take away from this one? These are not the remorseless killing machine Devils that throttled the life out of Yzerman, Federov, and a talented Red Wings team in the 95 finals. This Devils team looks beatable if they meet in the playoffs (delusion metre off the hook? Possibly). Jacques Martin (possibly forced by an injury to Metropolit) shuffled the deck and tried different looks, which is a nice change. Gomez and Gionta were flying at times, Cammy had two assists, and Little Tits showed flashes that the coaches must have noticed. Even some first line duty for Sergei. Big Tits scored again, and may be the happiest guy in the room to see Cammalleri back drawing away defenders and tilting the ice away from Andrei's space.
Other stuff I was thinking about during this most holy turn off the lights for one token hour to save the planet evening: Jaro 2.0 is Gainey's worst offseason move by a country mile based on his performance of late. Andrei Markov seems off. Dominic Moore had his quietest game as a Hab - I barely heard his name. Bob Cole drove me crazy because every time he said "Motteau" I thought he said "Otto" and kept looking for former Flame beast Joel Otto in the faceoff dot. That Tim Horton's commercial with the guys doing cliche Canadian things would be a lot more effective if they hired actors who could fucking skate ... those two skate like the Indian exchange student we had on our intramural hockey team in university. I don't trust Halak sometimes. He makes me nervous and I can't say that about Price when Price is on. Jaro makes it look hard sometimes. Fuck me, I'm gonna be pissed if the Leafs sneak out of the lottery picks. Carbo is the worst colour guy ever. He'd be in the three-man booth in hell with Joe Bowen and Harry Neale for sure. Turns out the Devils have no one wearing a number over 30. I know that couldn't work for a team with so many numbers in the rafters like the Habs, but that's kind of old school cool.
Scoreboard watching: Sens, Bruins, Sabres and Thrashers win; Flyers, Rangers, and Panthers lose. Habs stay in 6th, two up on Bruins and Flyers, four up on Thrashers, 6 on Rangers. Of course, they all have games in hand on Montreal. Hey, remember when Montreal had played a bunch of extra games for no reason, but "don't worry, they have a week with only 2 games so everyone else will catch up?" Well this week Montreal played four times to jump a couple games ahead in the played column again. The lesson, as always: The NHL is fucking hapless in every single fucking way. It seems like this is Montreal's lot every year (and yes, the Habs could make it a moot point by winning), but there has to be a mental strain that comes with looking at the standings and doing the calculations and seeing your playoff position change when there is nothing you can do about it. I'm not sure how there isn't a computer scheduling system out there that can't keep everybody withing a game or so ALL YEAR LONG. At one point this year I think somebody had SIX games in hand on the Canadiens. That's fucking ridiculous.
9 comments:
When the Devils retire Jerseys they don't go up in the rafters. It's New Jersey, the bodies just disappear. To beat them you need creativity. Memo to Count Chocula - creativity. Not a different flavor Kool Aid.
And dumb as it sounds, Les Boys need to learn how to lift the puck- close to the net. Lots of shooting the puck into the pads on scoring chances- remember that ridiculous twist on John LeClair's stick? Remember the ridiculous number of goals he scored with it?
Markov seems to be fearing a return to Russia after that Olympic problem. Maybe Dominic Moore only shines when he has Maxime right behind him breathing down his neck on the bench. I am sure Tom Pyatt played his best for 4 minutes and 44 seconds.
I have to respectfully disagree with the Lil' Tits comment. Anything positive he might have done is completely wiped out by the fact that with about 20 seconds (maybe more or less - I can't remember) remaining he turned away from the puck in the offensive corner to avoid a hit, eventually sealing the Habs' fate. Bad, bad hockey play.
@L Dude 'turned away from the puck' makes it sound better than it was. Fucker slammed on the brakes 2m from the biscuit and threw it in reverse once he saw a Devils sweater coming in from the side. The seven year old was up late and got a sermon on just how wrong that play was.
@ L Dude and dwgs:
Agreed. I saw that move by Little Tits and cursed his chickenhearted play at the time. It should have gone in the Sky is Falling part. Mea culpa. Hopefully Muller sits him in the video room to watch a loop of that today. Too bad, because I thought he played pretty well otherwise.
Call me crazy, but I kinda liked Harry Neale.
Well you do refer to yourself as 'Boob'. I always had a soft spot for Howie Meeker and Dick Irvine. There, I've said it, I like my sportscasters to sound like apoplectic chickens.
The Devils hurt my brain. Even Kovalchuk is BORING.
Then again, New Jersey is boring.
If they remain in the playoffs (and I can't see them falling out of it considering the remaining games are mostly under-500/out of playoff teams), I hope we get the Sabres or the Caps. There would at least be some excitement in the post-season... (Fuck the Pens. They piss me off now).
Watching The Ten Commandments. Moses really was the ultimate team player. Totally went into the pyramid corners. And all in a skirt. Way to go Moses.
Bettman says the league can't afford to take 2 weeks off for the Olympics, it screws up the schedule. The Phlyers had 6 days off TWICE this year (I think they were the 6 games in hand team HF10 alluded to). That's just dumb.
"I don't trust Halak sometimes. He makes me nervous and I can't say that about Price when Price is on. Jaro makes it look hard sometimes."
That's all well and good, but when's the last time Price looked good in a game? Hell, when's the last time he won a game? Habs have thrown out 2 playoff series and countless regular season games waiting for his 'good game' to arrive. Nothing against the guy, maybe he'll be great one day. But I'd like to see them win some games right now. Today. 2010.
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