Stripped Down Habs hit Hotlanta to face the Thrashers

Fresh off a loss to the defending champs, the Canadiens travel South of the Mason-Dixon line for a scrap with Ilya Kovalchuk and the free-scoring Thrash. Will it be a Patrick Ewing style Gold Club happy ending, or a Gold Club trial-type fiasco? Find out tonight!

Standing in line watching Ewing and the rest of the Knicks get waved right in: 7:00 pm at the Phillips Arena in Hotlanta, on RDS and the currently free Centre Ice. Habs coming off the loss to the other birds from Pittsburgh, Thrashers coming home after a dismal 1-3 road trip.

Hotter than Atlanta after Sherman paid a visit on his way to the coast: Price lost last game but he's wearing his TFS mantle again: 2-1-0, 1.68, .947 in his last three. Pleks and Cammi scoring and is that a warmed up Big Tits? Yessir, it might be. For Atlanta, Ilya Kovalchuk is hot now but is going to be mid-August at Turner Field hot as a free agent if he doesn't sign an extension soon, Rich Peverley leads Atlanta in scoring, and Maxim Afiniganov has found a new lease on life. Must be a mint julep fan.

Less action than an engineer at Georgia Tech: Bryan Little was probably pencilled in as Kovalchuk's centre pre-season and is struggling with 3 goals on the season. Sophomore goalie Ondrei Pavelec has discovered the proverbial slump, and is 0-2 with a 5.44 goals against and .850 save percentage in his last two starts. For the Habs, Little Tits has cooled down after returning to the big club with something to prove, and while Travis Moen is still giving his 110%, he's pointless in 6.

Busted like a cocaine orgy at the late, lamented Gold Club: Gionta and Markov are inching ever closer but are still out. Paul Mara didn't make the trip, and Jaro 2.0 is hobbling and needs a break. The Thrash is without supposed franchise goalie Kari Lehtonen, whose back finally gave out after carrying the franchise's expectations since he went 2nd overall in the 2002 draft ahead of Jay Bouwmeester.

Your hook-up to the raging nightlife in Buckhead: Check out Bird Watchers Anonymous for your Atlanta Thrashers news and views.

Post Game Entertainment: Has Patrick Ewing taught you nothing? If that ain't your thing, Atlanta is a Southern town full of hot Southern Belles. For the ladies, if the men of Georgia Tech can pull themselves away from their home-made robots and Star Wars Monopoly, you've got yourself the ultimate in nerd chic for the evening.

Markov an All-Star

Well, now that the All-Star fan balloting is complete, and the FHF would like to offer hearty congratulations to first-timer Andrei Markov, who was elected by the fans to start for the Eastern Conference. He may not show any emotion when he's talking to an assistant coach, but FHF hopes Markov is as excited as we are about his being voted onto the starting lineup of the All-Star game. Sheldon who?

Better Markov than Huet at the All-Star Shootout, where skaters can have fun all weekend, coast on the backcheck and ignore defensive assignments on the ice while the goalies face a 20-minute nightmare of breakaways, rebounds and highlight-reel goals. Goalies always get screwed.

For the first faceoff at least, Andrei will partner Zdeno Chara in front of Martin Brodeur, with Sid the Kid, Vinny Lecavalier and Alfie leading the attack.

A few quick HF29-style thoughts:

• Well deserved. Markov is or near at the top in most offensive categories for defencemen, quaterbacks the league's number one powerplay and logs a ton of minutes against the other team's top lines. If fans of Sergei Gonchar, Tomas Kaberle, Brian Campbell or anyone else feel slighted, fair enough, but Markov and Chara are both decent choices;
• It would be nice if Komi got to go and partner him too, but fat chance;
• This may spell doom for the Christo-Wall and Kovy's chances too;
• No Alex Ovechkin or Ilya Kovalchuk in the starting lineup. What, no one likes to see goals goals goals? I would have voted for Alex the Great over Sid and Alfie;
• I have nothing to say about the Western starters. This is a Habs blog and I've already said too much about non-Hab things.

Lap dances are on us this week, Andrei. Congrats. Too bad the Gold Club in Atlanta is gone.

*HF10 wrote all the good/interesting/funny parts of this post.