Sunday, January 06, 2008

The Eyes Say It All - Caps 5, Habs 4 (OT)

Here are a few quick thoughts on the game yesterday. We're too depressed (despite the Team Canada win) and wrapped up in football playoffs (ok, ok, and a little hungover) to be coherent, so ye be warned.

Plan the parade - the Habs are like an offensive machine now. 3 lines that can generate offence, even 5 on 5. Big Tits is on a mission from God or something and is becoming a great player before our very eyes. Kovy continues to sparkle.

And admittedly, it was a fun game to watch. A lot of action, skating, offensive chances. The eyes of Alex Ovechkin are a marvel. Damn he'll look good in the CH! And most important of all, Elisha Cuthbert was spotted in the Bell Centre crowd. Booyah!

The sky is falling - lots to write here. Let's start with the inability to bury those offensive chances they generate. Koivu missed 2 empty nets (at least) and Guimauve had lead in his stick. We could have (should have) had 8 or 9 goals easy.

Next - our inability to play 3 periods. This is becoming a serious issue. We take a lead in the first, playing like the 76-77 Habs, then take a nap in the second. Maybe we win it in the third. Maybe we don't. Come playoff time (knock wood) that's gonna kill us. As it is, it's allowing our East rivals to make the clusterfuck standings even worse.

Finally, I hate to say it, but TFS (tm) was, well, not good. Probably his worst game of the season. I don't really recall any of the 5 goals being truly "bad" goals, but he definitely could have (should have) stopped at least 2 or 3 of them. Worst of all, the innate calmness we've come to identify with him was not really there. He's a 20-year old. Let's keep reminding ourselves of that.

Chez Parée bound? Hmm, tough one. A few of the scorers (well mainly the Danse à dix line) should get a few dances, but after you lose a game you were on cruise control to win you really don't deserve the ladies.

Next evil, evil foe - the second half of the season begins with the Chicago rookies popping into town on Tuesday.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

How about a little mid-season recap?
I'll leave you the strippers-themed recap, and I'll just go with unorganized thoughts.

So far, I must say I'm pretty happy with what we've seen.
The youngsters seem more and more confident, and some of the veterans are really helping them to mature (Kovy, Saku, Huet seem to have a great influence on Price, Lats and both Tits for instance)

Of course there were some disappointments (Smolinski and Ryder, even if there's hope in his case). But at least, some of them did a nice favor to the team with very timely injuries (Brisebois, Smolinski. I'm not speaking of Begin, who is never really hurting the team when he plays)

I love the unnamed heroes of this team: Gorges, Chips, Kosto. They are all working hard without too much notice, but I think the team owes them a lot.

It's great to see the habs having 3 lines that can score and generate some chances even on 5 on 5, and yet still have the same PP success.

So I think we have a team with much more balance than last year. A mini-slump is not excluded at some point in the second half of the season, but I really don't think we'll see something like last year's complete meltdown. Good goaltending, a better defense and a more balanced offense should prevent this.

I'm hopeful.