Happy New Year's from God's Waiting Room Panthers Preview and Game Thread

The often dreaded Florida Christmas two-step continues with a visit to the suburbs of Miami to meet old friend Tomas Vokoun and the Panthers. Put down your shuffleboard stick and pay attention, or no Matlock after dinner!

Waiting in line for the $5.00 Surf and Turf Early Bird Special: It's Florida on New Year's Eve, so naturally it's a 5:00 pm start at the National Car Rental Center. Habs a totally unexpected 5 and 1 on seven game road trip, Panthers losers of last two and in the muck of the 7 to 11 crowd.

Hot as Morty Dershowitz's 22 year old grandaughter who is down for a Christmas visit: Oh look, it's the Canadiens broken record: Pleks. Squid. Big Tits. Secondary scoring alert! The Giant Mexican Chicken may become our new favourite photoshop. Andrei Markov, who loves ya, baby? Every fucking Habs fan in existence, that's who. For the Panthers, well ... they're kinda the poster children of middling, average, not-too-hot-not-too-cold. But Dominic Moore has two points in his last two, and Keith Ballard hasn't clubbed a teammate over the head for weeks, so that's something. Remember when the Habs made the choice to keep Jose Theodore over Tomas Vokoun? Ever wonder what the last ten years might have looked like if they chose differently? Yeah, me too. Vokoun still facing a ton of shots, still keeping a middling franchise in games, still deserves a chance with a real contender. The Jaro/Price Vokoun/Theo comparisons should scare everyone ... unless TFS plays every game like he did last night.

Colder than Mrs. Berenger in room 243 (CODE BLUE!!): Panthers leading scorers Stephen Weiss and Nathan Horton are both scoreless in the last few. Old Leaf whipping boy Brian McCabe is also pointless in two. Run up and down the Panthers line-up and there's a lot of arrows pointing down right now. Of course, that means their gonna shell the Habs silly. For the Habs, despite some promising signs from all three, Little Tits hasn't completely broken out of his slump, Mad Max is a press box seat waiting to happen, and seriously, who the fuck does Matt D'Agostini have pictures of? I've fucking had it with that guy.

Broken like Mr. Mendelbaum's hip after he took a spill in the dining room: Mara looks like he's still out. Hamr still limping but gamely playing on. Jaro might have pulled groin after making luv to meny meny sexy womans after his heroics last week, who knows. Florida without David Booth long-term, Dmitri Kulikov for a few more weeks, with Rosty Olesz and Cory Stillman game time decisions.

The Retirement Home Gossip: Check out LitterBoxCats, your "Florida Panthers Commentary and Discussion Colossus". You put Colossus in your own blog description, you get mentioned here. Also helps if there are NO OTHER PANTHERS BLOGS ON EARTH.

You post-game Matlock viewing and adult entertainment: Line dancing in the recreation center at 7:00. Bingo at 9:00. Fuck, the Panthers play a slapshot away from South Beach and it's New Year's Eve. Do you really need my help on this?

Happy New Year from FHF to all our lovely readers. Since I'm guessing we aren't getting Habs/Red Army '75 redux tonight, here's hoping the booze is flowing, the champagne at 12:00 is cold, and the person you kiss is hot and available.