Game Review: Habs TD+ Convert (FG), Sens 1 / Game Preview: Sakuuuuu!

29 teams in the NHL use these as sleeping pills...

... the Sens wish they were cyanide tablets for use during intermission

While last night wasn't the snoozefest that I thought it would be, I still found it to be a hard game to watch. Had it been the Bruins, Leafs, Flyers or, heck, even the Rangers, I would have rubbed my hands with glee over every goal and cackled with delight when the Sens were getting "hey hey goodbye-ed" in their own fucking barn.

The problem is that I harbour no real ill-will towards the Senators. They, much like the city they call home, are like that geeky kid that lives next door: always trying to hang out with the big boys, but never be able to fit in 'cause he's not cool/athletic enough. He gets on your nerves because he tries so damned hard, but his efforts are usually laughable. His heart's in the right place, though, so you feel bad for picking on him so much.

The geeky kid looks strangely like a Spartan, er... "Centurion" that I remember having seen somewhere before...

Watching the Sens in their prolonged death spiral this season makes me sad for their fans. I know what it's like to watch the team you love find new and creative ways to suck every night.

So, Sens fans, pretend that last night's game was Kovy's tribute to Saku. He got his team to play like the Late 90's/Early 00's Habs with which Koivu was saddled for most of his tenure in Montreal.

Does that feel better?

No? Ass still smarting from the spanking that you got from a team that either can't score or that inevitably chokes on any commanding lead it manages to get?

Oh... My bad.

Moving right along, then...

***********************

I'm not sure what else to say about this game that hasn't already been said before by people far more eloquent than I.

So I'll just say this: If the Canadiens are the lifeblood of Montreal, then Saku was our heart for many years. And, although we've all had to move on (and, by and large, are the better for having done so), he'll always have a special place in our hearts.

Saku, even though you said yesterday that don't think your name belongs in the rafters of the Bell Centre, I think you're dead wrong. You showed everyone in this cynical, money-grubbing league filled with zillionnaires for hire that sometimes, what you do off the ice is more important than the final score of any game.

Welcome home, Saku Koivu.

Puck drops at 7:00.

Comments/Memories/Tributes? Talk about 'em in the comments... And, while you're at it, why don't ya go and vote for Saku as first star of the game so that we can thank him together one last time?

Sexy Friday M*A*S*H Up: 4077th Habs at Sens Game Preview and Open Thread

Last man standing wins, as the battered and broken Habs bus down to Ottawa to take on a Sens team who just got beaten up in Philly. Bodies start hitting the floor at 7:30, live from Scotiabank Place, somewhere deep in the DMZ around Kanata. You can watch the carnage live on RDS, or Sportsnet East if you can stand it.

Who's in triage? Look, all anyone is talking about since the Habs got Buffaloed is the wounded, so let's get it out of the way: Max Pac got his chest Wizzed on but thinks he can go tonight so he'll be a game time decision. Cammy is out up to a month with a messed-up shoulder. Halpern didn't make the short trip because he got his bell rung versus Lindy's thugs on parade. Chicken is a game-time decision, still suffering from flu-like symptoms. Hal Gill's hand/wrist seem okay. PK's foot got banged up but he's in. Markov and Gorges are still done. Sens are also MASHed up, missing Jason "I always score a great looking goal against Montreal" Spezza, Pascal "No Quebecois goalie to bite the Habs ass tonight" Leclaire, and L'Artiste himself, Alexei Kovalev (broken mojo/bum knee).

New recruits: Already sporting greenhorns Yanick Weber and David Desharnais, plus Max Pac and PK, the Habs get two more call ups from the Bulldogs as Andreas Enqvist and Ryan White make the trip to Ottawa. Chocula already loves the boring, safe, defensively responsible and offensively challenged Enqvist like a son. White hits too much and offers too much energy to really be accepted by Chocula, although his glaring offensive weaknesses at least earn him "foster child" status.

Hot Lips Houlihan has nothing on these guys: Carey Price has started treating pucks like North Korea treats journalists again, allowing very few past his borders. He's 4-1-1 after the rough stretch in December. PK scored the game winner versus Calgary and played roughly three hours versus Buffalo; he and the Wiz (10 points in 9 games) carry the defence. Big Tits has looked like a player you'd want over the past two. Pleks has turned it around some (4 points in 5). Special mention to Panger-sized David Desharnais, who is making some noise in an attempt to stick with the big club. For Ottawa, Milan Michalek and the Foligno kid have 5 points in their last five.

Colder than Hawkeye and BJ's martinis: Seriously, when was the last time Gionta scored? And not to go back to early season lamentations, but don't look at Gomez's stat line over the past week (1 point in 5 games and a costly penalty in Buffalo). With Cammy suddenly not able to stay healthy, Bob Gainey's smurf spending spree of a few years back is again a concern. Alex Auld looked shell-shocked versus Calgary. The Sens are brutal right now and not even Saint Alfredsson can save them: he has one point in his last 4. The Ottawa defence is particularly culpable - Sergei Gonchar might be the worst free agent signing of the year, youngster Eric Karlsson has 2 points in 7, and Chris Phillips hasn't tallied a point in 27 games. Christ, you can almost get second assists by accident and a guy playing top four minutes hasn't scored a point in half a season?

Suicide is painless: We miss FiveforSmiting and wish SLC hadn't pulled the plug.

In war, all the humour is dark: Some sick bastard in NHL scheduling just had to put the Habs back-to-back versus the Yin and Yang of the early 2000's Habs, didn't he? Kovy and Koivu (sniff) on consecutive nights makes for an interesting comparison.

Post-game entertainment: It's Not-So-Sexy Friday night in Kanata. You might have more fun in a war-torn 1950's Korea, especially if the nurses looked like this:

The Game Day Skate has been sexified for Friday, January 21st

Bullet points for what you missed while dreaming of Brooklyn Decker in a see-though top...

• Scoreboardwatcher ruled last night. Somehow the Sabres managed to beat the Bs 4-2;
• And the Canes managed to topple the Rangers;
• And the Bolts beat the Thrash 3-2, though the Thrash got a point;
• Scoreboardwatcher is less happy with the Caps over the Isles 2-1;
• Look out for the Devils! Brodeur back to form as they beat the Sid-less, Geno-less Pens 2-0;
• Chris Pronger returned for the Flyers last night against the Sens and waddya know, the third period was a brawlfest. We're sure there's no connection. Oh the score was Flyers 6, Sens 2;
• 2 goals for Grabs in the Leafs 5-2 win over the Ducks. Must have been some bag skate Wilson gave 'em;
• Your token West game was a good one, the Wings blowing a 3-goal lead before beating the Blues in OT 4-3;
• After recalling SCHrabble Wednesday, yesterday the Habs recalled Ryan White. Did he get a nickname in his previous stint with the big club?
• Not hockey-related at all, but a fascinating read if you're bored at work today, a GQ profile of Deadspin's AJ Daulerio.

Here's something to keep you warm in Kanata tonight. A little behind the scenes vid of Minka Kelly's new GQ photo shoot. When did GQ become so relevant again?

The Morning Boo-boo Report for Thursday, January 20th

Bullet points for what you missed while dreaming of Anne Hathaway as Catwoman...

• What a day yesterday for injury watCHers. Without any official word from the Habs, bring on the guesses and RDS speculation. RDS tweeted that Squid was out four weeks minimum, yet that doesn't appear on RDS.ca anywhere, so that should give you pause. What does appear on RDS.ca is that PatCHes' ribs are only bruised, and he should even skate today to test things out. Hickey says it's "unlikely" Halpern will play tomorrow. Who the fuck knows;
• We do know that the Habs called up Andreas Enqvist to have at least one more healthy body in time for tomorrow. He's 6'4"!!! W00t!!! Our literary commentariat (o-man I believe Steve) has already nicknamed him Scrabble, or SCHrabble;
• God bless the Toronto Sun, and not just for the Sunshine Girl. Love this headline: "Leafs rotten to the core", which is just perfect in light of their 7-0 drubbing by the Rangers last night where Gaborik had 4 goals and the greatest goalie ever Jonas Gustavvson was pulled. We don't even care that the Rangers won dropping the Habs to 7th, the Leafs losing really badly is just too much fun;
• The Wild know how to put away the Flames unlike some teams and win 6-0;
• BJ's 3, Panthers 2 (OT). Talk about a "who cares" game;
• Don Cherry is speaking up against head shots (though against actual rules to prevent them) because you know, a player he actually cares about got concussed.

Your video fun this morning is the Habs discussing a potluck dinner. It's quite amusing on a lot of levels.

Paging Doctor Mulder - Sabres 1, Gutsy Habs 1, Refs 1 (OT)

You know, I generally really hate people who blame the refs. It's a pet peeve of mine.Yes, the reffing may have been crappy in a particular game, but give it up dude. You lost, you didn't score enough goals to win, etc. etc. Even if the team that was allegedly screwed was the Habs, I hated falling into that blame the refs trap. I thought it was cowardly and just idiotic. Man up; you / we lost, get over it.

But not anymore. Because I am now one of those people. I blame the refs for last night, and deservedly so.

Do I think the Gomez penalty in the last minute of a 1-1 game was a penalty? Absolutely (though I believe the recipient clearly embellished, and Gomez' stick really didn't connect, his hand did). Do I blame Gomez for taking it? Not in the fucking least, even though he himself has taken full responsibility and others have blamed him. I don't blame him because he believed that the refs had put their whistles away in the last couple of minutes of a tie game, if not the whole fucking last two periods. How could he not when CHeez Whiz was absolutely CRUSHED, FROM BEHIND, INTO THE BOARDS by Gaustad I think it was, with no call whatsoever, no more than a minute before Gomez got called. I tried to find video of it but the NHL powers that be have removed all traces of it from the internet. You could point to a bunch of other non-calls too, from Lego getting hacked IN THE FACE and repeatedly cross-checked and manhandled and roughed and boarded and molested by Tyler Myers to a blatant holding the stick of Moen to other shit I'm too angry about to try and remember.

What REALLY pisses me off is that the refs seemed to have been influenced by Lindy Ruff's little temper tantrum early in the game when one of his players actually did get called for a penalty. Lindy railed into the refs, and from then on out, they seemed to be scared of him. DO YOU SEE NOW CHOKULA WHY SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO SCREAM AT THE REFS??? I hate this fucking league.

Anything else happen in the game last night? No? Moving on then.

Oh right, right, we had a couple guys get dinged. Let's go to the bullet points:

• Squid's shoulder goes crashing into the boards (with a shove from behind btw, no call), looks to be separated, TSN reported minimum two weeks out;
• Max PatCHes' giant heart takes a CHeez Whiz slap shot, he's rushed to hospital though he flew home with the team. RDS reports it's his ribs, no word on seriousness;
• CHallah disappears in the first sometime, returns to the bench but barely sees any action;
• PFK blocks a shot with his foot, limps / crawls off the ice but returns;
• Hal Gilligan injures his wrist, looks to be ok;
• JM appeared to be unconscious (well, ok, that's every game);
• Mcsplooge seemed to be suffering from some horrible laughing disease. Fuck you you asshole, your Hamilton jokes were not funny.

In the wake of all that, the Habs played the game with essentially three lines, a mere 24 hours after a tough win over the Flames. They deserve all the credit in the world for fighting though it and earning a point. Carey played some heroic hockey, and many others really stepped up (PFK, Lego, Gio, even Gomez and Swiss Mister II). I could go on about how courageous they were, but I will close by paraphrasing one of my favourite moments from Lloyd Bridges in Airplane II:

Gentlemen, I don't find it easy to talk at a time like this, but I got to say something about that team up there, and I can sum it all up in just one word: courage...dedication, daring, pride, pluck, spirit, grit, mettle, and G-U-T-S, *guts*. Why, The Habs got more guts in their little finger than most of us have in our large intestine, INCLUDING THE COLON.

/ falls over drunk

Always Be Prepared ~ Habs 5 - Flames 4 (OT) win and Shovel Off to Buffalo Preview and Open Thread

sCHout's Oath

On my CHonour, I will do my best 
To do my duty to Geoff

and Habs CHountry and to obey the sCHout Law; 

To help other teammates at all times, especially in OT; 

To keep my shot physically strong, be mentally

awake in the paint and keep my arrow fucking straight.

Working on the Buffalo Preview

but down with the fucking flu and

the DayQuil is kicking me in the Pants!

Watch this hilarious take on CHicken soup!

G Y F H G !

~ . ~ . ~

Post nasal drip Preview Update:

Craig 'The Asshole' Rivet and his 25th place shitty team (19-20-5) steps onto the ice to face the 9th place Habs (26-17-3), RDS/TSN/Versus, 7h30pm start, HSBC Arena.

Craig 'The Jerk' Rivet will probably be skating in front of Ryan 'Silver' Miller and facing Carey TFS™ Price.

Craig 'The Loudmouth' Rivet will not be facing CHicken, who had helped the Habs win the first three matchups so far. Sabres' Olympian Derek Roy bumped his head on his diving board. 

Craig 'The Shoveller' Rivet, who wears a 'C' for cocksucker, isn't doing much on BUFs 17.8% PP (worse than the Habs 19.0%), nor on their 82.0% PK (also not better than the Habs 86.6%).

Craig 'The Whiner' Rivet's team ain't looking to good to make the playoffs, whereas Josh Gorges' and Max Pacioretty's team right now is. Thanks Bob Gainey.

Craig 'The Angry White Guy' Rivet isn't too happy that a pumped PFK! is hot. Thx iRiRi.

Craig 'The Struggling Sabre' Rivet probably doesn't like CHeez Whiz. We do.

Craig 'The Sack of Shit' Rivet's dirty teammate and Buffalo native Patrick Kaleta is in. Expect the game to get Ruff, especially if the Sabres are sucking it with two minutes to go.

Man, I've got a splitting headaCHe but yes "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy". Watch the entire thing.

A little TLC, too.

G Y F H G !

The Game Day Morning Skate for Tuesday, January 18

Bullet points for what you missed while having nightmares of banning a 25 year-old song from the radio...

• Man there is a LOT to say about last night's 5-4 (OT) win over the Flames. The Heritage tuques. Habs cruise to a 4-0 lead. Habs epically blow a 4-0 lead. Both starting goalies pulled. Some good to see scorers (Squid, Tits, Lego) and a jubilant PFK getting the OT winner and celebrating (FHF version) / being uppity (Don Cherry version). Wings! 6th place! Did I mention blowing a four goal lead? Ugh. Anyway. More later today;
• The big gorilla gets his first career hat trick in the Bs' 7-0 crushing of the Canes;
• Devils manage to win last night's Battle of Suck over the Isles;
• Thrashers get a 3-2 (SO) win over the Panthers to grab a hold on 8th in the East;
• Your token West game has the Sharks over the Yotes;
• Sid to skip the All-Star game?
• For those of you dying to see Benny Brunet back on skates in the CH (and maybe taking a puck to the head), you're going to get your wish!

Deep breath. Back at it in Buffalo tonight. Here's the long-forms after a win to brighten your morning. You can just skip the 2:38 to 4:15 part.

Stan Lee's Canadien Guardian will eat your children and enslave your women for this Flames preview and open thread

As mentioned in TMS this morning, the NHL and Stan Lee have teamed up to promote the All-Star game by having superheroes, or "Guardians" of all the NHL teams in time for game. And over the weekend, the Canadien was revealed. It frightens us. Let's take a look at the superpowers he was given:

Legendary protector of Quebec
I think a million Nords fans in this province would rather see another English win on the Plains of Abraham than be protected by anyone with a CH on their chest.

Controls power absorption and magnification
We're really not sure what this means, but if "controls power absorption" translates to "limit the ability to score", CHokula already has that job covered.

That's it? Well, those powers are totally useless. Here's some superpowers he should have been given:

• Strength to squish The Mexican's salary with one hand;
• Sense to determine if JM is breathing;
• Magical touch that heals defensemen's knees;
• Rotating the Earth to turn back time to the 1970's;
• Ability to communicate with Belarussians of limited intelligence.

Now those we could have used. Hey look the Flames are playing! Let's set this baby up with help from some other Stan Lee creations.

Waiting for the Joss Whedon Avengers movie - 7:30 PM start at the Bell. On TSNHabsBell and Sportsnet West for you Panger types. This is the teams' first meeting this year, the next one will be the Winter Classic in February. Flames coming off two straight wins, including Saturday night against the Leafs we all saw because the CBC couldn't switch there fast enough. The Flames are 6-2-2 in their last 10 to get back to .500, working mightily to get back into the playoff picture after a miserable start to the season. Here's a pleasing stat - Habs are actually 4-1-1 in their last 6 at the Bell. A win would NOT tie the Habs' point total with the Bs, because I'm an idiot.

Magneto - as much as the Flames can be a villain. Unfortunately the other FHF has closed down so check out the amusing Dome Beers and their many pics of half-naked CHicks. So they're like FHF too.

Flying high like Spider-Man swinging from buildings - Big Bald Alex Auld is 2-0-0, 1.37, .941 in his last 3 and gets his first-ever Bell Centre start. PleXXXe and CHeez Whiz are a point per game over their last 4. For the Flames, Iggy has 5 points in his last 4, and some goalie named Henrik Karlsson is playing well.

Iceman (and not in a good kind of way) - Mexican and Gio both pointless in 3.

Damaged like The Hulk's pants - CHicken and CHeez Whiz (sounds delish!) are both suffering from the new "inner body injury" that is sweeping the team and are game-time decisions. Rumoured future Habs D Robyn Regehr is day to day with a leg injury.

Is it possible to have sex with an Invisible Woman? If she's played by Jessica Alba, I sure will try.

Bring your commenting superpowers to bear!

The Game Day Skate for Monday, January 17th

Bullet points for what you missed while dreaming of making it to the AFC CHanpionsh... FUCK YEAH FUCK YOU BILL BELICHICK...

• Hey, scoreboard help! The Rangers lose 3-2 to the Flyers, and Gaborik was benched. Sure, benching always works with enigmatic Europeans;
• Sens almost had something going but the Caps get 3 goals in the 3rd for a 3-1 win;
• The Finnish Used To Be Flash got his 1300th career point in the Ducks' 3-2 win over the Oil;
• We actually almost sort of agree with Jack Todd today, if only he wouldn't write like a 3-year old child sometimes;
• The NHL's Stan Lee Guardian Project All-Star promotion thingy finally gets to the Habs, and we are afraid for our life.

Flames in town tonight. Yay for a Western team for a change!

Go CHoCHonuts! Habs 3 - Rangers 2 ~ Game Review and Open Thread

~ ~ ~

Just sit right back 

And you'll hear a tale

A tale of a gameful trip, 

That started from their tropic port, 

Aboard JMs tiny sCHip.

The mate was a mighty tall fucking man, 

The Skipper brave and system sure, 

FHFive passengers set sail that day, 

For a three period tour, 

A three period tour.

The Rangers started getting rough, 

JMs tiny sCHip wasn't tossed.

If not for the CHourage of the fearless crew

The GoHabsGo! would be lost.

The GoHabsGo! would be lost.

The sCHip set ground on the sCHore 

Of this unCHarted Montréal isle

With Hal Gilligan, 

JM Skipper too.

Geoff The Millionaire

And his Mexican wife, 

The Big Titted movie star, 

The Professeur and Carey Ann, 

Here on Hal Gilligan's Montréal Isle.

So this is the tale of our CHastaways, 

They're here for a long long time.

They'll have to make the best of things, 

1st Place is an uphill CHlimb.

Hal the first mate and JM Skipper too

Will do their very best, 

To make the others CHomfortable

In their 25th Stanley Cup quest.

No phoneys, no lightweights, no motormouths, 

Not a single Pants! luxury

Like Larry Robinson cruised oh

It's PFK as best he can be.

So join us here each week my FHFriends, 

You're sure to get a sexy smile, 

From FHFour stranded CHastaways

Here with GG11's style!

~ ~ ~

Version pour l'estied'naufragé BR.