HockeyVOX

Good day to all,

Well, the Habs played 2 games over the weekend and what a difference between those 2 games!

First, we will look at the Friday game (if we can call that a game from our Habs), where they went up, or down, against the Capitals in Washington:

The game started of OK with both teams getting some chances, but nothing much to get excited about. Francis Bouillon committed a turnover in the middle of the frame, which turned out to be costly as the Caps found the back of the net. In the 2^nd, the Canadiens pressed for about 10 minutes, but without success and that really hurt them as in the 3^rd period, Washington got 2 more goals, one from Ovechkin of course, and made the final score 3-0 in favour of the Caps. Our good friend Jose Theodore, who could not stop a beach ball, managed to get the shutout, but in fairness, he did not have to be at the top of his game as Montreal turned in one of their worst efforts of the season, if not the worst. All in all, it was a stinker of a game and let’s hope we don’t see our team play like this during the rest of the season.

Now onto Saturday night’s game at the Bell Centre against the Buffalo Sabres:

In this game again, turnovers cost 2 goals to the Habs, both scored by Thomas Vanek. But thankfully for the Habs, Andrei Kostitsyn took matters into his own hands and scored one and set up another as the Habs tallied 3 goals in the 2^nd period to take a 3-2 lead into the third. On the other hand, Andrei’s brother, Sergei, did not have a good game taking 3 unnecessary penalties, one in each period with the first one costing us a goal! I don’t know what is wrong with him, but a few games in the press box might be in store for him. At least the Habs managed to hold onto the lead even though they could not capitalize on a full 2 minutes 5-on-3. Two things have been hurting the Habs this year, the ineffectiveness of the power play and too many turnovers. Fix that and the Habs will be OK for the rest of the season!

Tonight, the Atlanta Thrashers visit the Canadiens in a must-win for the Habs as they cannot drop any points to the lowly Thrashers. This is a perfect time for the Canadiens to make the power play better and for some players like Higgins, Plekanec, Kovalev and Co. to get back to normal and start scoring!!!!

Here is a prediction for tonight: Habs 5, Thrashers 1; yes, Cage aux Sports should get ready to give away some chicken wings!

Enjoy the game!!!!

Dimi “DX” (your Habs blogger),

The drive for 25!