That was better!

It was musical lines again tonight for the Habbies (as supposed to musical chairs). After getting blanked by the Capitals the other night, I was seriously wondering which Habs team was going to show up tonight. Was it going to be the really good team that hasnt been seen since they blanked the Senators or was it going to be the team that lost terribly to Toronto, Boston and Washington (and whoever else I forgot to mention)?

It turned out that it was in-between actually. The Habs got off to a pretty good start but none of their shots went past the Sabres backup goalie - which was sad considering that Lalime has a .884 save percentage. Around the same as Theodore the other night. The Sabres opened up the scoring in the first period with a power-play goal after Sergei Kostitsyn got himself a penalty for slashing. Scoring then ceased until the second period when Andrei Kostitsyn got the puck past on his second attempt after the first attempt bounced off Lalime. Things were looking pretty good until the Habs made a terrible pass to try to get the puck out of their own end which ended up giving the puck to the Sabres. Of course that turned into another goal for Thomas Vanek (he scored the first one) and had me screaming at the TV because it was clear that the goal was entirely preventable. Begin and Markov eventually came to the rescue with one goal each over the rest of the second period. Markov actually looked happy that he scored. Imagine that. Anyway, the third period could have seen some goals scored, especially by the Habs when they had a 5 on 3 power-play but nothing ended up happening.

All in all, except for that really dumb passing error, I thought that the second period was good. They did a good job of keeping the puck out of their own end for the most part which is always nice. They had a fair number of shots - and decent ones too - on goal. The first and third periods weren't so cool (again), which is something that has to change. The Habs can and better play 60 mins of hockey. You can't just get into this whole "well, one period is enough" because it often isn't. And before we start on how it was enough to beat the Stanley Cup champions, the Red Wings are clearly having some technical difficulties, having just lost 4-1 to Boston (Detroit has dropped three out of the last four games. And in theory, anyone should be able to beat Colombus, so that win doesn't count for all that much).

I also have a few other complaints. 1) they still need to find the back of the net more. That espcially inclues the power-play. Wasting a 5 on 3 like that is not cool. And it was wasted. the Sabres weren't fantastically wonderful (but they were still good!) at killing the penalty. It was just the Habs were not getting the puck first off to the net - who's idea was it to spend the entire penalty passing the puck around? and second, second, when they did get it near the net, they couldn't put it in the back of the net. 2) Sergei Kostitsyn needs to stop with the stupid penalties. Right now. 3) is it just me or is Lang not doing a heck of a lot when he gets out there? Everytime I see him get the puck he seems overeager to pass it off to someone else even though he should be perfectly capable of taking a shot on the goal (which he was more often than not standing right in front of!). We're not supposed to be paying the guy a pile of money to just skate around and pass the puck around like a hot potatoe. It's like he's afraid to touch it. Maybe I'm just missing something here. Later: apparently it is just me because everyone seems to think that he did a good job with... six shots on goal. Fine.

Anyway, this was not one of those games were the Habs played like $%^& and got away with a win. It was a good effort, and barring those few issues, a game that they really should be looking to build on when they meet the very lowly Atlanta Thrashers on Tuesday. If they do what they've been doing lately against bad teams then it will be lights out of the Habbies and there will be blood. Well, okay, no blood. I just felt like saying that because I'm tired and felt like saying something silly. But there will be angry fans.

Oh and what was with Komisarek in the suit behind the Canadiens' bench? Apparently I was the only person in the entire city who didn't know that he was going to be there... go figure. Well, maybe Komisarek should consider coaching the Habs fulltime instead of going back to playing... I'm kidding of course...

Random fact of the hour: Just a day after blanking the Habs, the Capitals got blanked themselves by...wait for it, the Columbus Blue Jackets. I'm just dying here....

I wonder if this post will show up as "Sunday, Nov 30" or "Saturday, Nov 29th"?