You know, there was a king of France in the 15th century who thought that he was made of glass. He wouldn't let anyone touch him because he thought that he would shatter. I'm not kidding....The guy apparently actually thought that he was made of glass.
Where am I going with this? Well, I feel like the Habs are like that right now. After what I thought was a really good first period, it went all downhill from there and they shattered into a gazillion blood soaked pieces.....(that would probably be me bleeding to death here.... again....Habs fans seem to have a lot of blood to bleed these days).... I honestly didn't think that it would end with a 6-2 win for the Flames. I'm tired of coming up with reasons why it didn't work and I'm beyond tired of saying "well, it could have gone well if they hadn't gone off and died in the second and third period". I just dont know what it's going to take to get them to get their confidence back but the longer this goes on the less and less confident they're going to feel and the worse they're going to play...... There's simply no more words to describe how they've been playing so I'm just going to stop it right now..... I do have one thing to say though....
THIS WAS NOT HALAK'S FAULT. Six goals on 40 whatever shots is not exactly terrible when you think about it. Halak is NOT to blame for this latest mess. He was the freaking team tonight. So do NOT go blaming him for this.....!
So this is what it's like to be Federer at the Australian Open
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Not that I pretend to know what goes on in the mind of Federer, but I kind of feel like this is what it's got to be like to be him when he lost to Nadal in Melbourne last week. You know that everything is not going the way it's supposed to be but yet you feel optimistic about the match. You're supposed to be the better player, you're bidding for something special and yet somehow, it all goes wrong. Horribly wrong. And suddenly everything you've hoped for just came crashing down around you. What's worse, the reality that maybe you're not as good as you thought or hoped you were is driven home by a rival. Not just any rival. But THE rival.
Yes people, the Habs just lost in the most embarrassing fashion to the Maple Leafs. If you saw the game, you wouldn't be surprised but you would probably be very saddened by the lack of effort put forth by tonight.
My question is: Who is going to pay for all these games in which no effort was shown whatsoever? Don't tell me everything is going to be all happy-go-lucky after this nightmare......Someone is going to be in trouble for this. Someone has to be. I'm still hesitant to jump on the "fire Carbo" bandwagon that has sprung up and yet, maybe the reality is that he's not the best person for this job in particular. But then again, maybe he's doing everything possible and yet the guys can't get it together. I don't know. I don't know what goes on in everyone's minds. I wish I did because I'm struggling greatly to understand what's going on.
I just know that they can't seem to control the bleeding right now. The wound has just been ripped open and blood is now gushing all over the part of every Habs fan who cares about this team in a gory mess. I'm not about to give credit to the Leafs for creating this nightmare. This nightmare began a long time ago and somehow we've been able to push it away and pretend it's not happening.
Later:
I understand completely that most of this nightmare has been born out of the idea of the centennial year. And I'm starting to feel bitter towards the people who came up with this idea. I heard someone say that they enjoyed watching this team a lot more last year when no one expected them to be good. Now that everyone expects them to be good (and they can't deliver on it because it's a totally unrealistic expectation) it's not as much fun to watch them. I wouldn't know if things were anymore fun last year. I wasn't watching them. But it's very difficult to get past "the label" that has been placed on this year no matter how hard anyone tries. And I'm not finding this fun anymore.
I think Kovalev actually got something right when he said that he's been trying too hard and it's completely backfiring on him. We view it as Kovalev looking completely out of it and not trying at all. He sees it as he's trying too hard and trying to get too complicated with things. You know what? I think this is not just Kovalev's problem. I think the same problem is happening to the whole team and everyone involved with this team. They're trying too hard. It's THE YEAR so everyone has to be better than they were last year. Not just better than last year, either. They have to be "the best". I still don't think that these guys aren't trying out there. I think they care. I think they care a lot. The problem is the expectations on this team to be "the best" are too high and it's killing this team.
Blergh.... I'm off to sleep.... I'm not making any sense anymore....not that I ever was making any sense before.....
Yes people, the Habs just lost in the most embarrassing fashion to the Maple Leafs. If you saw the game, you wouldn't be surprised but you would probably be very saddened by the lack of effort put forth by tonight.
My question is: Who is going to pay for all these games in which no effort was shown whatsoever? Don't tell me everything is going to be all happy-go-lucky after this nightmare......Someone is going to be in trouble for this. Someone has to be. I'm still hesitant to jump on the "fire Carbo" bandwagon that has sprung up and yet, maybe the reality is that he's not the best person for this job in particular. But then again, maybe he's doing everything possible and yet the guys can't get it together. I don't know. I don't know what goes on in everyone's minds. I wish I did because I'm struggling greatly to understand what's going on.
I just know that they can't seem to control the bleeding right now. The wound has just been ripped open and blood is now gushing all over the part of every Habs fan who cares about this team in a gory mess. I'm not about to give credit to the Leafs for creating this nightmare. This nightmare began a long time ago and somehow we've been able to push it away and pretend it's not happening.
Later:
I understand completely that most of this nightmare has been born out of the idea of the centennial year. And I'm starting to feel bitter towards the people who came up with this idea. I heard someone say that they enjoyed watching this team a lot more last year when no one expected them to be good. Now that everyone expects them to be good (and they can't deliver on it because it's a totally unrealistic expectation) it's not as much fun to watch them. I wouldn't know if things were anymore fun last year. I wasn't watching them. But it's very difficult to get past "the label" that has been placed on this year no matter how hard anyone tries. And I'm not finding this fun anymore.
I think Kovalev actually got something right when he said that he's been trying too hard and it's completely backfiring on him. We view it as Kovalev looking completely out of it and not trying at all. He sees it as he's trying too hard and trying to get too complicated with things. You know what? I think this is not just Kovalev's problem. I think the same problem is happening to the whole team and everyone involved with this team. They're trying too hard. It's THE YEAR so everyone has to be better than they were last year. Not just better than last year, either. They have to be "the best". I still don't think that these guys aren't trying out there. I think they care. I think they care a lot. The problem is the expectations on this team to be "the best" are too high and it's killing this team.
Blergh.... I'm off to sleep.... I'm not making any sense anymore....not that I ever was making any sense before.....
Lightning win 3-1 *dies a horrible death*
Thursday, December 11, 2008
To sum it up in one word: Abysmal. I'm sure there were moments that weren't awful. I just missed most of them.
Carbo's got quite the list of embarassing games going on now. Funny enough - or maybe not - these games all involve the Habs playing loser teams. There's something going on with the Habbies and their inability to string a few really good performances together. I don't know exactly what's going on with that but I have a suspicion that it may involve letting the opposing team's ranking or reputation affect them. Take for example that little debacle in Toronto. The last time the Habs beat them 6-1. Easy. Then whoops, they come out and play like crap and they get beaten 6-3. They follow that up with a shutout against Ottawa which was then followed up with a horrendous display of hockey against Boston who they had routinely beat last year. Bi-polar tendancies? I was just getting started. After beating the defending Stanley Cup champions 3-1, the Habs then lose 3-0 to an AHL filled Capitals team. It goes on and on and on...The Habs need to stop letting the rank and reputation of the other team affect them and they need to just get out there and play their game. I think it was Josh Gorges who said before the game that they needed to just stick to their game plan. Well, I'll bet you anything that losing like that was not part of the game plan.
First period. I sincerely hope that this is not a sign of how the rest of the game is going to go. After Brisebois scored about five or so minutes in - on a power play I may add, just to make things sound better than they are - it was all Lightning for the rest of the period. Martin St Louis and Vincent Lacavalier scored on Halak while the Habs snoozed. St. Louis's goal in particular was unbeliveably stupid because he was pratically going at Halak alone while everyone else was in another city. It was back to playing stupid with Halak in nets while the Lightning clearly were trying a heck of a lot harder. The Habs did exactly what I thought they would do tonight and that was to take the Lightning lightly and the result is now a 2-1 lead for the stupid bottom ranked team. I hope they wake up soon and get scoring. The good news at least is the Lightning held a 2-0 lead on the Sabres then other night and they ended up losing 4-2. As we're in theory supposed to be better than the Lightning..... we should be able to pull out of this and win. If we
wake the heck up.
Second period. Well, that sucked big time. Not only can the Habs not score on the powerplay they give up goals on their powerplays. A huge mistake by the defense allowed St. Louis to grab the puck and get a breakaway and promptly scored. I'm beginning to despair at how badly the Habbies are being tonight. As they say, it's not over 'till it's over or some grammatically incorrect form of that...
Third. Now it's over. 3-1 for the Lightning. Oh boy, I really don't want to read the papers tomorrow... I missed the last six minutes because my dogs insisted that I remove myself from the TV but from the 14 mins that I did see, it was terrible. The Lightning completely shut down the Habs who just couldn't keep it together and out of their own zone. The Habs made a lot of stupid errors that gave the puck to the Lightning.
The whole game from start to finish was terrible except for that one goal on the powerplay which was beautiful. The rest was ugly. Everything from the gazillion penalties to the dozens of fights that kept breaking out to the stupid officials who were completely blind tonight to the idiots who can't properly report on what time the game starts (luckily I was feeling really lazy last night and turned on the TV at 7 instead of 7:30 like the game was supposedly going to start at). Again, I can't help but feel totally bad for Halak right now. He's a good goalie. He deserves a much better effort in front of him than what he got. Okay, so maybe he wasn't as good tonight as he was against the Flames but honestly, what are you supposed to do when a guy gets a breakaway like that?
The Habs went into this thinking that they could come away with an easy win and instead they got handed a 3-1 loss that was completely preventable. Ick. I think the Habs were hurting too with the losses of Komisarek, Dandenault and Higgins tonight. The defense was pretty icky tonight. The offense was not very good either though they did create a few good chances (unfortunately, a few chances wasn't good enough). And apparently Koivu will possibly be out now too with some injury. I would say we're borderlined doomed at this point but then again... what do I know about this game? I do know that with three people named Alex (didn't you know that they pulled up a guy called Alexandre Giroux and he scored against Boston?) scoring goals for the Capitals like crazy, I'm seriously concerned about how things are going to go Saturday. Forget Saturday, the Habs could be in serious trouble right now with possibly four of their good players out.
In complete contrast, the Penguins beat the Islanders 9-2. See? That's how you beat losers. I love you Pittsburgh.... kinda... though I still wish that the Habs could have borrowed a couple of those....
Carbo's got quite the list of embarassing games going on now. Funny enough - or maybe not - these games all involve the Habs playing loser teams. There's something going on with the Habbies and their inability to string a few really good performances together. I don't know exactly what's going on with that but I have a suspicion that it may involve letting the opposing team's ranking or reputation affect them. Take for example that little debacle in Toronto. The last time the Habs beat them 6-1. Easy. Then whoops, they come out and play like crap and they get beaten 6-3. They follow that up with a shutout against Ottawa which was then followed up with a horrendous display of hockey against Boston who they had routinely beat last year. Bi-polar tendancies? I was just getting started. After beating the defending Stanley Cup champions 3-1, the Habs then lose 3-0 to an AHL filled Capitals team. It goes on and on and on...The Habs need to stop letting the rank and reputation of the other team affect them and they need to just get out there and play their game. I think it was Josh Gorges who said before the game that they needed to just stick to their game plan. Well, I'll bet you anything that losing like that was not part of the game plan.
First period. I sincerely hope that this is not a sign of how the rest of the game is going to go. After Brisebois scored about five or so minutes in - on a power play I may add, just to make things sound better than they are - it was all Lightning for the rest of the period. Martin St Louis and Vincent Lacavalier scored on Halak while the Habs snoozed. St. Louis's goal in particular was unbeliveably stupid because he was pratically going at Halak alone while everyone else was in another city. It was back to playing stupid with Halak in nets while the Lightning clearly were trying a heck of a lot harder. The Habs did exactly what I thought they would do tonight and that was to take the Lightning lightly and the result is now a 2-1 lead for the stupid bottom ranked team. I hope they wake up soon and get scoring. The good news at least is the Lightning held a 2-0 lead on the Sabres then other night and they ended up losing 4-2. As we're in theory supposed to be better than the Lightning..... we should be able to pull out of this and win. If we
wake the heck up.
Second period. Well, that sucked big time. Not only can the Habs not score on the powerplay they give up goals on their powerplays. A huge mistake by the defense allowed St. Louis to grab the puck and get a breakaway and promptly scored. I'm beginning to despair at how badly the Habbies are being tonight. As they say, it's not over 'till it's over or some grammatically incorrect form of that...
Third. Now it's over. 3-1 for the Lightning. Oh boy, I really don't want to read the papers tomorrow... I missed the last six minutes because my dogs insisted that I remove myself from the TV but from the 14 mins that I did see, it was terrible. The Lightning completely shut down the Habs who just couldn't keep it together and out of their own zone. The Habs made a lot of stupid errors that gave the puck to the Lightning.
The whole game from start to finish was terrible except for that one goal on the powerplay which was beautiful. The rest was ugly. Everything from the gazillion penalties to the dozens of fights that kept breaking out to the stupid officials who were completely blind tonight to the idiots who can't properly report on what time the game starts (luckily I was feeling really lazy last night and turned on the TV at 7 instead of 7:30 like the game was supposedly going to start at). Again, I can't help but feel totally bad for Halak right now. He's a good goalie. He deserves a much better effort in front of him than what he got. Okay, so maybe he wasn't as good tonight as he was against the Flames but honestly, what are you supposed to do when a guy gets a breakaway like that?
The Habs went into this thinking that they could come away with an easy win and instead they got handed a 3-1 loss that was completely preventable. Ick. I think the Habs were hurting too with the losses of Komisarek, Dandenault and Higgins tonight. The defense was pretty icky tonight. The offense was not very good either though they did create a few good chances (unfortunately, a few chances wasn't good enough). And apparently Koivu will possibly be out now too with some injury. I would say we're borderlined doomed at this point but then again... what do I know about this game? I do know that with three people named Alex (didn't you know that they pulled up a guy called Alexandre Giroux and he scored against Boston?) scoring goals for the Capitals like crazy, I'm seriously concerned about how things are going to go Saturday. Forget Saturday, the Habs could be in serious trouble right now with possibly four of their good players out.
In complete contrast, the Penguins beat the Islanders 9-2. See? That's how you beat losers. I love you Pittsburgh.... kinda... though I still wish that the Habs could have borrowed a couple of those....
Time to pick a new team!
Monday, November 24, 2008
I was actually going to say that I thought that the Habs did well tonight all things considered. "Was" being the operative word here. After leading the Islanders 3-1, the PK unit went to sleep tonight and the Islanders got in another goal. I could have lived with that if the Habs had either scored more or if they had just hung onto that tiny icky lead. But nooooo. The Habs had to make my hockey life a mess by losing. They somehow managed to completely ruin their chances of winning the match by promptly scoring on themselves. Price left the net when the Islanders were called for some penalty and they - okay, Ryan O'Byrne - promptly accidently scored on the empty net. I mean HELLO?! What in the name of the crappy ice was that? And yes, the ice seemed to be crappy again. I don't know what's going on there, but this is the third game that I've noticed them playing in the Bell Center where there seems to be something wrong with the ice. Either that or no one remembered how to skate and control the puck. I guess it's possible but I still think it's the ice. Doesn't happen when they lose err play in other arenas. Anyway, once that stupid event happened, it was lights out from then on as they went to OT and the lost in shootouts. There was no way that they should have lost that match - game, whatever. No way. Boston I can understand. They're second in the whole league now. But this???!!!!! And the way we lost it?!!!! I mean c'mon.... how stupid can you be to score on yourself like that? I know it was an accident and I refuse to put all the blame for the loss on O'Byrne. Accidents happen. That was not what cost them the game. The Islanders gave the Habs every chance to beat them 5-0 tonight. Every chance. But what do they do? Die in when the Islanders had a power play, miss the net a lot (there's only so much credit I can give to the Islanders for blocking shots) and roll over and die when a stupid accident happens. There should have been no need to go to shootouts....no need! I really feel for O'Byrne right now. He's going to get it a lot by a lot of people which isn't fair.
I thought for the most part the offense had it together (Tanguay looked dead though) and the defense was good until the Islanders got a power play. What happened to that great PK when we played the Wild? Okay, that was a while ago, but it was good. Tonight wasn't. If that whole little debacle hadn't happened at the end then I would have almost said it went really well. I mean, yeah they looked good for a lot of it but then again, we were playing one of the worst teams in the league... I think the effort was good on both sides. If the Habs could just fix the PP issue and pretend the PK didn't die, then I think this game could be looked upon in a fairly positive note.
All that being said, I think I may just have to skip what will probably be a totally mauling by the Red Wings...hockey is proving bad for my nerves! I wonder if it will end up worse than the totally stomping that San Jose gave to Washington. 7-2?! Against a team that has Ovechkin and Semin? Not cool....
Oh and before you start blasting me for the title, I was actually thinking of picking a team in the KHL to follow. I want to practice my non-existant Russian. Metallurg Magnitogorsk is looking interesting. They're sitting in 5th out of.. I think 25 or 26. Malkin played for them before splitting for the NHL. Maybe Dyanamo Mascow..... We'll see... Lugano plays tomorrow against Zug again. Haha, I love these European teams.
I thought for the most part the offense had it together (Tanguay looked dead though) and the defense was good until the Islanders got a power play. What happened to that great PK when we played the Wild? Okay, that was a while ago, but it was good. Tonight wasn't. If that whole little debacle hadn't happened at the end then I would have almost said it went really well. I mean, yeah they looked good for a lot of it but then again, we were playing one of the worst teams in the league... I think the effort was good on both sides. If the Habs could just fix the PP issue and pretend the PK didn't die, then I think this game could be looked upon in a fairly positive note.
All that being said, I think I may just have to skip what will probably be a totally mauling by the Red Wings...hockey is proving bad for my nerves! I wonder if it will end up worse than the totally stomping that San Jose gave to Washington. 7-2?! Against a team that has Ovechkin and Semin? Not cool....
Oh and before you start blasting me for the title, I was actually thinking of picking a team in the KHL to follow. I want to practice my non-existant Russian. Metallurg Magnitogorsk is looking interesting. They're sitting in 5th out of.. I think 25 or 26. Malkin played for them before splitting for the NHL. Maybe Dyanamo Mascow..... We'll see... Lugano plays tomorrow against Zug again. Haha, I love these European teams.
What's beyond "beyond awful"?
Thursday, November 13, 2008
For the past half an hour I've been trying to come up with a good way of starting this off. I couldn't think of one so I'll give you all three that I came up with. 1) I will not hear of anyone saying that the Habs aren't consistant. Surely no one will doubt that we're consistantly up and down like a roller-coster. 2) I have no idea how Carbo is going to describe this one. Surely this has to be worse than the "most embarassing game" he's ever coached on Saturday. I mean, how do you go from losing 6-3 (which was awful) to winning 4-0 (which was great) to losing 6-1? Your guess is as good as mine. 3) There's just no words to describe how badly it went tonight. That never stopped me though.
Get the picture, yet? Anyway, moving on to the actual game...let's just say from the very first minute, it was sadly apparent that the Habs were going to die tonight. There was nothing there. If I hadn't known any better I would have said that the Habs turned into the Islanders on a bad* night en rout to Boston. It was like a totally different team on the ice tonight. Defense was dead, ofense didn't do a heck of a lot, and Price....he was pretty awful tonight too. Usually I'm pretty lenient towards Price, because I generally think he does a good job while everyone else seems to die. But tonight, he's to blame just as much. There were a few awful goals that he really should have had but didn't. I have no idea what happened other than Boston came out like a team that had something to prove - which they did, considering they hadn't beat the Habs in the regular season in over a year- and Montreal played like a team who partied too much after the shutout against the Sens. The result was a pathetic 6-1 win by the Bruins. I mean, the Habs seemed to hardly touch the puck all night. According to the stats however, they did register 28 shots on goal or something to that effect (felt like only 2 shots from my angle).
I'm so glad I'm not Carbo right now...or anyone else on the team...
*lets face it, the Islanders have been good when they have a good night.
Oh and...Pittsburgh won against Philadelphia in a gazillion rounds of shootouts... thank you, Pittsburgh...even though I was ready to kill you when it looked like you were losing against the Flyers...
And... yeah... i'm sounding like a broken record but I'm dying here and saying this makes me feel better: Please win Roger....!!!
Get the picture, yet? Anyway, moving on to the actual game...let's just say from the very first minute, it was sadly apparent that the Habs were going to die tonight. There was nothing there. If I hadn't known any better I would have said that the Habs turned into the Islanders on a bad* night en rout to Boston. It was like a totally different team on the ice tonight. Defense was dead, ofense didn't do a heck of a lot, and Price....he was pretty awful tonight too. Usually I'm pretty lenient towards Price, because I generally think he does a good job while everyone else seems to die. But tonight, he's to blame just as much. There were a few awful goals that he really should have had but didn't. I have no idea what happened other than Boston came out like a team that had something to prove - which they did, considering they hadn't beat the Habs in the regular season in over a year- and Montreal played like a team who partied too much after the shutout against the Sens. The result was a pathetic 6-1 win by the Bruins. I mean, the Habs seemed to hardly touch the puck all night. According to the stats however, they did register 28 shots on goal or something to that effect (felt like only 2 shots from my angle).
I'm so glad I'm not Carbo right now...or anyone else on the team...
*lets face it, the Islanders have been good when they have a good night.
Oh and...Pittsburgh won against Philadelphia in a gazillion rounds of shootouts... thank you, Pittsburgh...even though I was ready to kill you when it looked like you were losing against the Flyers...
And... yeah... i'm sounding like a broken record but I'm dying here and saying this makes me feel better: Please win Roger....!!!
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