Canucks vs Sabres: we're only following this because of Flandersdude

What? I don't have any pics of him!

• Okay so some random Sabres guy just called the Canucks the "Can-ooks". Canooks. Canooks. Canooks. Canooks. It has a nice ring to it. Canooks. Canooks. Canooks. Canooks. Canooks. Canooks. Canooks. Ca... you get the idea.... 
• And............ the guy who does the anthems in Vancouver drives me nuts. 
• I do not like Sabres/Canucks games. 
• AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE FLANDERSDUDE ON THE RADIO. This is way too weird. 
• Oh... there's Moosies playing for the Canucks tonight. If Flanderdude doesn't get confused, I will for sure! 
• Seriously, the Canucks better win this game but damnit, I will personally scream at all of the Sabres if they don't score. For Flandersdude's sake, you know? 
• I'm still confuzzled. Gaustad is definitely not a Hammie...!! And Baumgartner is not a Moosie tonight....? Confuzzlement.... D: D: D:  
• I think I'm way too excited for this game. Seriously.....
• I liked Flandersdude saying that the Hammies goalies were awesome better. I don't care if Miller is awesome. Guh....   
• "He missed by centimeters errr inches". Measuring system fail... Reason No. 327918732891 why Flandersdude should stay in Canada: so he doesn't need to learn the funny American measuring system. 
• You know Flandersdude is awesome when (part 23516781):  EP is actually interested in this random Sabres/Canucks game and is actually considering cheering for the Sabres. Yikes.... 
• These Sabres adds are kind of funny... especially when I was just memorizing the Hammies ones.... 
• Oh for crying out loud, Luongo, just let in a damn goal. Just one! 
• Adding to the confusion (part 34567): commercial for some event on Niagara on the lake in ONTARIO. iayudiadyuoiaqduoaidhkasdhklahd!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Miller is coming up with some big stops. Whoohoo! I mean.... Boohoo......!!! BAD MILLER.

What a confusing period.... o.<  on to the second (gotta stay up until the Sabres score, right?).

• I really hope the Sabres score quickly because it's getting late here and I'm tired....... 
• How many times is this other guy going to say that we've got two of the best goalies in the world playing tonight? This is like the 216873192 time he's said it already......... 
• Let's go Sabres, let's go! *clap clap clap* 
• I really wish Flandersdude could take over from Moffat. I feel so dirty cheering for the Sabres. 
• "AND THEY SCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!"
  WHOOOOHOOOOOOOO! GO SABRES GO! WE CAN ALL GO HOME HAPPY NOW. WHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• .....................................I mean... freaking hell.. C'MON CANOOKS. TIE IT UP. TIE IT UP. NOW. NOW. NOW. Stupid freaking Sabres. Damnit. hfakjgdgdasdfrgtplkm............
• Wait, why does TSN say that the game is tied?! My radio feed is behind?! HUH?! *waits* 
• .... waiting.....
• .....waiting...............
• YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY TIED GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   GO CANOOKS GO. 
• ...........hmmm maybe the Sabres can have one more goal? Just one more? For Flandersdude? *smacks self* nononono Hammies will show their appreciation for Flandersdude by scoring at least five goals in Rockford on Wednesday and he can yell "and they scoooooooooooore" all night. Yes. Yes. Yes. 
• Feel free to win the game now, Canooks. 
• Creepy Sedin Twin for the wiiiiiiiiiiiiin! 2-1!!!!! YEAH BABY. I mean... Flandersdude isn't overly pleased with this. Poor guy. Blame Miller. It's all Miller's fault. BAD MILLER. 
• CAN YOU TELL I'M STILL OVERLY EXCITED FOR THIS STUPID GAME? 
• GO SABRES GO. GO CANOOKS GO. GO SABRES GO. GO CANOOKS GO. 
• Luuu is robbing the Sabres. Whoohoo!
• Sabres take a penalty and Flandersdude isn't happy. Stop being a homer. 
• OH C'MON YOU STUPID REFS! THAT HAS TO COUNT AS A SHORTY FOR THE SABRES. FLANDERSDUDE WANTS IT TO BE A GOAL.Baaaaaaaaaah..................... DAMN YOU FRASER. 
• Oh the bright side, the Canooks get a 5 on 3 power play out of it because the Sabres supposedly crosschecked a Canook.  Go Canooks go!!! GO GO GO GO GO GO!
• End of the second... 

intermission notes: Wyshynski of puckdaddy tweets: "I just want to point out that based on the comedic tweets from the fan bases tonight, I want a #sabres vs. #canucks SCF more than ice cream." To which I immediately thought "but Taylor Hall doesn't eat ice cream. He just scores goals." Oh thank you, Pierre McGuire for coming up with completely random crap that I just can't forget.

• Flandersdude is sounding good. I think Canada needs to apply pressure on the Americans to not allow him to get his papers to work in the USA. We need to keep him here!!!!
• WHOOOOOOHOOOOOOOO AND THEY SCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE for real!!!!!! Mr. ColoUr Commentator Guy interrupts Flandersdude before he can finish his whole "so and so does whatever to put the puck past whichever goalie it is" thing which follows the whole "and they scoooooooooooore" bit. Not cool.....
• Also not cool, is the fact that the Sabres are pressing now. C'MON CANOOKS. 
• Someone scores for the Canoooooooooooooooks! 3-2! GO CANOOKS GO!
• I have a major headache right now.... Boohooo.... no headache no! 
• Uhuh... Flandersdude, we don't want to know that the Pirates will be playing those Bloody Amerks at HSwhateverletterscomenext arena. Although... I'm SURE we can all agree on this: BOOOOOOOO AMERKS BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Bwahahahahahah *runs away*
• I do believe Flandersdude is enjoying himself right now. It's quite the exciting game going on right now. Lots of action in this game. 
• blah blah blah Miller with a save. Blah blah blah blah Luongo with a save. Blah blah blah.... 
• Flandersdude did a heck of a lot of research for this.... he's spewing random stuff about draft picks from a gazillion years ago now. 
• 1 min left. GO CANOOKS. GO CANOOKS. I'M STILL A HABS FAN FIRST, DAMNIT. 
• YES CANOOKS WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Deal with it Sabres! 
• Good job everyone. Exciting game. Great job Flandersdude! Now get the next flight out of there and head off to Rockford! 

Did I just write up a whole damn post on a Canucks/Sabres game? WOW...............................! 

On a losing streak? I've got a cue for you!

Is your team on a losing streak? Do they need a big confidence booster? Or maybe you just feel like smashing someone to bits?

Well, I have the answer for you! All you need to do is have your team play the Montreal Canadiens and "poof!" all your problems will be solved.

For the past two years, the Montreal Canadiens have been able to cure slumping teams. Notable starting the Philadelphia Flyers on a five game winning streak, making the Toronto Maple Leafs feel good by completely demolishing their main rivals and giving Team Canada's number one choice for goalie at the 2010 Winter Olympics renewed confidence after a less than desirable start to the season.

Call now at 1-800-069-1993 and book your time for the Habs to play your team. But hurry up, space is limited!

.....

I mean, I guess it could've been worse. It's not like we're the defending champs and got blanked by the Coyotes or something... And no, I don't have a fix for the Habs when they're on a losing streak.

JARO STEALS A SHUTOUT!!!!!!!!

Okay, so honestly, that's not fair. Halak didn't steal a thing. He deserved this win and he more than deserved this shutout. Oh yes, it was the Jaroslav Halak show again tonight. While the rest of his team skated around like as though they were still asleep, Halak was busy fending off the big scary Canucks which included the creepy scoring duo of Henrik and.... what's the other brother's name? Daniel? Whatever. Halak stopped them all including a few oddman rushes and a breakaway on... one of the Sedin twins. The "Big Swede" himself had a great chance which he couldn't capitalize on. Yay for Jaro! Way to show those annoying Swedes who's the boss!

What can I say about the game? Hmm... Habs looked sleepy at times but they also had some good moments and some great moments (most of which belonged to Jaro. Yes, I'm being biased right now. Sue me!). Powerplay couldn't get a rhythm going except for in the middle of a five minute one in which Markov scored the team's second goal of the night. Penalty kill was perfect tonight - and Halak was the center of said perfection. I'm tempted to say that the defense was awful but that's not really true. They had some great moments - especially on a powerplay in which the Canucks started off with a four minute 5 on 4 and ended up spending half of that 5 on 3 - and some bad moments which thankfully didn't turn into anything. The end of the Canucks "amazing powerplay that did nothing" resulted in Koivu getting the puck to Plekanec who went in alone on Luongo and buried it for the Habs' first goal. That was great and I'm sure the Canucks were hitting themselves upside the head for that one. Lapierre would add an empty netter at the end of the game.

The bloggers seem to either think that Halak alone was great and the rest sucked or everyone put up a big effort tonight. I think it's somewhere inbetween. You can't deny that there were some costly mistakes by the Habs that should have turned into goals for the Canucks and if Halak hadn't been so with it.....The Habs seemed pretty dozy for a lot of it and most of the play was concentrated in the Habs own end. And c'mon, the Habs can't blame the refs for all of those penalties.... just a couple.

• Stewart is sooo slooooow.... But I want to keep him because he's like a mini version of the Laraque that we wanted. Kind of. He hits everything and everyone in sight and he sticks up for his teammates. And he's not afraid to fight. Keeeeeeep hiiiiiiim.
  
• Kovalev needs to stop hitting the post.....He would have made the score 4-0...... grrr.....
• Two people that I would not want to be today are Luongo and Price. Luongo because his team dominated the Habs like crazy and yet he was the one who let in two goals. And Price because... well... At one point there was footage of the crowd bowing down to Halak. So. Yeah. No one was thinking of poor Pricey tonight. Poor guy.
• I think while the offense was a little passive, the defense worked pretty well actually. Any time when the defense isn't obstructing their own goalie is good *g*
  
• They did win a fair amount of faceoffs which is very good news.
  
• the PP was pretty bad but the PK worked wonderfully
  
• The crowd was noisy. Must have been insane there.
  
• Sundin being booed is funny to listen to for some reason....
• Someone should tell the Habs that you're supposed to hit the puck (you know, the little thing on the ice) not the other guy's face.
• Oh and thanks Breezer for saving Halak's hopes of a shutout!

I need to sleeeeeeep now. I'm being very random now.... *g* On a whole the game probably was better than I keep thinking it was. RDS just replayed Pleky's goal and I'm all smiles again... so yeah... nice win to have.... love you Jaro!

Enemy watch: Caps died and Flyers beat them 4-2 (do I really need to rant about this one?!) Ducks didn't get shot down and won 4-3 over the Sabres. Sens did something useful and squashed the Hurricanes. Almost perfect. Stupid Flyers though....

Here come the Canucks. Again.

First thing's first though....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KOVY!

Anyway......

Maybe the Canucks will play like they did against the Maple Losers? I can always hope, right? But more importantly, I really hope that Carbo realizes that none of his goalies are going to have a good chance at helping their team if they continually have to face 50 shots a night. I love Halak. And I love Price a lot too. But really.... the rest of the team could be helpful and try to get shots on the other goalie too, you know? And I'm pretty sure that Price would have won if he had played against the Sens and think how much better he could be feeling about himself if he had won there? Anyway....Luongo better not be bored out of his mind tonight like he was last time (I'm sure I wasn't the only one who thought it was funny that the Habs were using a goalie from BC who was playing against a goalie from Montreal last time?). It's pointless to say "these are big points". They're all big now. Habs need to win. End of story.

Tonight cheer for Habs, Ovie err I mean, the Capitals (die FLYERS), Boston (yes, Boston needs to beat Florida), Anaheim (because the Sabres need to lose), and maybe the Sens because they have no hope of making the playoffs and the Hurricanes do. Am I hoping for too much for the Sens to beat the Hurricanes?

Random look at the goalies playing today

So I'm still looking to kill time before the puck drops but I figured that I'd at least do something interesting and look at who's in nets today. I just noticed that some of my favorite and absolutely least favorite goalies are playing today.

Halak's getting the start today. I got to see him live when I went to Sensville and since then I've quite fallen in love with watching him play. If we're lucky he'll put up a good performance and the rest of the Habs will follow him. I'll keep on maintaining until he messes up badly that he's been solid for them on most nights and most of his losses haven't been totally his fault.

Haven't got a clue who's in nets for the Sens but I"m thinking that it's not whoever was in nets against the Canucks *g*

Fleury is currently enjoying a lot of success as the Pens are now up 3-1 over the Biron and the Flyers. Fleury has to be one of my favorite goalies for no real reason whatsoever so it's nice to see him doing well....even if the game is going the way I didn't want it to happen...On the other hand, I'm actually taking some delight in seeing Biron struggling big time. Serves him right for randomly being amazing during the playoffs against the listless Habs. When will the Flyers figure out that his performance in the playoffs was a bit of a fluke and that they need to find themselves a solid goalie?

And my least favorite goalie is also going to play tonight. Vesa will take on Sundin and the creepy twins in Toronto tonight. If Chris Osgood is the falling goalie and Tim Thomas is the flailing goalie, then Vesa Toskala has to be the goalie who forgot how big the net is. The amount of times I've seen him leave the net half open or actually fall completely out of the crease is crazy. I still think that Ron Wilson should put Luke Schenn in as the goalie. He does a lot better job of stopping the puck....

Ahem... Habs are about to play. Richards just scored a shorthanded goal on Fleury. Poor Fleury...

Saturday morning ramble

First sign that the world has turned upside down. It's Saturday and that usually means hockey. Today, I'm quite hyped about the game today. No, not the Stinky Sens vs. the Listless Habbies. I'm talking about Vancouver vs the Maple Losers. I know, I know.... I'm horrid.... but...but...but... if the Canucks behave nicely then they'll decimate the Leafs and there's nothing I like more than watching the Leafs lose. Except to see the Habs win but umm, I have a feeling that I'm going to get embarrassed beyond belief today. Anyway... Hey Sundin, I may for about two second, actually like you. For two seconds only. Maybe.

Second sign that the world has turned upside down. Anyone else see/hear the Hammies beating in the Marlies aka the baby Leafnuts last night? Hammies almost own the Marlies this season... Whoopie for the Hammies! Sergei, unfortunately failed to score.....C'mon Sergei.... show everyone that you're not the off-ice-partying nutcase that everyone thinks you are.

Third sign that the...etc.... Flyers vs Pens. Love you Pens (hate you Crosby) but for the sake of all Habs fans out there, please lose Pens. Yes, I said, please win Flyers. Wow....sowwy Pens.....

Fourth sign etc, etc...Avs smacked Ovechkin and the Caps upside the head and win 4-1 last night. Ovie didn't score and didn't even get a point. And this is coming from the guy who just scored what many are saying is the goal of the century? C'mon, Ovie.... you gotta back that goal up with something at least half as impressive.... sheesh....

Did you know....That of the four teams that went off to Europe last year, three have fired their coaches? If you remember that far back the Sens, Pens, Lightning and Rangers all went to play in front of a bunch of people who had no clue who they were. As you know, Barry Melrose, Hartsburg and Therrien are now jobless. Well, actually, Melrose isn't jobless technically, but since when does talking about hockey for ESPN count as a job? Anyway, Renney could be next if the Rangers continue on this path of horrendousness. Isn't that fun?

Fiftieth sign that the Habs are imploding...Kovalev appears to have been sick with something for a while now. He didn't tell anyone up until.....now? Bad Kovy. FREAKING TELL SOMEONE IF YOU'VE GOT A PHYSICAL PROBLEM! Bad Kovy..... very bad Kovy.....Who do you think you are? Roger Federer?! And look what happened to him last year.... Sheesh.....

Fifty-first sign that the Habs are imploding: Andrei and Hamrlik didn't get to talk to the hordes of media peeps that invaded the practice center. That's not cool. They should have been able to say something, yes? Even if it was a "I'd rather not comment" type of thing. Hiding 'em won't save them from the media....

Fifty-second sign that the Habs are imploding: My relative (Section 311) says that the Habs are looking like the Sens last year. What's next, someone will accuse the Habs of turning into the Leafnuts? The shame and horror of it all....!

And finally......

My dream day: Flyers edge out Pens. Habs decimate Sens. Canucks decimate Leafs. How hard is it for that to happen?!

What will probably happen: Flyers decimate Pens. Sens decimate Habs. Leafs edge out Canucks...... *sighs*

Twins are creepy

I don't care what sport you're talking about. Tennis, hockey, whatever. TWINS ARE CREEPY. I hope they get knocked out before the Canucks come to the Bell Center next because they creep me out completely....

Surprisingly my head is pain free considering the score finished 4-2 in favor of the Canucks.

I wish only the second half of the third period counted tonight. I thought there was a marked improvement in how they played for most of the third period compared to how they've been playing over the last month. They were skating hard, they were battling hard. They even got a goal!

Unfortunately 10 minutes of playing well doesn't make for a win.

50 minutes of bad playing equals four goals by the pesky Canucks (do the Canucks have a three letter or four letter nickname like the rest of the teams out there do?) and only one from the Habbies which amazing in and of itself considering they had all of.... well, it felt like two shots on goal but I think it was a couple more than that. Halak wasn't terrible and actually I think he came up with some huge saves to keep it from being 10-1 for the Canucks. I won't yap on about this loss because I feel that if the Habs continue from where they ended this game then we should be seeing some Ws soon. Then again the record setting Caps are up so we may in fact be doomed.

Oh well. At least I won't be up to some ungodly hour when they lose err play the Caps. Whoooopieeeeeee......Oh well. I've made my peace with this season so it's all good. Sorta. I may just be moving on to stage eight. And am taking it well considering my brain is dead. Whoopie. More coherent post coming in the morning.

Oh and byebye Therrien. I'm only slightly surprised that you got the boot but really, what did you expect after your team's latest embarrassing loss? One day someone will put the blame on the GM for some of this but for today it's all your fault. Sowwy.

To sleep I go. ZzZzZzZz......

Tomorrow:

What we learned from this game:

• Odd man rushes are bad
• Dozy offense that keeps getting run over is bad
• not clearing the puck from your own end is bad
• Not shooting the puck towards the goalie is bad
• Brisebois is looking like a genius these last couple of games. That's insane.
• Andrei Kostitsyn needs to shoot the bloody puck more. You are not Kovalev. I repeat, you are not Kovalev. SHOOT THE PUCK! Good things happen to be people you shoot the puck. Usually.
• Kovalev came near to being the latest casualty last night. That's.... probably bad.
• Refs are blind. There is no way that the Canucks didn't derseve at least one penalty last night.
• Putting effort into the game gets you two well earned goals.
• Not putting any effort into the game gets the other team four pretty much undeserved goals.
• Sudin makes my knees hurt. I was pain free before he got onto the ice.
• Lang's perky manner and Plekanec's work ethic that is good but never pays off are being missed a lot right now.
• I still love Halak.

"Yay", "Nooo" and "HAHAHA"

That's pretty much what I was doing tonight as I flipped through three different channels showing three different hockey games. How nice is that? I usually only get two channels of hockey.... My poor mom asked me if there was anything besides hockey on TV. This was when I was only flipping through the first two channels so I changed to another channel and saw the third game on. Guess not. Sorry mom!

We may not care a lot about the international hockey tournaments but...

I,for one, intend on watching the Canada's world juniors team this week. If the their three exhibition games are anything to go by, then Team Canada should have a very good chance at winning their 5th straight juniors title. Yes, I know, the only real competition that they had in these pre-games was from Sweden but they downed them pretty easily. So watching a bunch of teenagers isn't quite as exciting as watching an NHL game BUT it was still great to watch and I still think that Canada has a great shot at the gold again. Yes, I know, I know, how can I make that grand presumption when Team Slovakia just rolled over and died for Canada by getting blanked 7-0? Well, apart from Sweden, the only other team that can really make a serious bid for the gold other than Canada is the USA who's juniors are apparently better than their non-junior team - and for their sake, I hope they are better. Team USA was not good when they played here in the spring. Anyway, it should be interesting to see how Canada handles the games once there's pressure to do perform well. I think they should do okay. A few of the team members including Tavares have experience from last year. Tavares just needs to come up with a way to score that doesn't involve standing on the left side of the net all the time (but after that fancy bit of puck handling to get his second goal tonight, I guess I can't complain if he wants to stand there). Team Canada would have been a lot better if a pile of their good juniors were slugging it out in the NHL already (yes, I'm looking at poor Stamkos and Shehn). Anyway, I'm hoping for the junior team to have more sucess than the Team Canada that got beat in a power play goal in OT to Russia this spring *coughs*

Memo to self: remember to rant about why we don't put much emphasis on the world events in hockey...

Where have the Penguins gone? (this is the "nooo" bit)

Can someone answer that for me? Please? The Pens have won just five out of their last eleven which includes two wins in a shootout and OT. I would have to add that some truly bi-polar playing has gone on in this span. Lets' see, the Pens demolished the Islanders 9-2, then lost 6-3 to the Flyers, then won 6-3 to the Thrashers, which was then followed up by a 7-3 mauling by the Maple Leafs. Yes, the Maple Leafs. And the last two games have seen the Pens win 4-3 in OT and now tonight I am sad to say, the Sidney Crosby's Penguins have just been blanked 2-0 by... wait for it.... TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING! Yes, the very same Lightning that downed the poor Habbies a little while ago. Go figure. Coming off a decent game after getting killed by a truly loser team and with Ryan Whitney now finally back in the lineup, I would have thought that the Penguins would be on track to win tonight. Well, I guess not. The Penguins' offense was truly horrendous tonight and the defense wasn't really all that much better. A stupid turnover at the blueline allowed the the Lightning to grab the puck and after some moneuvering around the net, Matt Pettinger put the puck past Fleury. Oh, this happened in the second period by the way, when the Pens failed on a couple of good chances to score in the first period. It was to get worse though.

According to the stats, the Pens only had 15 shots on goal compared to 29 by the Lightning. Now, really, tell me the last time that the Lightning outscored their opponents. Especially a team as talented as the Pens. It felt like only 15 shots too. The Pens completely failed to keep the puck in the other end for any decent amount of time and bad passing lead to the Lightning taking another swipe at Fleury. That was truly a pathetic display of hockey from the Pens and I'm just praying that either 1) they keep this up until AFTER they play the Habs or 2) they continue the trend and beat the Devils then lose to the Habs. Sorry, Habs come first. Always.

And because I just loooove to see Toronto get beaten....(this is the "HAHAHA" part)

I just have to mention that the lowly Dallas Stars beat the Maple Leafs by a wonderful score or 8-2. Lovely. The only reason why this is so good - other than it's nice to see the Leafs lose - is because Dallas stinks and won't challenge the Habs for a spot. Yes, everything is indeed about the Habs.

Sharks are making mince meat out of Canucks

Before I called it night for the hockey, I did see ten minutes of the Sharks vs Canucks game. And honestly, the poor Canucks have no chance. In ten minutes, I'm not sure if the Canucks even registered a shot on goal while the Sharks scored less than five minutes into the game. Oh dear. It got worse though as the Canucks took three or four straight penalties and the Sharks continued to steam roller over them with two more goals. I know Vancouver got in late to the San Jose but seriously, I don't think that they would have had much of a chance even if they were in top form. Now, if Luongo was in nets maybe it wuld be different but I don't know.

Oh and Ottawa dropped yet another game. This time to the Flyers in their blindingly ugly orange jerseys....

I'm only mentioning this 'cause it just so happened to be on TV. I watched a bit of it inbetween watching team Canada, the Pens and chasing my rabbit around the house. It wasn't a terrible loss. 6-4. That sixth goal came on an empty net with 18 seconds left to go. I guess whatever John Stevens was scribbling on that white board thing of his that he likes to cart around with him, made sense to someone tonight. It's more than I can say for Hartsburg's supposed plan. The Sens could have had a shot at a goal if they hadn't turned over the puck to the Flyers in the most horrendous way possible. Oh well....

And finally: What is it with the Rangers and blowing big leads?

We all know about that game in which the Rangers held a 5-0 lead on the Habs and then promptly dropped said lead in the third period and ultimately lost in OT. C'mon, even I know about that game and I didn't see it. Well, tonight, ladies and gentleman, I offer you another game in which the Rangers blew another big lead. Tonight's game featured the Rangers versus Ovechkin's Washington Capitals. Well, okay, so it's a little unfair to say "Ovechkin's Capitals" because he hasn't really been doing that much. But moving on...

The Rangers came out firing and made Theodore's life very miserable for the first period. In fact, he was replaced with a sick Johnson mid-way through the first period after he allowed 3 goals in 5 shots. Oops. Johnson did not continue however, and Theodore was back in the second period and was to stay there for the remaineder of the game. The Rangers would have one more goal on the ex-Hab before they called it a night and dozed off to sleep. And that was when the Caps decided to come back starting with Ovechkin's goal in the second period. Still, going into the third, the Rangers had to be pretty confident. They were up 4-1 and it wasn't like Theodore was proving to be the top goaltender in the NHL or anything. Oh how wrong they were! The Caps came back with three more goals including the tying goal by... guess who... Yeah, Ovechkin. No Semin. I think he's still injured from something. Anyway, the game went to OT and then it was byebye Rangers. To finish off, a couple of quotes by the players after the game (taken from <here>):

"They stopped playing hockey. They probably believed 4-0 they'd win the game." Coming from the guy who got the first and last goals in regulation time. Someone will be partying tonight.

"We were looking forward to going into the (Christmas) break with two points. I definitely have to forget about this one and move on." A clearly unhappy Lundqivst. He's had quite a few games now that he should just forget about. Poor guy.

And there goes another goalie....

I'm interested in seeing how the New Jersey Devils and the Vancouver Canucks end up at the end of the season. Both teams have relied heavily on their goalies to get them where are they are now. With Brodeur out until the spring almost and Luongo now out for anywhere between 3 and 6 weeks, both teams will now have to come up with a way to find sucess without their star players. New Jersey's problem is a little more worrisome in that they have had the luxury of having Brodeur for a long time and they haven't really - from what I understand - seen the need to find a good solid backup goalie. After losing Brodeur NJ went 1 for 6 before winning their last four in a row. I've yet to determine whether it is because they've finally got a rhythm down or if it's because they were playing the Islanders, Florida and Tampa Bay. They did have a shootout win against Washington so I suppose they has to count for something. It's too early to see how Vancouver will handle the loss of Luongo, but a win over Detroit is a good start. Maybe there is hope for us poor Habs tomorrow? Eh, maybe not.... Anyway, we definitely should not rely one hundred percent on Price because you never know when he's going to be out.... And also, it would be nice to give Halak some ice time too.

Totally forgot to mention that Josh Gorges actually scored a goal last night. The poor guy had yet to score a goal and there was all this talk about his stick being cursed (I sincerely hope that no one was taking it that whole curse thing seriously) and all that jazz but yeah, he scored. We should be celebrating that instead of beating up on O'Byrne. Yup!

More Champions League stuff this week. Real Madrid badly needed a win that would put them closer to top ranked Juventus. A loss would have put them below Bate Borisov and possibly out of contention for the Cup, which really isn't that acceptable. Despite some moments of bad passing that basically handed Bate the ball, I thought they did a good job of putting the pressure on in the first half. Drenthe was great in getting the ball into the other side. If he had just gotten the ball to the other players a little more and if they had then actually hit the ball at the net then there probably would have been more scoring. As it was, Real Madrid sort of fell asleep in the second but they hung on to their earlier first half goal by.... Raul Gonzalez (who's shot was set up by - all together now: Drenthe), I think, and won 1-0. It was snowing in Minsk. I've never actually seen a football match played when there's snow. It was funny. Yeah, I'm easily amused. Liverpool and Chelsea tomorrow. Bwahaha...

Oh. Lugano lost to Zug 5-3. How you lose to a team ranked at the bottom is beyond me.... Well, okay, maybe not... but still... ick...