Happy (belated) birthday, Turtle-Pleky!

Completely forgot to wish him "happy birthday" last night. Happens when you're too busy screaming at the Leafs.

Anyway. Yeah. Happy birthday, Turtle-Pleky. I hope Bob gives you a nice shiny contract because I personally think you deserve it (too bad Gomer can't give you part of his huge salary. That's solve so many problems right there).

Well THAT was scary

Tonight definitely had a Halloweenish feel. We had zombies (Kostitsyn), ghosts (Gomez) and devils (Komisarek). I wasn't fond of the guys masquerading as referees though. They weren't good at all. But anwyay, the Habs got really into the whole thing by wearing their baberpole jerseys too. Scary!

• TSN said that Komisarek said that he and Grabovski were having a conversation about who would get booed the most tonight. I didn't even have to look up at the TV to know that Komisarek had the puck. The crowd was THAT loud.
• Martin curiously decided to play Jaro tonight.....I'm not sure why? 
• Stewie wanted to fight Komisarek. Refs say no. 
• Stewie figures if he can't score then he can at least crash the net. He barreled Vesa right over. 
• Ponikarovsky and Stempniak tallied at the beginning and end of the second period (both PPGs).Nothing to report there.
•  METRO came to our rescue after Ponikarovsky's goal. I WUVS Metro. Okay so Vesa helped by doing this weird standing thing but who cares? I didn't see anyone else throwing pucks at Vesa. 
• The French Marshmallow scored too! Damnit, we'll never hear the end of it. BUT someone should tell him that good things happen when you go to the net. Best game of the season from him. 
• The HMS Hal Gill also had a goal courtesy of Squishy shoving Beauchemin (Squishy shoved Beauchemin, the puck goes off of Beauchemin, Beauchemin goes after Squishy, Vesa falls over and BAM we have a scrum). 
• Somehow the refs deemed it fair to give the Leafs a PP and then we had Stempniak's goal. Meh. 
• Jaro had his solid moments. I really thought he did a good enough job tonight (minus Poni's second goal. He really should have been up higher for that one). 
• Special teams had their moments too. Of complete fail. FIX THIS. 
• Hammer scored in the third without realizing it at first. Oops. 
• Can the Habs stop letting in goals that bounce off their own players? Nobody like it when the puck bounces off two Habs Dmen before bouncing into the back of the net. With a minute to go in the damn game. 
• Also, can we stop singing before the game is finished? BAD KARMA. 
• Jaro stops the Leafs and Vesa fails miserably on two sweet shots by Squishy and Gomer (hi Gomer! Didn't see you all night). Jaro says "YAY!" EP wants to point that he looks really fat in the barberpole jersey. 

Numbery-stat-things...

• There was 34 minutes in penalties assessed tonight. Rather tame, by Habs/Leafs standards. 
• The Habs have taken FOUR delay of game penalties in the last 24 hours. I know the rule sucks, but it's there. Do something about it. 
• I'll stop being mean to Gomer. He won 71% of his faceoffs, tying with Metro for the night. Grabs had the best faceoff % for the Leafs at 62%. 
• Leafs players actually picked up more points than the Habs did. Blame Kaberle. And Grabs. And Bergeron for being the only Habs player to finish the night a -1. 
• Andrei had just 7:32 seconds of ice time (second least amount. Stewie had less but nobody is expecting Stewie to score goals). 
• Squishy had 6 SOG. Most of anyone again tonight. Gio had 5 but I didn;'t find I noticed him a lot tonight. Odd. 
• My favorite stat tonight: Komisarek was on the ice for 3 of the Habs goals. I think he really likes helping us out.

Seriously, whine all you want about the win, but two points is two points. And two points at the expense of the Leafs, is always nice. 

In Juniors news

THEY WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!!!!!!! By shutting out the Rocket too! I was wondering who a couple of the Juniors players where but I'm assuming that they're just hear to replace the sick players. I know Jake was sick, but it looks like Eli (Sherbatov) might be sick too because he's not on the roster and some other random guy that the Juniors already released in August was playing. Missed the whole game because all the radio stations were playing the Habs/Leafs game but yeah. YAY JUNIORS!

In other news: 

• 9 teams playing today had played last night.  
• 3 teams got shutout (Edmonton, Buffalo and St. Louis). 
• The Islanders decided to dress up as a real hockey team. They blanked the Sabres 5-0.
• Pavelec stopped 50 shots en route to beating the Sens this afternoon. FIFTY shots. $%^&. We're playing the Thrashers on Tuesday. 
• Despite outshooting the Flyers 40 to 28, the Whalercanes lost 6-1. OUCH. Sounded like a bloodfest too. 
• Puffy lost his cool as his team lost the game to the Wild. Poor baby. 

Also... a quick note on hits to the head... 

When will the league step up and do something about these headshots? It's been unbelievable the amount that have happened so far. All the sports stations were running absolutely brutal hit on a Kitchener Ranger (OHL) player from last night. He is currently in critical condition in a hospital in Hamilton with skull and facial fractures. This was in the OHL where the players are a lot younger. This kid was just 16. Does someone have to actually die - in any league - before the NHL steps up and does something? If for no other reason, do it for the sake of the kids watching and playing this sport. These kids look at the NHL as the epitome of how to play hockey. And they see guys getting away with these devastating hits.

Hits like these have no place in hockey. Eliminating these types of hits does not make the game "softer". They do nothing to improve the game when players contract life changing and possible career ending brain injuries. The league MUST do something to eliminate them. Standing by, saying that open ice hits like the ones that Mike Richards and Andrew Ladd delivered are "legal" is just wrong. The league must make an effort to protect their players, and if they're unwilling to do that, then at least they should think about the kids who participate in this sport and look to the NHL players as their role models.

Streak of different sorts

Bad streak be gone!

JUNIORS FINALLY WON A FLIPPING GAME! I was going to write about it last night, but I actually missed most of the game. They kicked Halifax over and won 6-4. I got stuck with the Halifax feed actually and it wasn't too fun. They called the Juniors the "Rocket" (that's PEI's team) at one point and totally forgot to call the Juniors 6th goal. And they were SUPER mopey when my team FINALLY ended their six game losing streak. Well, excuse me! Sheesh. Anyway, Baby Marcoux made the trip because Jake is apparently sick and had to stay put. Which means... Berube will probably do all the work on this eastern roadtrip. Which means..... eeeeek.....

The semi-good/semi-bad streak

The Hammies point streak lives on! They're continuing their new franchise record, however, nobody is happy because they've now dropped their last two games in shootouts. Something needs to be done about these shootouts. The Hammies record isn't getting too pretty right now.

You know what though? Abbotsford is a pain.They play tight on defense, don't care about flashy offense... they keep the score low. I dont' like them. Not. At. All.

If the Hammies could actually get a PP goal in the near future, I would be happy. I know Guy says he's been working on getting everyone used to the system and trying to figure out who would actually work on the PP, but...... it would be nice if everyone could figure it out sooner rather than later *G*

Flandersdude and Al think that Desharnais would really help Glumac who has completely forgotten how to score a goal this year. I hope for his sake - and the Hammies sake - that Desharnais is the answer to Glumac's problems. Speaking of David, he could be back for the Hammies game at the Bell Centre. I really hope this is true because I really like Desharnais and would LOVE to be able to see him play.

I hope Guy isn't yelling at them too much, but I really hope that this isn't the start of a losing streak. Hammies need to pull it together. And soonish, please.

The bad streak... 

Habs are now officially on a losing streak.

• I hope Dagger is okay after Ladd went head hunting.... If Richard's didn't get suspended for totally Booth then there's no way that Ladd is going to get suspended. 
• When did the D decided to not show up when Price plays? I thought they always showed up for Price but ditched Halak? Hmm... don't like either habit of leaving one of the goalies to dry.
• At least Squishy had a goal. And Moen too. 
• I think the Habs must be cabbie drivers in their spare time because they gave Peach Fuzz WAY too much space out there.
• Someone give AK46 a huge bucket of redbull before tomorrow' night's game. Maybe THAT will wake him up. 
• Price gave the team a chance to win the game. They didn't take the chance and burned him. 
• If Martin puts in Halak because Price lost night, I will go crazy. You know I love the little Slovak goalie but damnit, this was a game that Price deserved to win. But for all you Halak-haters out there... did you see Jimmy Howard last night against the Oilers in the first period? Be thankful that we have Halak and not Howard. That was some brutal goaltending. 

In other depressing news:

• Streit had the OT winner against the Caps
• Jackets imploded and lost to the Pens in a shootout after having a 3-1 lead. 
• Leafs lost in OT to the Sabres. Sad to say, the Leafs are looking a lot better. This isn't going to be pleasant tomorrow. 

Let's look on the postive side tonight

The Leafs (one game) winning streak is over.

Thanks Stars!

I know some of you (you know who you are *glares*) don't think that it's as much fun to make fun of the Leafs when the Habs have done equally as bad, but I disagree. It's ALWAYS fashionable to make fun of the Leafs. It's just not always fashionable to make fun of Vesa Toskala or Nazem Khadri (until the the latter scores on the Habs anyway). 

OMG. What is wrong with my fantasy teams?

Look. I suck at fantasy hockey. The main reason is probably that I keep forgetting about it. But also...I seem to be cursing players.

Between three different leagues I had:

Kovalchuk
Franzen
Markov
Lucic
Luongo

ALL of them are injured. Screw this,  I'm going to go make my team all Leafs and Penguins. THEN we'll see who's going to get injured. Bwahahahahahahaha...... I mean.. at least you can't pin Gaborik's injury on me. I didn't draft him and I can't believe that he's gone this long without an injury.

Anyway... I'll be missing the Habs tonight for some important lecture (really praying that the lecture is good) so... this is my post for today. Yay.

Okay, shootouts aren't the Hammies thing

Or maybe they just need to learn how not to blow two one goal leads in the third period. Barring that, at least don't blow a 2-0 lead in the shootout. SHEESH.

Because I'm still in a fantastic mood tonight, we'll just deal with all the lovely positives of this game:

• The boys are STILL unbeaten in regulation time. They've picked up a point in every game so far. Now they just need some of that awesome win it in OT thing. Like the Habs. They've picked up 5 of 6 points in this whole Texas roadtrip thing. 
• Their PK was solid (or the Aeros PP sucked. Didnt' sound like it sucked though). 
• Eric Neilson was sitting out tonight's game and he joined Flandersdude as the colour-commentator dude. Despite being boring to listen to (and not the cool type of boring like Steve was), he had some interesting things to say. Like, did you know that the Hammies call Cedric Desjardins "Teddy"? TEDDY? Where did THAT come from? Maybe "Ced" is too easy? 
• We all know that hockey players like to add "y" to names in a totally uncreative attempt to make it into a nickname. I heard Neilson say "Whitey" "Maxy", "Bellesie" and "Pie-sie" (White, Maxwell, Belle and Pyatt) tonight. 
• The Hammies say "Thank you for Pyatt, Mr. Sather". Pyatt is so awesome. 
• Weber had a goaaaaal! He's been a little absent in the scoring department lately. 

Okay.. I have to mention some negatives. I can't help myself.

• Glumac, where are you? I'm missing you and you're scoring abilities. 
• Do.Not.Blow.Two.One-goal. Leads. 
• Don't blow a freaking 2-0 lead in the shootout. DO NOT. 
• My goalies are having a competition to see who can create the scariest rebound without it actually resulting in a goal. 
• Myeh to Maxwell's shootout attempt that was stopped right on the damn line. 
• And double myeh to Gillies almost tripping on his way to scoring on Teddy. Teddy was probably all like "this guy is SO going to land on his face... wait, WTF? AGH." 
• Also.. .Texas... They have issues. Against the Baby Stars, it was the ice that was all screwy... tonight it was the glass. It came out, they fixed it and five minutes later, it came out again. Guh?

ANYWAY....

OOOOOOOOOOVIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIE! He was on my TV tonight. The Caps are NEVER on my TV. But tonight they were. Taking on those semi-yucky Flyers too. Ovie had two goals ('bout time) including a pretty sweet one while the Caps were down 0-2. Pie and A2 also had sweet goals. Mike Richards tried to make me like him by getting a sweet assist on Hartnell's goal but it didn't work. We're not getting along right now, Mike. Anyway... Jose had a great game tonight. He got little help from his teammates for a lot of the night (apart from the fact that they scored goals) and faced a Price-esque 43 shots tonight.

Y'know, a Flyers/Caps game would be an AWESOME Winter Classic matchup. Forget Penguins/Flyers, Penguins/Capitals, Bruins/Flyers or Capitals/Rangers. As Ovie would probably say, a Flyers/Capitals matchup would be "sick". It would be really sick.

ANNNNNNNNND

Pricey says that Jaro should play if the team is winning. Like Pricey really was going to say anything else....What else COULD he say? Still....

It's just dawned on me how epically awkward it must be between two goalies... there's the whole "he's here to take my job" kinda thing, y'know? it's kinda like:

Pricey: Everyone loves me!
Jaro: ... *pouts*
Media: PRICE = PATRICK ROY
Pricey: *flails under pressure*
Jaro: ....*scuttles into the net and wins the game* I win?
Media: HALAK FTW!
Jaro: Yay! Acknowledgement! *wins again*
Pricey: .....
Jaro: *wins another game* WHOO!
Media: GOALIE CONTROVERSY!!
Jaro:  I'm not trying to steal your job, Carey. Really.
Pricey: .....then suck so I can play!
Jaro: But I like to play too....
Pricey: *tosses a milkcrate at Jaro*
Jaro: *gets concussed*
Coach: Ummm... Guess Price is playing tonight.
Pricey: *wins a game* I WIN! YAY!
Media: PRICE = PATRICK ROY
Jaro: *pouts*

5 things

'bout time I did this again.

1. $%^&*(... the Leafs won a game. There go my hopes of them ending the season 0-82. I guess this just means that they'll end the season 1-80-1.
   
   
2. Martin is pretty much responsible for this goalie-controversy and I think it's hurting both goalies. Before you scream at me, yes, I think Halak should get more time to play and yes, I think that Price should have to work for his job. HOWEVER. There really hasn't been a "hot hand" in these wins. Justin Pogge could have won against the Islanders last week for crying out loud. Martin has basically put the goalies in a lose-lose situation. If Halak can't bail the team out against the Penguins, they're left with putting in a goalie who's going to be colder than a block of ice because he hasn't played in 4 games.
   
   
3. One thing that baffled and infuriated me about Carbonneau was how his lines would change faster than you say "Ovechkin scooores". I was hoping that Martin would be a bit more sensible, but so far no go. His lines have been all over the place.
   
   
4. Remind me again why the league does not have a "no hits to the head" rule? Mike Richards takes out David Booth and the league rules it a "clean" hit? Exactly what is clean about a guy going out cold BEFORE he even hits the ice? I've witnessed a few stomach churning hits last year - including two against the Habs. I have no idea why and how people can condone this.
   
   
5. There is no food in my fridge. 

It's like the 1993 playoffs

......minus the playoff bit *G* 

Habs take it in OT! Again! Turtle-Pleky had beautiful pass over a Isle's defenseman to Hammer who put it past a sprawling Squeaky Marty! 

• The Islanders decided to come to play tonight (and c'mon, they have been playing a lot better than last year). I decided that after the 08 playoffs, three words I never wanted to hear again were "Biron fait l'arret". When Squeaky Marty is all motivated against the Habs, it usually spells bad news for the Habs. Not that he's been THAT motivated since May of 08.. but still... He wasn't so faily tonight.
  
  
• Metro was sick but he showed up to play anyway. Boy, did he look really sick. BUT! he had a SUPER awesome assist on Spacek's goal. Super cool. I really hope that he doesn't give everyone else the flu though... that would be super UNcool.
  
  
• Gotta admit that Tambellini's goals in the second and third period (both on the PP) were nice. Sucked to be Jaro who got left out to dry by the D. Sucked especially to be Hal Gill who looked silly on Tambellini's first goal....
  
  
• Squishy had some nice work on Moen's goal. It was a bit of a weak one by Sqeaky but we'll take it!
  
  
• Either the Islanders were actually playing defense, or else the Habs offense was taking a bit of a break tonight, because that was all she wrote for the next two periods for the Habs. Probably both. The Islanders were playing a lot tighter D around Squeaky. To the point where you really couldn't even see Squeaky.
  
  
•  Jaro was really solid tonight. I'm really not sure why people insist on bashing him. Okay, so he did get super lucky on a very fast whistle by the ref, but it wasn't like the posts weren't being nice to Squeaky tonight either (sometimes I wonder if it takes more talent to hit the post than it does to put it past Squeaky. What say you, Mr. French Marshmallow?).Seriously... Jaro was solid tonight.
  
  
• The Habs really forgot how to count tonight. They took TWO too many men on the ice penalties.
  
  
• The refs also pretty much forgot that they're allowed to penalize the Islanders for most of the game. It took a whole 40 mins before the Habs would get a full PP (in which they fell asleep. Happens when you forget about what it;s like to be on the PP).
  
  
• Turtle-Pleky has been really good. He finished the night a + 1 had 3 shots, 3 blocked shots and  1 missed shot. Oh and he was %52 on the faceoff circle making him the third best tonight.
  
  
• Pigeon and Squishy were also on fire tonight in terms of shots. Both had four shots (Pigeon had another 5 shots blocked).
  
  
• Okay, who had Andrei with the most hits tonight? He had three.
  
  
• Not a bad game tonight. The real tests will be coming up this week though with the Pens on Wednesday, the Peachhawks on Friday and then those dratted Leafs on Saturday. The Habs will be tired and the Leafs will be super hungry on Saturday.....