Insane rumor of the day: Roy as headcoach AND GM?

Via TSN:

Patrick Roy could be head coach and general manager of the Colorado Avalanche if he accepts the posts from his former club.

According to Ruefrontenac.com - a Montreal-based news website - Avs president Pierre Lacroix has offered Roy both jobs and that Roy wants to hire former teammate Sylvain Lefebvre and Drummoundville head coach Guy Boucher as his assistants.

The GM posting became vacant after Lacroix fired Francois Giguere last month and Tony Granato is still the team's head coach.

The Montreal report added that Craig Billington - the Avs' vice president of hockey operations and Roy's former backup, could serve as a co-general manager.

The Denver Post reported last week that the Avalanche offered Roy the coaching job, and added there was a possibility he might get the vacant general manager's job as well.

Ruefrontenac.com also reports that Lacroix is offering Roy almost full control over the club's hockey operations as a way of trumping any potential offer from his other former team - the Montreal Canadiens.

Um.. What?! I mean....Whatever keeps him from coming to Montreal. Still....wow... And I heard a rumor that Boucher was headed to Hamilton. Which would be nicer. Don't you just love rumor season?

Question to ponder: What would it be like to work with your former backup? For some reason I just can't picture that working out so well. Maybe it's because I can't imagine Roy getting along with anybody to begin with?

Halak stops avalanche!

I always thought that their name should have been "AvalancheS" with the s. It should better. If you can have "Leafs" than you should be able to have "Avalanches".

Anyway.... I've said repeatedly this year that Halak has been good in nets while more often than not, the team in front of him stunk majorly and that's why they lost. Tonight, Halak was great in nets, his team stunk majorly in front of him... and guess what? They won. Let me say that again because it just sounds so strange. THE HABS WON DARNIT! Win... you know..... As per the Habs dictionary that doesn't actually exist: "A win is when the Habs end up with a score that is higher than that of their opponents."

This was by far was ugliest win I've ever seen the Habs eke out but there is no way in hell I'm going to complain. Actually, technically I didn't "see" most of the game. I listened to it on the radio. It's a lot less painful to follow when you can't see the billions of breakaways and turnovers. I did catch the third period on TV though. ANYWAY..... At the end of the long day and even longer game, a win is a win. And I'm going to put the credit all on Halak who faced a whopping 48 shots and stopped all but two of them. The Habs were dead as a door nail for all of the second period and for about 18 minutes of the third period getting out about a billion to nothing but Halak kept their lead until about 13 something in the third period. By this point I was screaming because the Habs had a two goal lead going into the second period and despite everyone but Halak stinking majorly, it was only 2-1 at 13:00 in the third period. I can't say that I was surprised that the Avs tied it but I so hoping that Halak would have stopped that. Technically he had it and but then he didn't have it and then it waltz across the line before the rest of the party showed up and crashed the net. While I was planning how to take this potential loss, the Habs decided to wake up and try. My hope was restored when Andrei Kostitsyn scored in a nice manner ('bout bloody time!).And then I collapsed in a relieved heap when Kostopoulos ended the Avs hope of a win despite the fact that they had a powerplay and had pulled Budaj, when he cleared the puck and it so kindly bounced into the net. Even Carbo was bouncing up and down.

Like I said, it was ugly. The Avs outshot the Habs 48 to 23. If the Avs had been slightly more talented or Halak had been about half as good then we would have seen yet another hard loss. As it is, I'm hoping that the Habs can use this win to restore some of their confidence, work out those issues from the second and third period and come back and beat the Canucks at some ungodly hour here in Montreal. But focusing on tonight.... They needed that win. I needed that win. Heck, my rabbit needed that win. Now do something with it people!

*hugs Halak* Tonight, you're my hero!

Random notes because I'm procrastinating on going to sleep

• Man, am I happy that there was no horror show tonight... can you imagine the headlines?? "Habs get macheted by Avs", "Habs hit with another round of bad luck on 13th," "another day, another loss", "Habs can't stop Avalanche", "Avalanche buries Habs", my tired brain could go on and on.
• Offense needs to stop being dead as the spider that's sitting on my desk for some weird reason. It's beyond pathetic already. You can't score goals if you're just standing there, looking about as interested as the crowd in the stands were (yes, that's a jab at yet another arena filled with quiet people).
  
• Defense needs to wake up. I don't think there was anything about taking vacations while still on the ice in their contracts...
• Someone should teach the Habs how to clear the puck from their own end.
  
• And tell them that it wasn't "let's set a new record for icing calls" night.
  
• What the heck was the deal with Darcy Tucker getting all mad at Carbo for? I reserve the right to mad at Carbo. After Bob Gainey. And the players of course. Get in line, dude.
  
• Someone should tell the Habs that if for no other reason, please win to stop everyone else from gloating about it. I'm sick of everyone gloating at our obvious pain and suffering. It's getting seriously embarrassing now. C'mon and put up some good wins.
  
• Someone should give Halak a medal. Oh wait... If he keeps this up then he may just be getting one in 2010 if Team Canada stinks again........
• Are we at stage eight of grief yet?
• I wonder how Price was feeling last night.....
  

To sleep I go with the knowledge that for one day only, my Habs life is good. Enjoy it while you can, people!

Tonight's biggest challenge against the Capitals?

Getting Ovechkin's name right!!!!!!! I really hope that the Habs don't have to play the Caps too many more times because I'm going to go insane.... But on a different note that's more related to winning....

Pre-game rant

This is Halak's third time facing the Caps and I"m hoping that third time is the charm and they win. Obviously it takes something very special to blank the Ovechkin/Backstrom/Semin filled Caps and Steve Mason is just that good (I mean c'mon... SIX shutouts?) But I don't care if the Habs blank the Caps. They won't do it anyway. But I want a wiiiiin.

1. Obviously shutting down the offense is going to be key to winning tonight. No offense= no shots = no goals = no win, right? Right. I think the Habs were very close to winning or at least having a shot at grabbing a point in OT or shootouts last time, but a total lack of finish doomed them...
2. Which brings me to my second point. Remember people: YOU NEED TO PLAY SIXTY MINUTES!!!!!!!!!! Something which you didn't do against the Leafs.... it was still 59 minutes and thirty seconds. Yes, I'm still harping on that second goal....
3. Also, if the powerplay would be so kind as to work again tonight, we just may have a decent shot at winning. If I remember right, the Caps gave the Habbies something like eight powerplays last time which they completely failed to convert on. POWERPLAY NEEDS TO WORK.
4. Oh and definitely play a more disciplined game tonight than that mess against the Leafs. No giving the Alexes a chance to score on the powerplay.

Oh and don't forget:

1. Stay away from Semin as much as you possibly can. It's already painfully apparent that he won't have a career as a bongo player even if that's where he seems to be headed these days. There's no need to totally crush his not-so-secret ambitions.
   
2. And definitely stay away from the boards if you're anywhere near Ovechkin. Unless you want a concussion of course....Hey, maybe Sergei can get Ovechkin to knock out Grabovski for him? Actually I was more in favour of the idea of setting Jarkko Ruutu lose on him... but I digress....
   
3. And if it's Theodore in nets tonight... SCORE A PILE OF GOALS ON HIM! NO SHUTOUTS FOR THEODORE!

And you thought the Habs were creative losers, eh?

As a Penguins fan, I'm dying right now. Since the beginning of the new year the Penguins have been threatening to break out and soar to the top of their division where everyone thought that they would be long before now. I mean, after all a lot of the core members of last year's team are still around and they really do have some of the most talented players in the league on their team (comes from being horrid for a pile of years in a row which allowed them to grab a lot of good players in the drafts). Unfortunately, the Penguins have decided to do the exact opposite of what everyone expected of them. Yes, people, the Penguins have LOST AGAIN today! Looking at it just from this year - however short it may be so far - it's been awful. The Pens couldn't capitalize on a sub par offensive display by the Habbies (well, minus a very hot Andrei Kostitsyn who got himself a nice hat trick in that game*g*) and instead posted a sub par powerplay which did nothing at all to get the puck past a very good Price (sorry, Pens). They followed that up by getting rolled over by the Bruins in back to back games. They didn't show up against the Panthers at all. They did manage a win against the Thrashers, but um... it's the Thrashers, yes? And Kovalchuk was beating up on Malkin big time which was just plain sad. Somewhere in there the Pens also got blanked by the Rangers. Oh and the Pens were felled stupidly by the Predators who outshot them and crawled back into the game with FIVE unanswered goals.

And what happened today? THEY LOST AGAIN! To the injury plagued Avalanche... AvalancheS... the guys from Colorado. The good news - if there was any - was that we've finally got something from Crosby and Malkin who have been dead on the scoring department. The bad news is that the team didn't produce enough effort to keep them in the game. Getting one goal a period is okay only if the other team is scoring less. Sadly, the Avs got one goal in the first period, three in the second and one more in the third. Whahoo... so much for the Avs stinking big time without a pile of players.... Sabourin and Fleury have been taking turns getting the starting job and getting yanked half way through... this is getting really sad... I think the Pens should trade Staal for a defenseman who can actually do something. Staal's not doing a heck of a lot and I think it's partly because he hasn't had the opportunity to play with decent players enough.

Tennis Talk

MURRAY WON. It was 6-4, 6-2. Like you expected anything else once Rafa and Roger flamed out? At least Roddick almost hung in their for the first set. I actually liked how Roddick did at first but then... of course we all knew that Murray was just going to come up with some better shots than Roddick was and Murray was going to be able to move around the court better than Roddick too. Have no fear, we've only got.... Four or so months before Roland Garros rolls aroun and then someone we want to win will win for sure... maybe... hopefully? *wails* Boo.....