I think this sums up how I felt about the game

Yup. All those fights in the second period were actually pretty entertaining. I wanted a goalie fight! Jaro could have totally channeled his inner-Emery and beat the crap out of Lundqvist.

Everything else sucked though.

Isles get blown up 9-0...

I mean really. I know they wanted to lose but that's crazy. Really crazy. I feel for you guys. I really do. In other news, the Caps downed Kovalchuk. Ovie was originally credited with a goal but then they gave it to Fedorov. Poop. But the Caps did win the game 4-2. So we'll take that. It's time for some serious Flyers love tonight as the orangy people won 2-1 over the Panthers. Thank you Philly. I love you guys (for now).

Oh and yes... the Habs lost. Obvious by the title, right? Right. They looked so lost out there... My poor team. They looked tired both physically and mentally. I'll just leave with a few notes to certain players:

• Sean Avery: You are an idiot. A huge idiot. The refs may have missed your cheap hits but I didn't. You are an idiot. I believe I've called you an idiot and a moron at least 20 times tonight.
• Price: ....oh Pricey.... you weren't awful. You weren't your normal wonderful self that we needed to see tonight, but on a whole I don't believe that you are to blame solely for this loss.
• Komisarek and Gorges: When you play the amount of minutes that you guys did last night, I guess you were bound to be tired but..... that was brutal at times...
• Komisarek: Mind you.... you did make up for that horridnes son the first goal by making the save of the night. Plus you hit Avery. Brownie cookies for hitting Avery.
• Breezer: How is it that you're the only D not to have been injured this year? How? You did have one good save though. So congrats.
• Kovy and Koivu: Where the hell were you two?
• Tanguay: stop those passes to nobody. They are stupid and lead to giveaways (duh)
• Lapierre: You should have buried Avery when you had the chance
• Metro and Dandy: You two were good but Metro is too sloooow....
• Pleky and Andrei: You two are going to be the death of someone....
• Refs: You were bad.
• Gomez: Wow... you showed class when RDS peppered you with questions in an attempt to get you to bash us. Wow. You are the one good Rag today.
• Price Bashers: I'm sorry but, you win and lose as a team. Price was not the only one to blame for this. The D was awful. The offense was dead. How is it Price's fault that the guys in front of him scored all of one goal? - and for the records, it was a very ugly goal by Dandenault. How it is Price's fault that his team was grossly outshot? How it is Price's fault that the PP has now gone to hell? It's not. Was he brilliant tonight? No. But did his team help him? Uh nope.

Enemy watch

• Brodeur and Co got trounced by the.... Leafs.... Uhuh.....Brodeur you never cease to amaze me...
• Boston got trounced by the.... Sens.... Uhuh.... Obviously you don't underestimate the power of meaningless games
• Malkin broke Malone and the Bolts lost. Whatever.

Junior Deathwatch

• Poor souls lost 6-1....

A win puts us in the playoffs while a loss.....

doesn't. Rags can't catch us if we win and neither can those stinky Panthers. Still, should one or both win tonight, we could be in some serious trouble. The Wingsies helped us last night by crushing the Sabres last night. Now we need the Flyers to be the Flyers and crush the Panthers (or maybe Briere could go all Crosby and randomly fight a guy who made a perfectly legal hit on a teammate?). And as much as I detest the Devils and the Bruins, I want to see them decimate the Leafs and the Sens. Crush them into itty bitty pieces. Doesn't matter if the Devils win at this point. The Leafs must be crushed. If you could all hit Grabs that be awesome. It'd be cool if the Islanders actually beat Cam Ward but I'm not holding out for that.

Anyway... It's raining/snowing outside today. Even my dogs dont' want to go out in this weather. So. I'll be inside, trying to think of a way to shred Grabs or plotting some evil plot to do with freezer-paper stencils on clothes....

Bah... Oh and it's Avery night. Hmm... You know the difference between Avery and Grabovski is to the best of my knowledge, Avery has not seriously injured anyone this season. Sure, he talks crap, is annoying as hell and everyone hates him, but there's a difference between being a super pest and being a super moron who takes cheap hits at your players.

Rags down Habs in shootouts

I wasn't going to watch this game. I came to the conclusion after the Habs lost to the Devils that they were literally affecting my mood for the worse. After two days of Habs free games, I was happy and perfectly ready not to watch the game. But I caved in and watched it anyway. Oddly enough, I'm not depressed. Yet.

• the game was pretty even in the stats department until the third period
• watching the game however, was again, brutal at times. The Habs looked slow and were constantly outskated by the Rangers at times
• At other times, the game was great to watch. The guys were getting chances, if not high quality chances, they were still getting chances. They were battling. They just couldn't seem to keep that up for more than a every other shift or something.
  
• Defense was downright horrid at times....
• I think Gainey forgot how to tell the guys that passing the puck to the other team is a bad thing
  
• Avery is a twit
  
• The crowd was into that game for sure. It sounded awesome. I'm jealous.
  
• The Rags aren't first on the PK for no reason....
• Habs continually battled from three one goal deficits. Lundqvist helped on the third one by Markov by being asleep. Thank you Henrik.
  
• Kovalev had a beautiful goal to make it 1-1 . It was like... Ovie cool =) And in the absence of Ovie scoring tonight, that goal will have to do as the coolest of the night.
• Lapierre's goal was beautiful too.
  
• Rags goals were icky and I hate Antropov even more =)
  
• The refs liked to make up calls tonight. At leas they were even about it.
  
• Did I ever mention that shootouts were stupid?
• To all you Price-haters: He was the reason why the Habs walked away with 1 point. It could have easily been 5-3 for the Rags. Price had some awesome saves that saved the Habs. If you want to blame someone, blame the defense. They were awful. Brisebois, Schneider and Gorges were pretty awful (Breezer did have a couple of nice plays but they don't really negate the rest of the bad plays).
• about the shootout... In case no one watched it, Kostitsyn missed the net, Kovy and Markov scored as did all of the Rags. So. Really, Lundqvist didn't save a damn thing in the shootouts. If it had been th eother way around nobody would be whining about it. So stuff the Price bashing.
• Yeah, now I'm mad all the people who think that Price was crap.

Forgot about the other stinkers in the league... Righto.

• Blackhawks suck and couldn't beat the Devils. Thanks for nothing.
  
• Sens sucked until they woke up and beat the Sabres 4-2
  
• Atlanta has gone back to being stupid and got decimated by the Pens. And that was after scoring 30 seconds into the game! Stupid Thrashers.
  
• Tampa Bay got seriously embarrassed and couldn't hold a 3-0 lead on the Leafs and lost in shootouts. Like seriously..........
  
• Panthers got blanked by Theodore. Yes, Theodore. And he only faced something like 20 shots all night (Price faced nearly that much in the third period alone). Ovie is forgetting how to score again and is making me very sad..........C'mon......!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Flyers su.... Ahem, Flyers failed to hold a 2-0 lead and lost 3-2 to the Red Wings. They continue to be cursed at the Joe.
  
• Sharks suck and lost 4-3 to the... Coyotes? Coyotes did score 30 seconds into the game too....
  
• Wild and Oilers won in shootouts and Vancouver ran over Dallas. Whatever......
  

Breaking news: Halak doesn't implode against Rangers!

For everyone who had question marks about Halak and the Habs coming into this game in Madison Square Gardens I have one thing to say: HAHA!

Not only did Halak play a billion times better than he did in the last two games, but the rest of the team actually played really well tonight too. Among the nicer moments of the game were TWO powerplay goals from the Habbies (forgive me for getting excited, but I would have been happy with just one powerplay goal. Something we haven't seen since... uh... a while....) and a hat trick for Lang who now leads the Habbies in scoring. Not bad for a guy who just turned 38 a couple of weeks ago. On the night that Mats Sundin (finally) made his season debute with the Canucks, it was nice to see the previously considered "after-thought" proving that the Canadiens don't need the big Swede in their lineup.

But I'm getting ahead of things now. I dunno if it was just me or what, but people in New York are not big on the cheering department. At least not tonight anyway. It was really quiet in there tonight for the most part and it got a lot quieter when Lundqvist made a big error that cost his team their first of six goals tonight. He came behind the net to clear the puck but Kovalev got in the way and so Mr. Goalie clears the puck in the other direction and it lands on the stick of.... Max Pacioretty who may have grown up being a Rangers fan but tonight he was a Hab. And a good one too. He then passed the puck back to Kovalev who had now circled back and was standing in front of an empty net. No way Kovalev was going to hit the post this time. That would take some real skill not to get the puck in there. So in the puck went. Up when Lundqvist's shoulders in annoyance and it was now Habs 1 Rangers 0.

The Habs were looking good until 17 minutes into the game, when the Rangers decided to play 'let's see how many people we can knock around without taking a penalty' around, and consequently Halak got booted out of the net and Markov went down and the Rangers scored on basically an empty net. Yeah. Being the biased person that I am, I thought that the Rangers should have taken a penalty for knocking either Markov or Halak but anyway... call it a consolation goal. Hamlrik and Latendresse were to put away any thoughts of this period ending in a tie. Hamrlik ripped the puck at Lundqvistl. It rebounded quite far off him and lookie who was there to grab the rebound and sink the puck into the back of the net. Oh yes: Latendresse. Habs 2 Rangers 1.

By all accounts the second period was pretty good for the Habs too. Even though the Rangers woke up some more, the Habs were still getting the puck to the net and registering some good shots on goal which were all stopped by Lundqvist. Halak came up with some brilliant saves but Callahan finally put one past him. I think of all the goals this was the one that probably had people thinking "Oh great. Here we go again... Habs are going to crumble". Well, they didn't. It was the only goal of the entire period. The Habs did have one powerplay in here but it was so awful that I won't even say anything about it. So it was Habs 2 Rangers 2

Hard to imagine that the Habs would record four more goals before the night was out but they did. Early in the period Voros was sent off for hooking. Now here's the great part. Voros gets sent off at 2:39. Three seconds later - I'm serious - Markov gets the pass from Plekanec and ripped it past Lundqvist. And that people was a glimpse of the powerplay of Christmas past. Uh... don't know where that came from...and maybe that goal would have gone in no matter how many Rangers were on the ice. BUT WHATEVER! Anyway, it was a very pretty goal and it was nice to see a goal on the powerplay for once. It got better though. Callahan was sent off for hi-sticking and he was soon joined in the penalty box by Gomez. So it was 5 on 3 now for the Habbies. Andrei Kostitsyn and Markov take a couple of swipes on the left side of Lundqvist before the puck winds up on the other side of the net where Lang is pattiently waiting for the puck. In the puck went. First goal of the night for Lang. And second goal on the powerplay. Nice.

Rozsival had to go and make things not so nice when he took a quick pass in front of the net from Zherdev and ripped it past an unready Halak. Can't blame Halak for that one. There was no way he was getting that one. Someone should have been on top of that. There was mild cheering in MSG but I think everyone had a feeling that the Rangers weren't coming out the victors in this one. I mean, they tried. They really did. But it was no use. After a brief scuffle behind the net, Boullion and Zherdev were sent off for something and it was now 4 on 4. After trading some shots back and forth, the play finalyl made its way back to the Ranger's zone. Lang grabbed the puck, skated around Marc Staal like he was just standing still, and put the puck over Lundqvist's shoulder. 5-3 for the Habbies!

At this point the Habs decided to make things difficult for themselves as they took two straight penalties from Hamrlik and Komisarek. So because it was almost the end of the game, Lundqvist was pulled and the Rangers enjoyed the extra player(s). The Habs played excellently on trying to kill the last bit of time for the most part. The Rangers almost got themselves a goal. But thanks to Kovalev and Halak, the puck was stopped right on the line and play wasn't even stopped - and the refs who had been a little sleepy all night were standing right behind the net to see it not go in. At this point Lang again got the puck and this time he put it away into the empty net with 37 seconds to go in the third period. Habs 6 Rangers 3.

I liked this game a lot. Not only because of the scoring but I liked the effort. I like what the Habs do when they put in the effort and work as a team. It makes me love them again! The thought of where this team could be sitting in the league if they put up efforts like that every night scares me. Well, it doesn't really. But you know what I mean. Right? Right. Anyway, no matter what you say about Halak and the goals that did go in, I'm going to think positively for once and remember the goals that did NOT go in. I mean, c'mon people, would you rather Halak had played like Lundqvist? Of course not. Give the guy some credit. Stopping 36 out of 39 shots is good. Especially when you compare that to 19 out of 25 shots......

What concerns me at this point is what are the Habs going to do when they play the Leafs tomorrow? Barring the fact that they will be tired, my main concern is that they won't be motivated to beat the Leafs. I would hope that they are considering what happened last time they played, but we all know that the Habs have a huge tendency to go off and die against weaker teams. They have to come out and try as hard as they can against the Leafs. They just have to. It's the Leafs!!! But I'll whine about that tomorrow.

The good -

• H-A-L-A-K.
• POWERPLAY! For once!
  
• The Kostitsyn brothers + Lang
  
• Speaking of Lang... Lang's hat trick was a nice way to squash the Rangers
  
• Kovalev showed signs of life for real this time tonight. I think Pacioretty being really motivated to play tonight might have helped. Or maybe it was that early goal (is it just me or do Russians have a thing with needing to get a goal early to stay motivated? Malkin is the exact same) Whatever the reason... Kovalev was awake. Good.
  
• Chipchura had a couple of good moments out there even though his line was not really that active.

The bad -

• Um... There wasn't that much that was bad. There were almost no stupid turnovers. No powerplay goals against them. I guess Callahan's goal should have been stopped but I guess you could say that all of them should have been stopped....
  
• I didn't like those two penalties at the end. It was a really bad time to get them and it could have resulted in things turning out not so nice.
• The quiet fans. Early on it looked as though the players were having trouble getting into the game. I think a noisier crowd would have gotten them going earlier.
  
• I'm guess Lundqvist is going to add this one to the (large) list of games that he would like to forget. It's kind of a pity from his point of view, considering that the Rangers just came off of a 4-0 blanking of the Pens. But oh well... that's only bad if you're a Rangers fan.
  

Back to reality...

...and honestly, the reality of the situation for both the Habs and the Pens is very grim right now.

Let's start with the Pens because at least their situation is worse. Amid all the attention focused on the Juniors, I did indeed forget that the Pens were looking to end their four game loser skid last night against the Rangers at Madison Square Gardens. Not only did not they win, but they were shut out 4-0. This is of course terrible news for the Pens and I have no idea what needs to be done to get them back on track - and at this point, I don't think they know either. Obviously Lundqvist deserves a lot of the credit as well and he proved me wrong when I said he was on a downslide (well, until last night, he was!). Apparently he had some really fantastic saves on Malkin and Crosby. Pens will take on Atlanta next and if they can't pull out a win there then.... well... we'll deal with that one when and if it happens....

Now this whole shutout thing for Lundqvist has me exceptionally worried as a Habs fan because well, guess who we have to take on next! Why do we have to clean up after the Pens again?! The reality of the situation here is that we've got major goalie issues right now. There were hopes that Price could at least sit in as backup tomorrow and possibly play against the Leafs the day after but now it's looking like he won't be able to do either of those. And that people, is bad news. Halak is going through a major crisis here and right now no one has any confidence in him. Why anyone thinks that putting in Marc Denis is going to save the Habs against the Rangers and the Leafs is beyond me because he looked a lot worse than Halak. Halak may have been bad but at least he wasn't floundering around looking like he had no idea what he was doing in nets.

I don't know what the deal is with Halak because he's been stellar for the Habs before when Price had his last little bout of problems. But I still think that he should at least be given another try - hey look, if Pat Quinn can put in Dustin Tokarski for the finals even after he let in 9 goals in his previous two games and looked awful at some points, I think Carbo can put in Halak - and we'll just pray that the defense gets its act together and actually backs him up. The defense has been quite bad in the last two games and that needs to change.

Later: Halak will be in nets tomorrow. No news on when anyone is coming back other than Koivu who may just be back on Saturday. Although we all know how good Carbo is at giving estimates on when players are coming back.... *coughs* Weber apparently practiced with the Habbies today and I'm really hoping that he's given at least a shot at playing. I mean c'mon, what was the point of bringing him up if he's not going to play? If he's just there to sit it out in the press box, I think O'Byrne was doing that job just fine, thanks. We shall see... As long as 1) Lundqvist forgets how to play again and 2) no one pulls an Alexander Semin type of "fight", we have a chance at not being the laughing stock of the league tomorrow. Whooopie!

Okay, enough reality. It's depressing already. I'm going to put up a few random thoughts on the Juniors tournament last week.

Best moment - Winning the gold, right? Right.

Best goal of the tournament - Eberle's goal with 5.4 seconds left on the clock! Esposito's game winning goal against Sweden was also really nice. And Tavares had some nifty goals in the tournament too, but Eberle's is definitely the best.

Best save of the tournament - oh my.... I think Tokarski's save on Colin Wilson in the Canada/USA game was the best. Wilson was just standing there for what seemed like forever and it looked as though for sure he would put the puck into the back of the net, but Tokarski just grabbed it out of nowhere. Amazing. Okay so maybe he didn't know that he had it at first but whatever. He saved it!

Best game - Canada vs Russia. Like I've said repeatedly, that one is one for the ages.

Best team - Canada. Russia, the USA and Sweden all had some very talented players on their team but in the end Canada played the best as a team. They had their moments though. There were times when they looked like a bunch of guys who had just been plonked together about a week ago. There were times when it looked like all was lost. But they pulled through as a team and won it.

Most surprising team - Slovakia. Expectations were that they would get relagated but instead they posted one of the best performances in years from their team.

Most disappointing team - Team USA. They had a strong team and were definitely medal favorites and were even in a strong position to make the finals. Unfortunately they crashed out of the tournament and ended up fifth.

Best forward over all - Nikita Filatov. I love the skill that both Tavares and Filatov brought to this tournament but there's something really awesome about watching Filatov. He just moves the puck so well and he's incredibly fast too. His two goals against Slovakia were amazing. The one where he stole the puck off the Slovak defenseman and scored reminded me of the goal that Dastyuk got on Huet in the Winter Classic. Beautiful stuff there.

Best defense over all - I'm going to say.... I dunno *g* The Swedes had some excellent defenders as did the Russians. Goncharov and Backlund are coming to mind...

Best goalie over all - I'm going to say Jaroslav Janus. He carried that team to fourth place and came really close to bringing them to the finals even. He was amazing. Halak should be taking some inspiration here!

The team I really wished could have done better - Kazakhstan. Those poor guys didn't really have a chance but I wished that they could have at least not get run over by every single team that they played. Oh well...

Because it's always summer somewhere.... it's tennis season again!

We may have half a meter or more of snow here in Canada, but in Doha, Qatar, there's no such thing as snow so it's back to playing tennis, baby! Yesterday in marked the official beginning of the tennis season. And today saw Federer and Nadal finally take to the courts again! Finally! I didn't know that they were playing actually and I missed Nadal steamrollering over Fabrice Santoro (which was okay) but I did catch the end of the Roger Federer show today. And let me this: Roger is off to a great start! He looked really good at there against... whoever the poor Italian guy was. There were some typical great Federer shots going on and the poor Italian had no chance at all. I thought Federer just looked sooo much better than when he was in Shanghai. Hopefully the food poisoning stuff and back problems are over for now and he can make a serious bid for the Australian open. Yay for Roger!

Oh and poor Nole got beaten by Ernest Gulbis in Brisbane. Not a great start to the season obviously, but there's plenty of time for him to get his act together and beat Murray in the future.

Halfway there people!

Yup. It's the halfway mark - more or less - and I apparently have nothing better to do than to give random thoughts about the random teams in the Eastern Conference. Go me! Note i said the word "random".

Atlantic division - the closest division in the east so far because no one's taken the lead and run away with it. Yet. I'm betting on Philly finishing on top.

Philadelphia
The good news: Mike Richards has been solid for the team in the first half. Jeff Carter is taking a swat at being the top goal scorer of the year.
The bad news: Goaltending. Biron has been less than amazing after pretty much single-handedly knocking Montreal out of the playoffs last spring. Niittymaki hasn't exactly stepped up as the league's best goaltender either.
The great news if you're a Habs fan but really bad if you're a Flyers fan: It looks like Briere is about to be paid millions of dollars to play just a handful of games this season. Good news if you're looking to make a lot of money and not do a heck of a lot - and great if you're one of those people who doesn't want to see his face for a long time - but definitely bad news if you're the Flyers' GM.

Pittsburgh
Good but definitely not wonderful news: Well, umm... they still have a chance to turn around their season?
The really bad bit: A very disappointing start to the season following their Stanley Cup finals run. They have struggled time and time again to find their rhythm - in particular, less than stellar performances from Sidney Crosby, Miroslav Satan and goalie Marc-Andre Fleury (who did sit out a number of games due to injuries) and at times Evgeni Malkin. The top players haven't been producing and it's hurting the rest of the team. They're missing players like Ryan Malone and Hossa more than they care to admit.
Intriguing bit: Do you think Hossa predicted the Pens implosion? Everyone was pegging the Pens at having a fairly easy run to the playoffs in the offseason, but Hossa ditched them and said he wanted to play with a team that had a chance at winning the cup (read: Pens don't have a chance). At the time of his signing, it looked like Hossa was just being opportunistic. But now....? Well, I'm not saying the Wings are going to win it but I highly doubt it's going to be the Pens either...

New Jersey
Good news: They can survive without star goaltender Martin Brodeur, thank you very much. Yay for them!
The intriguing bit: What will happen to backup goalie Scott Clemmensen when Brodeur gets back? Will they go back to using Brodeur who hasn't played almost all season and will most likely take a while to get his rhythm back or will they continue to use Clemmensen? Also, the Devils have been quite an offensive type team without Brodeur. Will they ditch all this once he comes back?

NY Islanders
The good: I'm not sure what's good about the Islanders. They're sitting at the bottom of the league right now.
Really good if you're the Islanders: At this rate they'll be getting John Tavares. Poor Tavares.
The bad: Well, they're bottom of the league? Oh wait... maybe that's good. See above.

NY Rangers
Good: uh... I'm sure there's some good here. I don't watch the Rangers so I'm totally out of the loop on these guys but sitting near the top of the league during the first half of the season is pretty good.
Bad: The reason why they were sitting at the top was because they got off to a good start and played a lot more games than the rest of the people in the league. Where they will end up at the end of the season remains to be seen. Also, goalie Henrik Lundqvist hasn't exactly been top of the league a lot of the time.

Northeast - despite having Toronto (and now Ottawa) in it, this division is still the best in the east, in my very biased opinion. In my unbiased opinion, I still think this division is very good thanks to two teams. I mean, c'mon, how are we supposed to have the best division when two and a half teams play terribly?

Boston
Good: Sitting at the top of the league. Well, second now that San Jose won. But still. They barely squeaked into the playoffs last year and now they're top. Goalies Tim Thomas and Manny Fernandez been key to this abrupt turn around as have players like Milan Lucic, Philip Kessel and Somethingrather Wheeler. And I guess Ryder has been too.
Will this translate into playoff success? (finally?): It should be interesting to see how the Bruins handle themselves in the playoffs which is a totally different beast. I'm personally hoping for some imploding but I think this team has what it takes to go all the way...where they will then lose in 6 games to Detroit or maybe even San Jose (I wish!).

Montreal (in my totally biased assessment)
The good: They're still fairly high up in the rankings. Rookies that have been called up have been good. Especially the earlier stint that D'Agostini has had here. Also, players like Lapierre and Kostopoulous have really stepped things up. Price has had stellar performances and has stolen the game for the Habs on more than one occasion.
The bad: INJURIES. And especially inconsistency that has kept the team from gaining valuable points. I won't get into whether Carbonnneau has done his job properly or not but as an entire team they have had issues this half of the season. Yes, expectations were high coming in here. Too high. But there were some games that a team should win but ends up losing because they can't play a full game of hockey. And this team has gone and lost those games. Also less than stellar performances on the powerplay and from players like Kovalev have hurt the team at times.
The bright spot: They can climb out of this right now and dominate the rest of their season. Will they catch Boston? Probably not. But they can close the gap if they focus on playing 60 full minutes of hockey.

Buffalo
Again not one of the teams I follow regularly but it seems that they've struggled quite a bit so far. Consistency from the players has been an issue at times. Oh and a complete lack of effort from Maxim Afinogenov has been a real downer.

Ottawa
The bad: Well, let's see... 11 straight years of making the playoffs could be going down the drain this year. The Sens are going through a major crisis right now and the over emphasis on the top line of Heatley/Alfredsson/Spezza has finally come crashing down on the team. Oh and goaltending has been another issue this year, though instead of it being the antics of the goalies, it's been the performance of the goalies that has been a problem.
The good: Maybe now Ottawa will do something about not relying 24/7 on "the big three" and get themselves some other good players. Or maybe they'll just grab Toskala when he either goes on the trade market or goes free agent when Toronto dumps him.

Toronto.
The good: Luke Schenn. The kid has been the closest thing to a god send for the Leafs. And winning six games in a row. And surprisingly Grabovski seems to be liking life in Toronto. Funny how all of Montreal's ex players do better when they join the Habs' major rivals...Must have something to do with a mutual dislike of the Habbies (don't tell me that Ryder and Grabovski left with smiles and hugs while promising to send a postcard every week).
What they think is good: Ron Wilson and Brian Burke. Never underestimate the power of the Leafs' management problems. Ever.
The bad: The fact that they are the Toronto Maple Leafs and they're run by a corporation that couldn't give a hoot over whether they actually win or not. Oh you mean with the actual team? Well, take a look for yourself. I'm placing bets on them missing another playoff run.

Southeast - and arguably the weakest division which is why the Caps have a runaway lead.

Washington
The good: They've solved their goalie issues and Ovechkin seems to have snapped out of his slump (can't blame him entirely if his grandfather's health was bad. Family first, yes?).
The bad: Earlier injuries and bad goaltending from their goalies have stalled the team. Semin's previous scoring outburst seems to have stalled.

Carolina
Bad: lack of depth has hurt the team who keeps getting injuries.
Good news is: Um... I guess Cam Ward has been doing some stuff lately. When he's there he's been good when he's not, well.... hehe... byebye Hurricanes!

Florida
Intriguing bit: Someone tell me how Anderson has a good save percentage and the team is still sitting in 18th place? The team obviously needs to learn how to score more goals. And no, the Panthers getting five goals against the Habs doesn't count because the Habs got five goals on Anderson as well.

Tampa Bay
The bad: The owners, the management, the coaches, and the team. And hyping up Stamkos as something way more than he is. That is unfair to anyone but especially to an 18 year kid. I feel extremely bad for Stamkos.
The good: Um... I'm not seeing one other than maybe they'll get themselves another top player.
Can someone tell me...How Mike Smith has two shutouts?!

Atlanta
Don't follow these guys at all but obviously something's very wrong here. Kovalchuk keeps threatening to break out at any time but someone should tell him that now would be a good time to do it.

Now THAT was a good game!

Habs 6 Rangers 2 and no, we didn't score on an empty net tonight (because there was no empty net!).

First period: Well, the Habs are off to a good start tonight. After the first period it's 3-0 for the Habbies. Despite doing badly on the two power-play chances, I can probably attribute the badness to the Rangers' good penalty killing and just concentrate on the goals that were scored anyway. I actually missed Andrei Kostitsyn's goal because I switched the channel for a second. When I came back a few seconds later everyone was celebrating. Oops. I did see the replay though and it was pretty. Andrei's even got the whole fall down like Crosby to score thing down.

I was pretty annoyed with myself for missing the goal but thankfully I did not have to wait that long before the next goal came along. Lapierre took the puck out of the Canadien's zone and had an-almost breakaway. His shot bounced off Lundqvist and Begin was there to put it into the whole empty half of the net that Lundqvist wasn't covering. I tried not to be too pleased just yet and instead bit my fingers are the Rangers woke up and starting shooting the puck at Price (you didn't really think that Halak would be in for this one, did you? Poor Halak).

Thankfully there was no scoring by the Rangers and instead it was back to other end of the net where the Habs registered a few more shots on goal before Tanguay scored. The poor guy looked more relieved than happy but oh well. I was happy so nyah. Obviously I won't be totally happy until we've won because we all know that even if you're leading 5-0 going into the third period you're not necessarily going to win *coughs*

Second: Apparently the second period decided to start before I had finished writing about the first. How mean is that?! Anywhoo, I was just about to whine about why we have Laraque on the team but instead I'll just say that we're currently 3 and a half minutes into the period and Lapierre has just scored. Laraque's pass to no one actually turned itself into a goal. Yay! Be back after the end of the second.

Later: Hmm, well, the Habs went to sleep slightly in the second period and the score is now 4-2 which isn't so comforting. The first Rangers goal came on a power-play and at first glance it looked like the guy's stick was high but oh well... As for their second goal, they should get full marks for it. They brought the puck out of their own end and just charged. The second period also saw a couple of fights which was not so cool from my point of view. It was just not a nice as the first. I want the Habs to wake up and get to scoring again. I sincerely hope that Carbo is giving them all a lecture on staying awake and alert in the third period. I do NOT want to read in the papers tomorrow that the Habs had a 4-0 lead on the Rangers and then promptly lost it. The Rangers made the mistake of not staying awake for the last period of hockey last time and I really hope that the Habs make use of that lesson (not to mention, the Habs could also look at that lovely game against the Thrashers the other day as an example of what not to do).

Third: Lang and Kovalev must have either listened to me by telepathic waves or else they listened to Carbo because Kovalev came close to scoring within the first minute - excuse me, it was actually within the first 49 seconds. He ended up passing the puck to Markov who set up Lang. So the good news was Lang got a goal within the first minute while the bad news is Kovalev is still goaless in quite a while now (while the really good news is that the Habs were now leading 5-2). The Habs had a pile of chances to score after that despite the fact that the Rangers tried to put the pressure on them. Apparently someone told that that it was entirely possible to score three goals in a minute against the Habs and they certainly tried. But it was the Habs who stayed awake and on top of things tonight. The Rangers didn't have the opportunity to pull Lundqvist and in fact D'Agostini capped off a good night by scoring on him within the last few seconds of the game. Oopsies. Poor Lundqvist.

Turning 99 never looked or felt better. Maybe it was that or maybe it was the old jerseys the Habs were sporting tonight (which looked pretty good), or maybe it was the video of Roger Doucette singing the national anthems (which I wasn't enamoured with but that's just me), but whatever the reason, the Habs came out and flattened thr Rangers. I have to admit that after seeing the almost smooshing of the Penguins the other nght, I thought that the Rangers would be a lot better and come out and explode. As it was, the only thing that exploded tonight was my dinner in the microwave. And the Habs of course. The Rangers probably spent too much of their energy smooshing the Penguins and had nothing left for the Habs. That being said, the Habs were really good tonight. Their goals were definitely not by chance. Although in all fairness, if the Rangers hadn't just left Lundqvist out to dry, the goalie would have probably not have had to face 39 shots throughout the night. I thought the Habs worked really well for three periods of hockey. Okay, so maybe the power-play was not so good again but at least they created a fair bit of chances this time around. Maybe I'm missing something here but passing the puck around like it's a hot potatoe during the power-play doesn't seem to me like a good idea. I understand what they're trying to set up a good shot, the winning shot, and that they want to hang on to the puck, but wouldn't it be a better idea just to shoot the puck at the goalie as much as possible? If the opposition hits it out then go get it and try again. But I'm nit-picking at this point, I think.

Komisarek's now 3 for 3 in his "coaching" duties. I still think he should just stay there permantley *g*