Rookies Vs Fla

[johnnyhasbeen]

Any report on this game???

[TheBigRedC]

I saw on TSN they won 5-1. Latendress and a goal and an assist.

[johnnyhasbeen]

Now that is what I like to hear!!!!

[Bacchus]

anything else about the game?

Grabovsky?

[The-Habby2919]

Now that is what I like to hear!!!!

Ditto.

:hlogo:

[Bacchus]

news here:

http://www.rds.ca/canadien/chroniques/212575.html

and

http://www.cyberpresse.ca/article/20060910...1006/CPSPORTS01

Edited September 10, 2006 by Bacchus

[umpalumpa55]

any news on how grabovsky played.....i cant read french

[MAK]

Le duo Sergei Kostitsyn-Mikhail Grabovski a encore épaté par sa vitesse, la qualité et l'intensité de son jeu.

translation:

the grabovski-kostitsyn as impressed once again showing speed, finesse an intesnity.

now thats what I want to read about prospects!!!

It also shows that Ben maxwell played a great game!!

[PB]

According to La Presse our goally Cedrik Desjardins was by far the best player of the game....

my god....are we ever going to be deep or what !

[TheBigRedC]

No Price?

[Psycing]

No Price?

I take it they want to test out all the goaltenders. I remember reading that we had 3 at the camp, though I forget who the 3rd was. They likely dressed Price for what they felt was the most important game (vs Toronto). Dejardins seems to have played a great game, but he's about 2-4 years older (not sure how much older) than Price. I guess that's to be expected.

[TheBigRedC]

#3 is Lacasse I think

[KoZed]

I take it they want to test out all the goaltenders. I remember reading that we had 3 at the camp, though I forget who the 3rd was. They likely dressed Price for what they felt was the most important game (vs Toronto). Dejardins seems to have played a great game, but he's about 2-4 years older (not sure how much older) than Price. I guess that's to be expected.

Desjardins' almost 2 years older than Price. Price just turned 19 the last month and Desjardins will turn 21 this month.

[Psycing]

Desjardins' almost 2 years older than Price. Price just turned 19 the last month and Desjardins will turn 21 this month.

Yeah, just found his age actually, was coming to correct it but you beat me to it .

They have an article up on Canadiens.com on last night's game, you can find it here:

http://www.canadiens.com/eng/news/redirect...newsItemID=5148

[Lammy]

I saw on TSN they won 5-1. Latendress and a goal and an assist.

WHHHOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

[johnnyhasbeen]

Yeah, just found his age actually, was coming to correct it but you beat me to it .

They have an article up on Canadiens.com on last night's game, you can find it here:

http://www.canadiens.com/eng/news/redirect...newsItemID=5148

Oh my f in gees look at the size of the net in this link. what the heck is that? :puke:

[KoZed]

Oh my f in gees look at the size of the net in this link. what the heck is that? :puke:

hehe, look at Grabovsky's jersey number!

[JMMR]

Here is a sick video from a guy on another habs board of the game!

[Psycing]

hehe, look at Grabovsky's jersey number!

:lol:

[Capt.Crunch]

For those who know french, there is a good report by YvesBigras on CH Fans here.

For those who do not know french, I translated Bigras's report in english (tried to do my bit )

Hello everybody,

I just came back from the second game and I simply want to give you my comments. The three stars of the game were: 1st: Guillaume Latendresse (1 goal, 1 assist), 2nd: Kyle Chipchura (2 assists) and 3rd Cedric Desjardins (30 shots, 1 goal against).

I would have put Chipper as the first star and Tender as the second. Its not that Tender was worse than Chipper by Kyle had to kill to penalties taken by Guillaume and one of them went into a 5 against 3. Chipper does his work to perfection. He is not spectacular but he reads the plays very well on both sides of the ice. He is always in excellent defensive position and gives a hard time to opposing players along the boards. Grade: A

Guillaume played well; he made a couple of real good moves to keep the control of the puck but it felt as if he kept himself in check. I don't know if its his 2 commotions that makes him keep his head high but I though he lacked a bit of Oooomph when he cut to the net. Of his 2 penalties, one was from lack of effort and the other was more or less necessary because the opposite player was too close to Desjardins's net and Guillaume reminded him of the unwritten rule of not being to close to the net. Grade: A or A-

Cedric Desjardins... what to say about him... Well, he didn't have to make any saves until the 10th minute of the first period and, frankly, Muller could have dressed up as the goalie in the first because there were no action in the Habs's zone. From the start of the second, however, watch out: he was very busy; mainly because of the indiscipline of his teammates. He did good, he goes out very well to cut the angle of the opposite player, but he's going to have to learn not to get out too far in the pros because the other teams will adjust accordingly and he will find himself out of position more often than not. This being said, the guy did very well and he stole two great chances with incredible glove saves. He was also very good when Michael Frolik from the Panthers succeeded to pass by Martin Frechette and cut to the net. Desjardins followed the play very well and stoned him. Grade: A- (and be carefull with your outings!)

The best defenseman was John Gleed, who has a great skating stride, can pivot at will and makes a great first outlet pass. Not spectacular but solid in all aspects of his game. Grade: B+ (a bit more involvement in the offensive zone and he would have had an A)

Andre Joanisse did very well, a bit like Gleed, but he hits harder. Ask Frolic, who tried to bypass him like he did with Frechette beforehand. I'll just tell you Pizza Pizza had their money's worth because Frolic saw their add along the board from very close. Grade: B

Frederic St-Denis, Conrad Martin and Ryan O'Byrne did what they had to do without standing out. St-Denis has a good skating stride and reminds me a bit of Robidas. Martin is more or less the same type as St-Denis. O'Byrne is very imposing and not a lot of players can get by him because of his long reach but he's going to have to work on his deplacements because his feets look like they don't know where to go when the opponent is pressing him. All three: Grade C+.

Martin Frechette... what to say... Well, lets start by saying he did not fear to pinch in but he took bad decisions as to *when* to pinch in. To sum up his day, I can talk about this one play in the first period when the Habs were one man up and Kostitsyn gave him a great pass, ready for a big fat one timer, and Frechette fanned out on the shot. When he backchecked, he only had to push a little harder to keep Frolic on the outside and away from the net but he chose to pivot at the wrong moment to start backskating and Frolik just gave a little boost and bypassed him like a pylon. I noticed that Muller was waiting for him on the bench to give him advice on what to do and send him back to play on the next shift. Grade: C-

Lets talk about the forwards now. I already covered Tender and Chipper so I'll talk about the others.

Mikhail Grabovski. I'll start by saying he was the fastest on the ice by at least two strides. In one play in particular, the puck was free along the Panthers blueline and there was a Florida defenseman covering the center, but by the time he came close to the puck, Grabovski was besides him even if he had to start at his own blue line. Yessiree, he is a rocket. He isn't afraid to cut to the net. In one play, he took the puck, cut to the center from the right wing and shoveled the puck, the defenseman and the goalie into his own net (??). It was NICE. He then stood up and came back to his bench as if nothing happenned. SUPER NICE. Grade: A or A-

Sergei Kostitsyn (or Kovalev #2). Yes sir. I was wondering if it was Kovy on his first goal on the power play. You know the play where he pivots near the left board and slowly goes near the faceoff circles and shoots a lazer beam on the top corner just above the goalies shoulders? Well, I swear S.Kostitsyn did the same exact play. For his age, he shows great offensive tools and read the game very well. Grade: B+

Ryan White played a very good game and showed his defensive awareness when one of his backcheck stopped a 3 vs 1 from the panthers. Grade: B

Gregory Stewart is a very good player that protects the puck very well. At each presence he was very solid on the puck and I never saw an opposing player rob him the puck. He only has to develop a good nose for the net and he could become a good 2nd line power forward. Grade: C+

Ben Maxwell is the last forward who stood up. He played very well, like we say, on both sides of the puck. He was very good on his defensive backchecks and always put pressure on the puck carrier. He really looked starved [like he wanted the puck]. Grade: C+

The other forwards were a bit more discrete, without being bad.

Juraj Mikus wasn't bad but I was waiting to see a bit more out of him after hearing all the good things the scouts said of him. I didn't see it. He did not look confortable on the ice. He has good assets and you see he reads the play well but its as if he reads the play in a different langage. He only has to get a bit more familiar to the north american game.

Great report by the eternal Blind Gardien on HFBoards here.

For those who do not want to click... here is the reports (assembled):

Starting with goalies and D this time...

Desjardins was indeed the star for the Habs. Not that the Panthers outplayed us or anything, he didn't steal the game. But it was a lot closer than 5-1, and if you wanted to switch him with Shantz at the other end, the outcome might not have gone our way. He made some great saves indeed, several with his flashy glove waving, but also a great toe one on a PP, great robbery. I sort of saw him looking like a Huet today, which never really occurred to me during the Mem Cups, but you know, he doesn't necessarily look technically great or flash any specific goaltending skill, but he just kept getting the job done one way or the other. Impressive game. But then, goalies are like that. Lacasse was dressed as the backup today.

O'Byrne came out FLYING in the first period, I thought. It was night and day. This was more like what I call the "Cornell 3rd year" version of O'Byrne where he actually held onto the puck at times and made some moves up ice with it. He kind of tailed back off to his Game 1 inconsistencies in the 2nd and 3rd periods, though. But for that brief, glorious first, I hope I saw a sign of things to come.

St-Denis was a crucial addition to the lineup, IMO. He may not necessarily have done anything sparkling or special that showed on the scoreboard, but just having a guy who would carry the puck and take a few risks skating with it, pinching, etc, that helped put the Panthers back on their heels a bit early on. Together with O'Byrne's good start, it really was the crucial difference between tonight's convincing win and last night's narrow loss... our D had some composure and was keying the transition, and St-Denis played a part in that. I don't know if he's really a guy we would ever want to sign, especially since his role is made rather redundant by Sanford and Benoit, but he has skill.

Joanisse was also new to the lineup and I thought he handled himself reasonably well. Decent size to him. Gleed, Martin, and Frechette managed to look better than last night individually and as a group. I'm not sold on any of them as players we need think of for the future of the Habs (or even Bulldogs), but they at least held in there tonight where they didn't last night. As I mentioned earlier, Martin dropped the gloves with Tuma in the first. Maybe Frechette would be my pick as the best of the bunch, but it's marginal. Obviously they like Gleed for character or something too.

And up front...

Latendresse got first star, although I think I would have gone with Chipchura ahead of him. But you know, these two are really growing on me as a duo, and Chipchura is really showing some creativity and skill that I wasn't always convinced he had, despite the fact that he's my favourite prospect and all. I guess he still doesn't wow with his skillset, and whether it's roughness in his stride or always juggling the puck a bit, it never seems to matter because he always gets the job done and often creates something successful out of nothing. When you have his hustle and intelligence going with Latendresse's hands, they are magic together at times. They continued to kill penalties together too. Good game for both of them. Still not dominating on Latendresse's part, but because of the win I think his game got more recognition than last night, although I didn't see him to be any better or worse. D'Agostini also continues to be the perfect complementary addition to that line, he just provides a little of whatever the line needs, whenever it needs it. I wish that line could just keep rolling on all year for the Bulldogs. Too bad.

Grabovski didn't get quite the results he had in Game 1, but he was still dynamic and entertaining at times. Maybe the Panthers knew to key on him a bit too. I still really like the way he'll go into traffic and danger zones, even as a flashy guy who could make a living just on his flash and decide to stay out of danger. A couple of times I wondered if maybe he was trying too hard to set up Kostitsyn, kind of realizing that he's a bit above this level of game and was getting a bit too fancy to try to spread the glory around. Kostitsyn had a very good game, he made some nifty moves too and really looked a lot like his London self setting up on the PP. I think that Aubin is a good fit to stay on that line, he put himself in place for some one-timer attempts again, and he has the offensive vision to see what Grabo and Kosty are trying to do and get involved in it. I would keep that unit together.

I said good things about Maxwell in Game 1, and I think he had an even better game today. Still out there in all situations and was up front for a 5-on-3 PK again, but he also had a bit more urgency in his regular shifts too, and seemed to click well with Stewart and White making room for him. I thought his game today was up there with Tlusty, and better than Frolik. For 18 year olds in this tourney, hopefully that is as good a sign as it seems to be on the surface. Stewart was really good on the forecheck, again almost every game he comes up with a good steal or forces a play that turns into a scoring chance. Not often, but it always happens eventually. He makes the opponents hear footsteps, which is a good thing. White still hasn't really found himself yet, but he started to look more involved and get into things more when he got switched to play with Maxwell. While the idea of having him provide a physical and defensive presence on the Grabovski line might have looked good on paper, they just never really seemed to be able to click. He's in his element now on a 3rd line.

Once again, the 4th line really didn't get much of a chance. It's unforunate for Mikus, he looks like he has more to show, but he hasn't really had the big opportunities to do so yet. Perhaps against York they'll let the big guys take a bit of a break and somebody like Mikus will get a chance to play a lot and step out of the shadows a bit. He looks a bit bigger and stronger than how I had imagined him, and I think if you put him on one of the top two lines he might just be doing as much to impress us as, say, Kostitsyn is.

Picard-Hooper also isn't getting a lot of opportunity, although at one point they did swap him and Chipchura for a shift just to keep him warm I guess. Hard to get a read on him with little opportunity. Mouton didn't do anything. He didn't fall over or look hideously out of place relative to the competition either, I guess.

[HABZRULE]

Does anyone know if there were fights in either game??????

[mathieu30]

hehe, look at Grabovsky's jersey number!

Grabovsky is wearing number 59.

[JMMR]

Does anyone know if there were fights in either game??????

I believe there was one in the Florida game unsure about the Leafs one!

[HABZRULE]

Where did you hear there was a fight. I've looked all over and I can't seem to get any news of it. If you can re-direct me to the info or let me know who fought(if possible)

[KoZed]

Grabovsky is wearing number 59.

Rrrrright, that's a 5?!