Boston (23-22-11) at Montreal (28-25-6)

Projected lineups:

Darche - Gomez - Gionta
Moen - Plekanec - S. Kostitsyn
Maxwell - Metropolit - Lapierre
Desharnais - White - Trotter

Markov - O'Byrne
Hamrlik - Spacek
Gill - Gorges

Halak

GO HABS GO!

Ugly game. Bruins blast bumbling Habs by big blowout: 7-1. Gomez and Gionta get gutted by Lucic.

Hunwick hammers Hamrlik and Halak. Michael and Marco mince Markov, Moen, Metropolit.

If its anything like last game you will have to switch the third and fourth lines.

Maxwell breathes a sign of relief.

Led by the inspired play of our 4th line for the 2nd game in row, the Habs cruise to a 4 - 2 victory.

(Are you sure Halak is the goalie? Price *does* need to play. (And this is not said to placate the Price vocality, but is the god-awful truth!)

Is this game on CBC?

I hope not ... they should not broadcast any habs games. It's an embarassment to the country with them commentators.

yes

Yes.

GO HABS GO!!!
GO DOGS GO!!!

It was twittered by RDS that Halak would get the start.

I agree that Price needs to play soon.

Go Habs Go.

As much as i'd like to see Price back in soon, Halak definitely has earned the right to play this one.

Gotta ride the hot hand.

Yes. The winning streak will end soon (quite possibly today - the Prunes are overdue and we're not the kind of team to string together more than a modest winning streak). Once it does, go with Price, but not before. Don't mess with hockey karma.

At least its not that old senile leafer Bob Cole doing the play by play today!

Full confidence in Halak, but surprised they didn't get Price into the game. Maybe they figure this one is too important to change anything.

I would like a good stream, cuz EspnAmerica s broadcasting a lot of Superbowl re-runs. Habs will be broadcasted tomorrow, but i would like to see it now.

Rask and Halak and both on their game today...

Sigh.. Habs are not playing with the energy they need.. I am sure they are tired, but Boston played yesterday too.

Bad break on the deflection, but the boys need to wake up and start forechecking and moving their feet.

and now we have spotted them two goals... 4 secs left..

Well, so far the other habs team has shown up with the standard coaching style of sit back and pray... they better open it up in the 2nd because that period was terrible. They gave all the momentum to Boston.

Found out about 15 minutes ago that Yahoo is streaming the game in the US. Quite a surprise, it wasn't on the schedule when I checked for the Habs earlier this week. Tuned in just in time to see the Bruins finish strong and dominate the play to a 2 goal lead.

it feels like a night and day difference between the team that came out yesterday and the one that came out today....let's hope they turn it around for the remaining 40 minutes

HABS a no show today. Dammit the broons will break there streak.

Back to the usual passive Martin style

Yup... nothing much going on still... where is the forecheck?

They are sitting around waiting for a PP again.

Boston's game plan is so simple... dump it in, forecheck, back to the point.. shot into the crowd. Simple, and effective.

I'm amazed Kirk Muller can take that no forecheck, passive garbage. It goes against everything he did in his career. I suppose an assistant hasn't much to say in the style the team plays.

The habs have to start getting shots to the net with traffic in front, Rask can see everyone and there is no one around for a rebound... one shot and out.

Shame Pleks couldn't bury that breakaway.

If you are not going to play the kids, then put one of them with gomez instead of Moen.. please.....

at least they show up in the 2nd.

Found an Sopcast stream, unlucky its nesn. Those commentators are the most anoying in the league

Shame that they have nothing to show for that period.

As much fun as these last three games have been I think it's time for Cammy to make a miracle recovery and come back for the third period. All in favor?

Barring that I would put Plex on the Gomez line for a few shifts. Spreading out the talent hasn't done much, so it's time to load up one line.

This reminds me too much of the Florida game.. sit back.. do nothing, then the other team's goalie takes over.

I just don't understand why they would not pounce on the Bruins.. hard forechecking game, get to them early.. take them out of it...

Unless we get some breaks (PP goal, deflection, something), I see the Bruins just holding them off for another 20.

Does anyone know why the kid line is barely playing?

Hey JM.. its called dump and chase, not dump and change...

Another tip. Just looked flat today, the whole team.

Sigh.. another deflection.. Boston is getting the luck today, but they have outplayed the habs so can't complain.

The fact is, the team spotted the Bruins the first period. 4 good games in a row is elusive for this team.

And that's that.

One powerplay.. ref didn't call much, but no skating makes it hard to draw one.

well i did say yesterday that they won 3 in a row, so it was time for another loss. I really didn't think they would come out as flat as they did though.
I'd love to hear what Martin has to say in his post game conference. If he says the same crap like he did in the 2nd game in Florida on how he thought they played well, i'm going to puke.

I had such high hopes for Maxime Lapierre. An instigator, pain in the arse type. So what if he doesn't fight much, I don't recall Ken Linseman dropping them to often. It's just not working out though...

Yeah, I'd love to know what happened to him. He was one of our more consistent and better players last year. This year, he's been pretty invisible.

Critical game against a team that has 3 games in hand on us, and they don't show up. This team seems to get up for tough opponent, but seems satisfied with a few good games and then the effort level drops. Mediocre team.

I wouldn't mind if they lost with all the players they were missing, if they played hard. They simply didn't. Is it the team, the coach, or both. I am sure JM was not impressed with that wide open play yesterday.. he fixed that problem sure enough.

I really think Gainey needs to fix the JM problem. Terrible choice as a coach to begin with, may as well cut the cord and pay him for his 3 or 4 years he has left. This team has the horses to play a run and gun agressive skating style not the JM sit back and wait 10 year old NHL style.

If that's the problem, I'd just love to know the inner workings. Somebody in the office of the team should tear him a new one. Kick some garbage pails, I don't know. What a waste of a sunday afternoon.

If we'd won this one, it was really an opportunity to drive a stake thru their hearts. I know there are still plenty of games to play, but personally I don't think the Bruins would've recovered from this to challenge for the playoffs again. Instead, we breathe new life into them and make it harder for ourselves, again.

You can talk about the 33 year old rookie on one of the top lines, a bunch of kids on the 4th, Cammi out, and the fact that we stole a game from the B's last week we had no business being in. But the fact is you gotta take these chances when they present themselves, this team just does not have that killer instict, honestly the last time they remotely showed it was when Michel Therrien was the coach, and even then only in spurts.

You know with the kid line not clicking like yesterday. I really can't understand why Martin wouldn't try trotter of Desharniais with G&G and SK74 and Pleks. Moen looks completely lost on the G&G line.

While Darche has been effective in creating chances and worked hard with Pleks and Sk74, these guys need someone who can finish, as I think if Cammy or Pouliot were playing with them, either one would have potted a couple of goals.

Lastly, even though Metro has had success this year on the PP, let face it, while he scored against Boston a couple of nights ago, most of his goals came during a hot spell early in the year. If Metro is the answer on our #2 unit, we are really grasping. Why Martin doesn't have SK74 on the PP is beyond me. IF he sets up a couple or pots a few goals, its going get his confidence going and with Cammy and AK46 out and now Pouliot, we could really use SK going like he was when he first came up in his first year. SK really was playing well for a few games, but Martin never seems to reward him with PP time.

Umm, what game were you watching? Rask was spectacular.

36 shots = no show? Okay... Sure.

yeah they got 36 shots - after spotting the bruins a 2-0 lead. They also really didn't create a heck of a lot of traffic around Rask or drive heard to the net to get at rebounds.

ForumGhost v hab29RETIRED

In one corner the eternally optimistic Ghost for whom the Habs can do no wrong, and in the other corner, aging cynic Retired for whom the Habs can do no right.

You do realize you two are diametrically opposed, right?

Can you blame me for being a cynic with the jekyl & hyde team we have?

ALthough yesterday, I was actually feeling quite optimistic that the habs can pull out 3 out of 4 wins before the break. Now the best we can hope for is 2-3. I saw the Washington-Pittsburgh game today and really can't see us beating the caps the way they are playing right now. IF the play like they did against Philly, you can kiss those two games goodbye as well though - sorry the negative vibes I get from this team are just too hard to shake

BTW, unfortunately i'm no where near retirement - that is strictly in tribute to Dryden's whose number should have been retired 3 decades ago.

I expected a simular result. The team came off big wins, and yesterday proved alot. Today, without rest, they faced a team who had been playing decent hockey but has been not getting a bounce in weeks. ( a feeling we all know too well from the last few seasons) Boston was due, and were pumped. We were not into it and lost. happens. Simular thing happened to Ottawa last night. I am still not worried. We are going to be at the dance this year, or be oh so close.I'd rather compete for that and hope to get hot in the playoffs than tank. Actually I think we lost because we called these guys up too soon and are rushing their development. LOL. Remember, according to mosts preseason analysis, this team is over achieving!