The Chicoutimi Cucumber

Boy, a lot of grousing on here. MB sucks, everybody sucks, blah blah blah. Although TB was the better team for most of the third period - odd considering they were supposed to be "tired" and we are supposed to be a "third period team" - the bottom line was that the Habs had by FAR the greater number of really dangerous scoring chances, at least as far as I could see. We can rag on Pleks and DD all we want, but they played darned well. Frankly, I thought everybody on the Habs had a good game - even favourite fan whipping boys like Gilbert - except for Alex Galchenyuk, who stuck out like a sore thumb for his boneheaded individual plays and continued overall futility. It's a tough loss, but what are you gonna do? Bishop played great (except for the Patches goal), got a couple of posts early...it happens. Ultimately it was an excellent hockey game from two rather similar and well-matched teams and could very easily have gone the other way. There's no justification for ragging on anyone on this squad (except maybe Galy. Like that'd happen). I'm haunted by Plekanec's shot from the slot and Weisse's OT chance, though. Those are the kind of opportunities this team needs to put away. And both players are capable of doing it. Still, you're going to have losses like this in a playoff run. The key is to bounce back just as strong or stronger. Let's go get Game Two.

Tampa as the 8th Canadian franchise? I say give them the title, provided they restrict their roster to players aged 65 and up.

Well, Beaulieu did not play better than Gilbert in the limited playoff time he saw - but I can see your point. I wasn't saying 'Beaulieu is worse than Gilbert,' more that Beaulieu is not part of the core group that is going to make or break us on the blueline. Better him than PK, Markov, Petry or even Emelin.

Do you have a problem with how Emelin has played in the playoffs? I don't. I like Beaulieu a lot, but let's face it, he was running around like a decapitated chicken...had that continued, no WAY would he get more minutes. Frankly, I'd look to Petry to pick up Markov's minutes if #79 continues to flag. But hopefully this won't be necessary. Markov knows he sucked last round...he'll want to do better.

Ha ha, yeah, he's stinking out the joint, so give him more minutes Typical of the attitudes toward young players on this board. That said, I agree that Beaulieu had the potential to be a wild card asset over the course of a playoff run. It may yet happen. But frankly, if one of our D had to be injured, it's not a bad thing that it was him.

Interesting to see PK Subban at -4 for the season series. I wonder what's up with that?

It's Tradition Incarnate versus Bettman-baby phoney-baloney expansion franchise... It's Hart & Vezina nominee Carey Price versus Steven Stamkos... It's a rematch of last playoff's 4-0 sweep... It's... THE MONTREAL CANADIENS (4-2) VERSUS THE TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING (4-3) THE MONTREAL CANADIENS' LINEUP (projected) Pacioretty - Plekanec -Gallagher Galchenyuk- Desharnais - Weise Prust - Eller - Parenteau DeLaRose -Mitchell - Smith-Pelly Markov-Subban Emelin-Petry Gilbert-Pateryn Price Tokarski Injuries: Beaulieu Scratches: Flynn, Malholtra, Gonchar, Weaver TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING LINEUP (projected) Killorn - Stamkos - Callahan Palat - Johnson - Kucherov Namestnikov - Flippula - Paquette Morrow - Boyle - Nesterov Hedman - Stralman Garrison - Coburn Carle - Sustr Bishop Vasilevskiy Time: 7:00 PM EST TV: CBC, TVA Sports, NBCSN

Didn't say that. My only prediction is that it'll be a long series. (If it's not, that'll because TB steamrolled us).

Ha ha, yeah, that is a sweeeet scenario! Beating all three of those would pretty much settle any question about which team is ACTUALLY the best in the Conference. But, one series - heck, one game - at a time. Five games from now, we could all be crying in our beer going 'why did it have to be Tampa Bay? WHYYYY?'

I don't give a rat's arse about CORSI, but the special teams numbers have to improve. If we go up against TB with that kind of PK, we are going to get massacred.

Boy oh boy. We have two teams that kicked the crap out of us all season- Ottawa and TB - and we draw BOTH of them for the first two rounds. The hockey gods sure don't make it easy. Tampa has to be seen as the favourite going into this series, obviously. Not only did they just hammer us all season long, but they've gone through the classic first-round 'narrow escape' that so often proves propulsive to high-end teams as they launch a Cup run. That said, the Habs handled Ottawa much more easily than I thought they would (I predicted a Habs' defeat), and have a 'battle-hardened' playoff quality to them that Tampa probably doesn't. And we have Price. Still...it's gonna be a doozy. Lovett is right; our game will have to be to play extremely tight and disciplined defensive hockey, and hope to be opportunistic in our scoring. That, plus great goaltending, is the historic recipe the Habs have always used when going up against high-powered offences. We have the team to play this way. Let's hope it works.

Price is a lock for the Hart.

So, was Karlsson's playoff unrepresentative of his regular season game? Because I saw a guy who didn't have huge defensive weaknesses.

Look, the lack of a PP is a huge liability. If we could complement our strong 5-on-5 play with a power-play of even middling effectiveness, we'd surely take 'the next step' toward being clear-cut and universally feared contenders. Offence would no longer be a glaring problem. For years with the Habs, it seems to have been either/or. Either we're strong 5-on-5 (MT), OR we're all about special teams (JM). There really is no rational reason why a team that can be effective at even strength cannot score goals on the PP. I get that we can win lots of games, and even playoff series, without a good power-play, but I wouldn't minimize the importance of this problem.

I don't think you can detract from Doughty's excellence. That said, I suspect that part of the reason he is spoken of in such awed tones is that he's such a perfect fit for the Good Canadian Boy stereotype. When old-school NHLers have wet dreams about ideal defencemen, it's not PK Subban or Erik Karlsson they're fantasising about. Good point about Weber. Given the season Nashville turned in, he probably should have supplanted Doughty on the list.

I like the Hamrlik parallel. Or Dan Hamuis. Petry seems to be the same kind of 'stabilizing' all-around defenceman. Very valuable on this squad. I want to sign him, but I also think there's a touch of naivete about some of the posts advocating this. At 26, he is going to want EITHER a massive overpay (which he will get on the open market) OR a long-term deal (say, 6-8 years, why not) - or both. The idea that he is a 'transition' from Markov to Beaulieu, then, doesn't really hold up. If we sign him, it will be as a long-term core player, who will still be paid long after Beaulieu has supplanted Markov. It's fine to say we have the moolah to sign him. But maybe the right question is: what is an overpay for Petry? And is he the guy to overpay? There is no high-end scoring W in the system. Do we really want $5 mil+ locked into Petry for 6-8 years? Unless he's so thrilled to be here that he's OK with a cut rate salary, the admirable goal of keeping this fine asset will likely come crashing against the realities of a cap system.

Well, I agree with xXx above. Going into this series, I had the same idea as Jeff Price, namely that Karlsson was a shade better offensively than Subban but that PK had it all over him in terms of 'complete game' (including physicality and defensive play). I thought of Karlsson as one-dimensional. However, the Karlsson I saw in this series was strong at all ends of the ice - and he even put out Beaulieu with a hit. AND he is able to be a formidable power-play QB, which, let's face it, Subban has not been, at least not this season. It's true that PK owned Karlsson for the first two games. But after that, the Swede took over, even if his team lost. If Subban can become the engine of a thriving PP, then I think he probably wins it in my book. But based on this series, I give it to Karlsson.

I had the exact same thought. Doughty should not win because his team was a pack of losers (this year). Based on this playoff, which may not be an accurate indicator, Karlsson has a slight edge on Subban as a player IMHO. He is phenomenal. Happy to see Subban nominated, though - he seemed to have an 'under the radar' season by his ridiculous standards in terms of public and media commentary, so it's good to know that his awesomeness continues to be universally acclaimed.

Probably. If Petry's priority is to be part of a winning team with a high ceiling, he might take less to re-sign. If his goal is to simply cash in, then there is no way we keep him.

I'm surprised Minny took out St Louis with such ease. Are they an 'under the radar' Quiet Contender? Any thoughts?

I was unable to see the first two periods of Game 6. But I watched the third period with nail-biting intensity. Despite the shot totals, I thought we were the better team until the very end, when - as inevitably happens in almost every elimination game - the losing team threw everything it had at the eventual winner. The Sens took a lot of perimeter shots that Price had no trouble with. Meanwhile, we missed, like, three open nets and had stellar chances to go up 2-0. The pessimist notes that - as has been happening all season - our guys flub big chances. The optimist notes that we were able to take the game to the desperate Senators for 15:00 of that third period. To my mind, it's more proof that SOG totals don't come close to telling the whole story. And it's funny, because when the Habs massively outshot Ottawa in Game 5, everybody agreed that shot totals are irrelevant. But when the Habs are the ones giving up a lot of shots, suddenly that becomes a telling indicator of our suckage, at least in some circles. Further to this theme of double standards: going into the playoffs, the experts were unanimous that the one team nobody wanted to play in Round One was the 'hottest team in hockey,' the Cinderella Ottawa Senators. Moreover, many observers noted that Ottawa has been a sort of Kryptonite to the Habs all season, going back at least to 2103, really. The universal theme was: these Sens are really dangerous. Having defeated the Sens in 6, we now hear a lot about how 'the Habs had to struggle to put away a mediocre team.' We can't have it both ways. Either the Senators were a formidable opponent with massive intangibles who we nevertheless decisively defeated, or they weren't. We can't retroactively downgrade them to ciphers on the grounds that we decisively defeated them. I remember very well the same dynamic in 1993. Going into the Nordiques series, all the authorities declared that the Habs were in tough against a real powerhouse. Six games later, the narrative was NOT that the Habs were good; it was that the Nords really weren't that great after all. Now, mediocrity at FW probably is indeed the Achilles's Heel that will eventually do this team in. We are built in such a way that - unless Price works miracles - we have to get scoring from at least three lines on a tolerably reliable basis. We got adequate offence early in the series, but this weakness came more to the fore as it progressed. If we can get a 'different hero every night' for Round Two, we have a good chance of winning that as well; if we don't, the odds drops considerably. All of this is to say that the Habs remain what they've been all season: second-tier contenders with gusts up to first-tier contenders if we can get everyone firing. A fine team, not a great one. But it doesn't follow that we suck, or that we are frauds, or that we do not have a chance of going very far indeed. There is too much negativity surrounding a team that just won Round One handily against a team that everybody feared going in.

All I can say about this game is... PHEW.

Bingo

Well, here we go. It's THE GREATEST ORGANIZATION IN THE HISTORY OF THE SPORT versus THE OTTAWA SENATORS MONTREAL CANADIENS' LINEUP: This configuration is guesswork, as no confirmed roster changes have been announced. In fact I doubt Flynn will sit, but figured I'd throw Parenteau in there. Max Pacioretty - David Desharnais - Brendan Gallagher Alex Galchenyuk - Tomas Plekanec - PA Parenteau Jacob de la Rose - Lars Eller - Devante Smith-Pelly Brandon Prust - Torrey Mitchell - Dale Weise Andrei Markov - P.K. Subban Alexei Emelin - Jeff Petry Tom Gilbert - Greg Pateryn Carey Price Dustin Tokarski Injuries: Nathan Beaulieu Scratches: Sergei Gonchar, Manny Malhotra, Mike Weaver, Brian Flynn THE MIKE DUFFYS' LINEUP Logic says they will not change a thing. Clarke MacArthur - Kyle Turris - Mark Stone Milan Michalek - Mika Zibanejad - Bobby Ryan Erik Condra - Jean-Gabriel Pageau - Curtis Lazar Mike Hoffman - Zack Smith - Alex Chiasson Mark Methot - Erik Karlsson Patrick Wiercioch - Cody Ceci Mark Borowiecki - Eric Gryba Craig Anderson Andrew Hammond Injuries: Robin Lehner, Chris Phillips, Matt Puempel Scratches: Jared Cowen, Colin Greening, David Legwand, Chris Neil Habs will hope the third time's a charm and the Senators will finally start to resemble their namesake: flaccid, redundant, and a national laughing stock. Sens hope to keep riding Andy Moog and the momentum of desperation.

I'll try to change the luck by attempting my first GDT. If only I could figure out how to insert images, it might look cooler. But expect a heartfelt yet bare-bones effort.