The Chicoutimi Cucumber

Nonis wouldn't go to TO. Why put yourself through *exactly* the same scenario of incompetent, short-term-thinking ownership? He'll find a nice assistant job someplace and bide his time.

You guys are right, the Bruins Game Thread IS pretty funny. So much whining about the refs, and it's hilarious to read THEM ranting about what crap their guys are, etc., in exactly the same way WE do about our players when they're losing. My favourite comment of the night was this: Oh well, at least the Bruins are not getting destroyed. That's the spirit!!

I feel sorry for Bruins fans sometimes. The history of being *owned* by the Habs - regardless of which team is actually superior in any given year - really is astounding. In fact, I think it works in our favour, giving us a little edge in mystique and, some years, making it somehow acceptable for the Bruins to lose to us. (Not this year; these Bruins are real grind-it-out character guys). A tremendous win for us, in that you HAVE to be able to win these squeakers if you're planning to contend. And I don't mind saying that with Huet in net we'd probably still be fighting it out in OT. Plekanec looks like he's trying too hard, and so does S. Kostytsin. Gainey's brigade of piecemeal vets and castoffs - Smoke, Kostopolous, Brisebois - are really rising to the occasion.

I thought we were finding our rhythm in transitioning from defence to offence, but penalties and the PP, of all things, sent us off the rails. The Habs look very confused on the PP. Over and over, you see moments of hesitation, where the D aren't sure whether to pinch, where the forwards aren't quite sure whose puck it is, etc.. I don't know what's going on with that - how do you fall so far out of sync in three games?? The Bruins are also winning more battles than they're losing in the corners. Bottom line, the Habs have been surprised by the way the Bruins raised their intensity in Games 2 & 3 and have yet to respond. They look like a team that's waiting for its leaders to step up...but nobody's quite sure how to make it happen. This is what the pessimists suggested: Habs' young guns are inexperienced and thrown off by the shift from 'regular season' to playoffs. Streit has been the biggest victim - he is absolute garbage out there. A. Kostitsin also looks puzzled. Sergei seems to get it, but that's the thing - some players 'get it,' some are struggling, and the result is a loss of team cohesion. Underlying it all is Julien's supreme coaching effort. Fortunately our goalie is an absolute beast, and will keep us in the mix. Let's also remember that this is a road game, and a road win - defined by riding out hot flashes from the home team, strong netminding, and opportunistic scoring - is a W no matter how ya slice it.

Captain Stealth, I live in Vancouver and pay a lot of attention, not as a fan of the Canuckleheads, but as a fan of hockey. And I completely agree with you. In fact, I am angry at this firing - not because I care about the Canucks but because I think it's just grossly unjust. Nonis had the right plan - the ONLY plan - for success in a cap system: build from within and do not under any circumstances empty the cupboard of young talent/picks in exchange for short term gains. In other words, do as Bob Gainey has done, not as John Ferguson Jr.. Beyond that, his shorter-term strategy of building from Luongo on out was perfectly chosen. It's not his fault his blueline was decimated all season. He does everything a responsible GM should do - and for this, he's fired? The message that the owner is sending in firing a guy who had gotten all the fundamentals right, is that the Canucks ownership will only accept short-term thinking and quick fixes. This is EXACTLY the mentality of the Toronto Maple Leafs. And the results, in the long term, will be exactly the same. Furthermore, when the new GM comes in he will likely spend a couple of years 'reconstructing' the rest of the organization, filling it with his people, etc.. This tends to set a team even further back. Ironically, though, the Canucks will likely be better next year, simply because the injury plague won't strike twice. And the new guy, whoever he is, will get all the credit. Meanwhile, the dry rot will slowly be spreading as quick fixes and short-term moves undercut any possibility of longer-term success. In three or four years, things will be even worse. I have a friend who used to say, during the Naslund/Bertuzzi era, that the Canucks will never, ever win a Stanley Cup. At the time I was living in Ottawa and couldn't figure that out. Now I understand perfectly what he means. The culture in this city has absolutely no understanding of what it means to build a winner. And until the Canucks get ownership that does understand that, and has bona fide determination to see it through, it's going to be an unending run in futility for these bozos. (And Burke??? First: why was he fired to begin with? Second, has he ever shown that he really understands how to build a team from the ground up? A popular choice, but will he necessarily be the best one - ?)

DOH!

I like Grabs, and really - was he gonna do worse than Dandy, especially given our need for more scoring punch? Feel bad for Ryder, though. He seems to be working, but it's crunch time and the guy unfortunately has not shown any hint of rediscovering his touch in the playoffs, as Gainey was likely hoping when he decided not to deal him.

Exactly. The top line has been challenged and now it's up to those guys to respond. You don't blow up your must successful element when you're up 2-1 in a series just because you lost one game in OT. Minor tinkering, such as moving Streit around, bringing in O'Bryne, tweaking the Higgins line - all reasonable ideas, however. I also have a feeling about Higgins tonight. He's the type of guy to answer the call for a big game. Watch him.

I'm looking for a much better game from Plekanec after his famous 'little girl' remark. If he can step it up, that'll make Kovy that much more effective. This is the Biggest Game of the Year and will go a long way to establishing whether we are bona fide contenders - truly able to raise our game a notch when required, in order to dispatch a very well-coached and determined Bruins squad - or whether we are one of those teams that still has to figure out how to translate its talent into winning. That said, I'm betting on our boys :hlogo: :hlogo: :hlogo:

Good point. Amidst all the talk of the Bruins 'deserving to win' it's easy to lose sight of the fact that we basically adjusted to whatever they've been doing as of the 2nd period last night. That 'adjustment' we're all looking for may already have happened.

Ironically, I think this a really ballsy comment. He's calling himself out in public. He knows full well - or will soon learn - that the 'little girl' label is going to follow him wherever he goes unless he puts it to rest with killer play. These are the words of a player who has no interest at all in leaving himself any escape hatches or excuses. 10 to 1 we see Pleks doing damage in Game 4.

Since no one's picking up on this point, I thought I'd reiterate it... One of the interesting things about this series is Julien's coaching. Now I have no idea what goes on behind the benches, but it seems clear to me that Julien and his staff have developed an excellent strategy to counter some of our strengths. The weak PP doesn't just happen - it's a product of PK tactics such as huge pressure on Markov and probably a lot of other less obvious strategies. I get the sense that Julien has accurately identified keys to this team and it's working, in part. The angle we haven't yet heard is how, or whether, Carbo can respond. Based on the fact that the Bruins have partially neutralized many of our key players and team assets, we have to conclude that Julien is outcoaching him at this stage. (That's not to blame Guy - just to make an observation pertinent to the series so far). How all this relates to 2006, beats the hell outta me

Interesting parallels indeed. But this team is so completely different from that one I can't get too worked up about it. My fear all along has been that Boston would do to us what we did to them in the last two series: play over their heads against a superior team and win. That's the parallel that worries me slightly. Unfortunately the last two games have done little to assuage those worries, but like yourself, Wamsley, I won't get *really* worried unless the Habs lose the next one.

The incompetence of the PP is a surprise (and likely a testament to Julien's coaching). But one of our question-marks going into the series was the inexperience of our young guns. Plekanec in particular - despite a PPG pace - seems to be showing huge signs of the 'raw playoff rookie' syndrome. This leaves Kovy looking more like a solo act than usual. Lats is dubious, Lapierre is so-so, Streit has been erratically up-and-down, Higgins started strong and dipped after missing some great chances (which seems to be a pattern with him); while the Kostytsins and obviously Price have brought it. But really, we should be looking to the vets. Our non-offensive vets (Smoke, Hamrlik, Kostopolous) have been outstanding. The veteran offensive leaders, not so much. Ryder has had some strong shifts, but it's the same old story with him: if he ain't scoring he might as well be in Hibernia. Most importantly, Markov is really feeling the pinch of aggresive Bruins coverage on the point. What we're seeing IMHO is a series in which an immensely superior team is confronting a very well-devised game plan by the opposing coach, coupled with desperation by his team. I'm in no way ragging on Carbo, but the edge in coaching thus far goes to Julien by some distance, if only because Julien seems to have worked out a plan to partially neutralize several - not all - of our key elements, while Carbo has not yet shown a response. Koivu would definitely be the extra ingredient we need. But really, we should be fine without him. I like what Benoit Brunet said: if the Habs match the Bruins' work ethic, their talent will practically guarantee victory. Nonetheless this loss adds a dangerous X-factor into the equation: how stoked will the Bruins be to finally have beaten us? How important a psychological threshold was crossed tonight? Dangerous questions - the last thing we need is a hyper-mobilized opponent that truly believes itself to be giant-killers.

I certainly don't agree that the refs 'handed' the game to Montreal. The referreeing was simply abysmal all the way around: the basic problem being that they let all kinds of things go (mostly by the Prunes) in the 1st half of the game and then for some reason started calling everything. A call-everything approach affects the Bruins more because they're more likely to be committing infractions, given our speed advantage. The trouble is not that they called everything in the 3rd, it's that they were not consistent. (In fact, they inverted the traditional logic of NHL reffing, which is, call lots early and then let everything go). Anyway: As a wise man (Mats Naslund) once said, if we win all the games we deserve to win, and all the games we don't deserve to win, we should do well. The Bruins are actually serving as an interesting 1st-round opponent. They are teaching us the dangers of overconfidence. And they are also demonstrating that our PP can be neutralized much more easily in a playoff series - when opposition coaches have loads of time to study the other team's patterns, and figure out ways to neutralize them - than in the regular season. Some worrisome elements there, because our best defence against getting brutalized is to punish teams on the PP. Another thing the Habs need to learn is that the reffing sucks ass in the playoffs and is never consistent with regular season practice. I thought we were thrown off our game in the 1st half, partly because of overconfidence, but also because we got discombobulated by inept non-calls: c.f. Kovalev's stupid retaliatory penalty. The return of Koivu will help, if and when it happens. I like the idea of Saks as a secret weapon in reserve for when the going gets tough.

Good points. I've wondered the same thing about Kovalev. One or the other Kostytsins might be ready to replace him as a star-calibre 1st-line winger by then. And don't forget the possibility of a trade or signing a UFA like Hossa for that purpose.

It's a good point...ever since Gainey (then coach - and what a coach) started using Higgins as Koivu's winger, people have been worried that returning Higgins to C would disrupt his development. But based on one measly game, it's at least worth speculating over whether a move to C might actually help his development. Maybe he has enough experience under his belt that he no longer needs the safety net Koivu represented, and maybe he's ready to add another dimension to his game. If so, that could mean that our (or my) lingering anxieties over how we'll replace an aging Koivu as 2nd-line C might be pointless. Maybe Higgins could do it, assuming that Grabovski will never be the answer. Certainly a Pleks-Higs middle doesn't sound too bad. Time will tell.

Didn't see the whole game, but saw a good chunk - enough to know that it was mostly a laughter. However, I AM a little worried about the PP. Another game our two like that and it becomes an 'issue.' Price is bizarre - in his postgame interviews he seemed almost comatose. Komisarek is studying meditation but Price is already an eerily calm Zen Master. Bruins will be desperate next game, but you really have to wonder if they're not beaten before they begin.

Hey, this is fantastic. It's one more piece of irrefutable evidence that we can rub in the faces of all those 'experts' who picked us to finish out of the playoffs and/or LAST in the Conference. 'Oh, you were SLIGHTLY OFF...WE'RE F**KIN' FIRST IN THE ENTIRE F**KIN' CONFERENCE, YOU F**KIN' JACKASSES!!!" GO HABS GO!!!

You're right, of course. But I disagree with the last line. My premise for this is that playoff hockey often involves a learning curve for a young team. The danger in playing Boston is that we'll be overconfident that they'll be pressure-free and playing with passion, hungry for the upset. I can imagine three scenarios here: 1 -the one I sketched in my earlier post, whereby the Bruins catch us napping and then pull off a miraculous upset through a combination of our getting rattled and their getting the wind in their sails. It's unlikely, but it could happen with a team as inexperienced as ours. 2 -the slightly more likely scenario of them catching us napping, but us waking up after a scare and dispatching them in a closer series than anyone expected. 3 -the most likely scenario: we kick their asses. But my point is that it's a fine line between 1) and 2). The team that goes through the scare and survives might well prove a tougher team to beat in subsequent rounds, so in a weird way 2) might be the optimal scenario (although you obviously have to prefer the third scenario). In any case, a team that is given a scare by Boston is not necessarily a team that's 'not going to go anywhere anyways.' That's all I'm really saying; that, and that a less obvious mismatch in Round One would be better for this team developmentally. Nonetheless, I'll take the Bruins

I just want to emphasize what a truly extraordinary experience this season this has been. Everyone following this team should cherish their memories of this astounding 2007-08 edition of the Habs. We have been in the darkness for too long, and to have all the elements come together this way - all the long-promised young talent suddenly materialize so wonderfully, all at the same time, while veterans like Kovalev and Hamrlik led the way - is a remarkable thing. And we did it in true canadiens style, an explosive offensive dynamo with lots of style, pizazz and excitement. In fact, I can't think of a regular season in my lifetime that's been this magical (maybe the Koivu cancer year, but that was more about personal tragedy/triumph than the team on the ice). Even in 1993, the season itself was nowhere near as divinely favoured as this. I hope all the young fans on this board truly appreciate how lucky we are to have been able to witness the restoration of the Montreal Canadiens, the greatest organization in the history of the sport, to its rightful place as a tremendous NHL franchise - one that I believe will be a contender for years to come. These guys did not let us down this season, not once. In Bob we trusted, and he's delivered the foundation. Next step: can we win it all? Time will tell, but for God's sake, enjoy the ride. Thanks, Bob.

Sorry, I posted this in the Game Thread but meant to put it here (somehow): I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, the Habs are playing supremely well, looking every inch an elite contender (2 GAA in the last three games, from the league's best offensive team, are you kidding me???); and obviously we've kicked Boston around all season. On the other hand, the karma for a Habs-Boston series does feel slightly wrong to me. The Prunes will have *absolutely* no pressure and no expectations at all. None, zip, nada. That always makes teams dangerous. Remember the Habs' most recent playoff series, upsets all? Those upsets were partly fueled by a we've-got-nothing-to-lose-so-let's-give-em-hell attitude, the energy and attitude of the total underdog. The shoe could be on the other foot this time. And there's a further chance that the Habs - being young, and with visions of a season's worth of abject domination of their opponent - will sleepwalk into the series, thinking it'll be a gimme, which could spell trouble. Don't get me wrong. Smart money has the Habs to win handily. But in a way I can see where Cherry's coming from on this. What he forgets is that Montreal is simply 10X the team Boston is, from the goalie on out. Still, Ottawa might, in fact, have been a preferable opponent...somebody who, were we to beat them, would really put the wind in our sails; and yet who looks eminently beatable. If we manhandle the Bruins the way we've done all season, then we will not have been adequately tested for the next round. If we drop a couple of games to them, then we'll enter into very dangerous waters where the Bruins will begin to smell upset and become truly dangerous. The best scenario is for us to pound the shit out of them in the first two games, establishing our supremacy; then have the Bruins play us good and tough for the next two or three. A hard-fought 5-game series win might at least put some fear of God into us, steeling us for the next round, without truly jeapordizing this magical year. Just a cautionary note...I've remember enough good seasons sullied by dodgy playoffs, from back in the '80s-90s, to see some dangers here. I look forward to being proven wrong for even thinking this way

I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, the Habs are playing supremely well, looking every inch an elite contender (2 GAA in the last three games, from the league's best offensive team, are you kidding me???); and obviously we've kicked Boston around all season. On the other hand, the karma for a Habs-Boston series does feel slightly wrong to me. The Prunes will have *absolutely* no pressure and no expectations at all. None, zip, nada. That always makes teams dangerous. Remember the Habs' most recent playoff series, upsets all? Those upsets were partly fueled by a we've-got-nothing-to-lose-so-let's-give-em-hell attitude, the energy and attitude of the total underdog. The shoe could be on the other foot this time. And there's a further chance that the Habs - being young, and with visions of a season's worth of abject domination of their opponent - will sleepwalk into the series, thinking it'll be a gimme, which could spell trouble. Don't get me wrong. Smart money has the Habs to win handily. But in a way I can see where Cherry's coming from on this. What he forgets is that Montreal is simply 10X the team Boston is, from the goalie on out. Still, Ottawa might, in fact, have been a preferable opponent...somebody who, were we to beat them, would really put the wind in our sails; and yet who looks eminently beatable. If we manhandle the Bruins the way we've done all season, then we will not have been adequately tested for the next round. If we drop a couple of games to them, then we'll enter into very dangerous waters where the Bruins will begin to smell upset and become truly dangerous. The best scenario is for us to pound the shit out of them in the first two games, establishing our supremacy; then have the Bruins play us good and tough for the next two or three. A hard-fought 5-game series win might at least put some fear of God into us, steeling us for the next round, without truly jeapordizing this magical year. Just a cautionary note...I've remember enough good seasons sullied by dodgy playoffs, from back in the '80s-90s, to see some dangers here. I look forward to being proven wrong for even thinking this way

We have arrived. We ARE the new New Jersey Devils, or Colorado Avalanche, or even Detroit Red Wings - one of those teams that will be in the top ranks of the league year after year. There's too much young talent here for it to be otherwise, and Price looks like the franchise goalie everyone said he'd be. We're back, all right! Get used to it.

This is probably the most consistently intelligent thread I've read on Koivu. Finally, some realistic assessments instead of bashing or worship. And Brobin, I tend to agree with you on this - I've been worried all along that when Koivu's much-damaged body does start to go, it will be a dramatic collapse, in the fashion of Kirk Muller (who went from being a 90-point guy to a 60-point guy and then a third-line grinder in a mere two seasons). Fortunately, Koivu's contract expires next season, and by then we'll have a better read on where Saks' game stands. But Koivu as a grinder? Nope, can't see it. More likely, his career will wind down in spurts: lots and lots of injuries, interspersed with stretches of mediocre play in which everyone keeps hoping he'll find his groove, and also some stretches where he looks like the old Koivu. This will prove frustrating for all concerned, as he and his fans look to those 'good' stretches and the hope that he can get consistently healthy as proof that he's still 'got it,' while others fume at his mediocrity, and he slowly loses the confidence of the coaching staff. Call this the Trevor Linden scenario