sbhatt

Hard to blame him for being pissed...

No...but I do expect management to snag one of these quality types of center when they come up on free agency.

I think a lot of that is Kovalev's frustration with the center situation. Plekanec is lost out there in the offensive zone, and I think it's demoralizing. Kovelev had to deal with an underachieving Ribs last season, and now an outright incapable Plekanec this season. That's got to break your spirit after awhile. I blame management more than I do either Plekanec or Kovalev...both are victims of a circumstance created by management's inability to get a proper 2nd line center.

Habs Red, Jets Blue, Capitals vintage red.

Some good observations in this thread. I think the lack of a quality second line center is going to haunt us against the best teams in the league (like Buffalo). When I see the Pens with Crosby, Malkin, and Stall....it makes me green with envy.

The defense corps as a whole have been god-awful on clears tonight, not to mention losing battles in the corners.

A lot of guys look bad out there tonight....but.... Does Plekanec look like he's got hands of stone or what? Also, how is he 5 metres offside on that one? He just seems to be so unsure of what he's doing out there more often than not.

In a dream world were these guys are rent-a-player situation contract wise, I'd love to see Sakic between Samsonov and Kovalev (hes a center that is a shooter first and a playmaker second...what that line needs). On defense, I'd like to see Pronger only because he shuts things down a little better in his own end than Niedermayer...but that's a really tough call between those two.

If anyone can beat the Sabres, it's the Habs. We had them on the ropes for most of that last game...just a collapes at the very end allowed them to come back. If the boys show the killer instinct they did against Jose, that won't happen again.

Damn...Latendresse scoring would have been the icing on the cake.

Theo's goodbye serenade has begun

Come on, boys...get the ninth one.

I'm sure Theo hoped to get himself an 8-ball when he came back to Montreal, but not this kind of 8....

GET OUT THE HOOK!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

He'd need to score or set up another to erase the gaffs today. And I really hope he does it....we need an insurance goal!

WOW...Rivet got back one of his mistakes!!!

Aebischer has no rebound control tonight. Nice goal Kovalev to Samsonov

I feel downright prophetic at this point....

Rivet brings nothing to the table IMO....why is he even on the damn ice? At least Souray gets back some of the goals he gives up on the PP. Aebischer gave up a fat rebound on goal number 3.

Rivet and Souray...do I need to say more?

Love that jab...and it would be great to see Kovy give Theodore some 'chin music' in a shoot-in situation to rattle him.

I want to see a Bonk-Plekanec switch. Bonk has experience playing with offensively gifted players from his Ottawa days, whereas Plekanec looks lost on the enemy side of the red line more often than not. I think it would be good for both players.

I don't miss many Habs games, but I missed this one due to attending a wake for a friend's father tonight...and the post-wake drinking that rightfully occurs. Not sure what went wrong, but was disappointed to see that the Habs only scored one goal. How does that happen?

Firepower resulted in a win. Terribly sloppy in our own end (Huet left alone with a man cross-crease on two of the goals), jobbed by the referee to an extent, but still got a win. Good character-building game. Oh, and another thing: watching Phaneuf and Iginla behaving like jackasses out there at times, I couldn't help but finding myself lamenting that we don't have a scrapper. Both deserved to get tuned.

I think he's going to put up better numbers, as the Western Conference's style of hockey is better suited to his game. Everyone needs to remember that if Ribeiro puts up a huge number of points in Dallas, you can be sure that he wouldn't have been able to duplicate that in Montreal.