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Habs vs. Flyers | Game Thread


Fanpuck33

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The thing that pisses me off is watching a Leaf team with little talent outplaying, outworking and

running a more cohesive PP then the Habs.

I learned in bantam house league that you couldn't coast for 50 minutes and expect to win games...why can't our loafing millionaires clue in to this fact?!?! Hard work = W Consistently loafing = L :angry:

THey have no accountability. They have been handled three of the last four games yet came out and were dominated at home

by a Philadelphia team who had won once in November

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This team is atrocious right now. Unbelievably weak on the puck. Horribly weak passes. Little hustle. Just atrocious.

Some sort of voodoo swap happened between the Habs and Blue Jackets at the start of November.

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The Kostitsyns are playing autrocious hockey right now. Seriously, one of them should be benched in favour of Kostopolous tomorrow.

Guillaume, Koivu, and Tanguay are playing good hockey. Kovalev, Plekanec, and Higgins are at least playing hard. It's the Kostitsyn boys that are sucking the air out of this team right now. Lang has mainly been unlucky.

Give O'Byrne and Breezy another game to get things in gear, and if one of them can't get going, look at Dandy as an option I guess on the back end.

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In a way this result is good. It conveys pretty convincingly the lesson that you CAN'T TURN IT ON AND OFF LIKE A TAP.

Unlike the TO and Boston debacles, this was clearly a game the Habs' players wanted to win. We saw that in the first period, lots of hustle, chances, etc.. But the team's established attitude - "hey, let's make up for a bad game by dominating the opponent next time out" - just didn't work this time out. It didn't work, because you can't play that game forever. You have to learn to bring it every blasted night. Only if you do that will you win a lot more games than you lose, over the long haul.

So I think you can potentially put this one in the "L" - for "learn" - column.

That's not to say things will turn around any time soon. Slumps don't operate like that. Now the players are probably starting to sweat, feel the heat, and partially lose confidence in themselves and each other. This means several more dodgy games. Teams escape these slumps by re-dedicating themselves to the fundamentals: winning one on one battles, committing to team defence, puck support, etc., etc.. Once the Habs begin to do this, their natural talent will gradually begin to re-assert itself and after a spell they'll begin winning lots of games again. But first they need to experience the cold shower of a slump and the discovery that they really CAN'T just turn it on and off.

A better team could await us at the other end of the tunnel. We'll see.

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yeah, a brief demotion of Sergei to Hamilton for awhile and call-up of D'Agostini wouldn't hurt. It's very early in the season - this is the time, if any, to experiment.... so why not. A little shake-up, as JeanLucPilon said a few posts ago.

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yeah, a brief demotion of Sergei to Hamilton for awhile and call-up of D'Agostini wouldn't hurt. It's very early in the season - this is the time, if any, to experiment.... so why not. A little shake-up, as JeanLucPilon said a few posts ago.

I wouldn't really introduce a new player into this, although D'Ago looks to deserve a shot at some point. I'd just play the guys we have ahead of Sergei if that's what it took. Maybe if we didn't try to roll 3 offensive lines all the time the team wouldn't think offense all the time and take time to properly execute breakout plays. The amount of turnovers around our own blueline is embarassing... and everyone is already on their way up ice to the opposition's end. With the puck carrier caught flat footed it ends up being a good scoring opportunity.

Carbo shook up the LWers last night in the 3rd, but kept the 3 offensive lines theory going right until the end.

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My thoughts on the game (I'll start with the negatives, and there are many):

NEGATIVES

- I lost count of the turnovers after the first period...I've never seen so many blind passes/bad passes in my life

- We have a pair of useless Titz on this team at the moment

- Brisebois=teh suck

- Lang must have had a hole in the bottom half of his stickblade, he whiffed so many times

- Higgins once again couldn't hit the broad side of a barn

- Plekanec = little girl

- Koivu/Tanguay had maybe three good shifts....not good enough

- Kovalev started well, throwing the body and at times looked real determined to make a difference...but did so in a very predictable individual manner that Philly easily saw and countered...therefore totally ineffective.

- Markov just isn't himself lately, making bad decisions with the puck...struggling to complete passes accurately...very worrysome

- The powerplay is just not clicking...need a shooter on the blueline BADLY

- Too many times, this team squanders opportunities to generate good scoring chances by 'getting too cute' and trying to complete 4 or 5 passes in the offensive zone. I'm starting to wonder if their goal this season is to become the Harlem Globetrotters of hockey. News flash, boys...the Globetrotters actually WIN.

POSTIVES (not nearly enough of these)

- Laraque finally earned his paycheck. He fought, and won. He threw some hard hits. And by God, he actually skated hard and fast on a backcheck at one point.

- Begin played with his usual heart

- Latendresse was decent, throwing some hits and having some good sequences controlling the puck along the boards in the Flyers zone

They've got to inject some new blood into the lineup to get some enthusiasm for the game back in that locker room...time for some call-ups. I'd healthy scratch bigTitz and send littleTitz down to Hamilton for a reality check.

This game made me feel sick. Actually physically sick...and it had nothing to do with the 6 hotdogs and 2 smoked meat sandwiches I scarfed down. :puke: :puke: :puke:

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I know some of you don't read the Gazette so I'll post this Carbo quote that interested me:

"We can't be thinking about what we did last year," Carbonneau said after the Canadiens dropped a 2-1 decision to the Philadelphia Flyers last night. "'We can't have guys thinking about their 20 goals they scored last year or the 13 assists they had. We have some guys who think they're working but they're not."

Those numbers and specifically the randomness of the 13 assists comment makes that a direct calling out of the Kostitsyn brothers. (I don't know if Sergei actually had exactly 13 assists last year but it sounds pretty accurate (I think he was actually 9-18-27) and the only other guy who the description could fit would be Gui who's been playing well - and also, why would Gui be bragging about 13 assists, he probably played 30 more games than Sergei.

Benching Sergei in favour of Kosto might work when he gets off his suspension but I hope Carbo doesn't try benching Andrei. The hour may be approaching where we revert back to our old Higgins-Plekanec-Kostitsyn line.

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The hour may be approaching where we revert back to our old Higgins-Plekanec-Kostitsyn line.

Higgins-Plekanec-Kostitsyn sounds like it's worth a shot. I wouldn't mind seeing Tanguay-Koivu-Kovalev for a game or two to see how that would work out.

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He could have been better, but my god I could put at least 5 guys ahead of him in that category.

No one was worse then Lang. After driving 6 hours from TO to Montreal to see my beloved habs, I was once again totally disappointed. I made a few observations.

First of all Lang is probably the most useless person on this team. He seems so lost and confused out there. He can't seem to shoot anything, makes tons of bad passes, gets knocked off the puck too easily and seems to be in a low gear. I noticed everytime Lang was on the ice because everything slowed down, even with the #### bros on his wings. I kinda hope he gets to see some games from the press box, cause he's pretty horrible out there right now. I personally would have benched him after taking the stupid penalty 30 seconds into one of our powerplays.

Second, Kovy doesn't seem to be himself. THere was a couple of times that he was able to take the puck and dominate it for a bit, but then would end up giving it away.

Maybe it would be good to sit the big #### too. Since he was hit and knocked out, he doesn't seem to be running even close to full steam. Maybe a conditioning stint in the minors might help him along.

I really wish the players would simplify the game a little more and stop trying to make this little cute passes that hardly ever make it to another habs.

And for my last point, I would have to say that the habs players need to spend a full practice just learning how to dump the puck in deep when your making a line change, since both goals were scored because of it.

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No one was worse then Lang. After driving 6 hours from TO to Montreal to see my beloved habs, I was once again totally disappointed. I made a few observations.

First of all Lang is probably the most useless person on this team. He seems so lost and confused out there. He can't seem to shoot anything, makes tons of bad passes, gets knocked off the puck too easily and seems to be in a low gear. I noticed everytime Lang was on the ice because everything slowed down, even with the #### bros on his wings. I kinda hope he gets to see some games from the press box, cause he's pretty horrible out there right now. I personally would have benched him after taking the stupid penalty 30 seconds into one of our powerplays.

You're overreacting with Lang.

He isn't at his best, but there are players worse than him right now, Sergie and O'Byrne are playing the worst hockey of their careers.

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Tanguay Koivu Kovy

Latendresse Plek Higgins

Kost Lang Kost

Bégin Lapierre Laraque

would worth a shot in my mind

I'd take out Sergie and put in Tommy K.

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No one was worse then Lang. After driving 6 hours from TO to Montreal to see my beloved habs, I was once again totally disappointed. I made a few observations.

First of all Lang is probably the most useless person on this team. He seems so lost and confused out there. He can't seem to shoot anything, makes tons of bad passes, gets knocked off the puck too easily and seems to be in a low gear. I noticed everytime Lang was on the ice because everything slowed down, even with the #### bros on his wings. I kinda hope he gets to see some games from the press box, cause he's pretty horrible out there right now. I personally would have benched him after taking the stupid penalty 30 seconds into one of our powerplays.

He lacks hockey sense but he isn't as useless as you make him out to be. He fits the role of offensive third line C we're giving him just fine. The only reason why we're noticing him so much is because he's been in the thick of things a lot more than Plekanec has. Once Plekanec starts doing his job as the 1st/2nd line centre on this team, Lang can stop playing 17-19 minutes a game.

I see Carbo forming a power line of Tanguay-Koivu-Kovalev but I would go with this:

Tanguay-Koivu-Latendresse

Sergei-Lang-Kovalev

Higgins-Plekanec-Andrei

Begin-Lapierre-Dandenault (Kosto starts playing as soon as he gets back)

Those lines look very unlikely to ever be used and I also don't really see that second line working but other than re-uniting two lines that have worked in the past (Lines 1 & 3), it also lets Lang and Kovalev try their luck together at last, while giving Sergei a last chance before benching him. I prefer Dandenault to Laraque because we need to start playing our own brand of hockey and Dandenault can play it.

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He lacks hockey sense but he isn't as useless as you make him out to be. He fits the role of offensive third line C we're giving him just fine. The only reason why we're noticing him so much is because he's been in the thick of things a lot more than Plekanec has. Once Plekanec starts doing his job as the 1st/2nd line centre on this team, Lang can stop playing 17-19 minutes a game.

I see Carbo forming a power line of Tanguay-Koivu-Kovalev but I would go with this:

Tanguay-Koivu-Latendresse

Sergei-Lang-Kovalev

Higgins-Plekanec-Andrei

Begin-Lapierre-Dandenault (Kosto starts playing as soon as he gets back)

Those lines look very unlikely to ever be used and I also don't really see that second line working but other than re-uniting two lines that have worked in the past (Lines 1 & 3), it also lets Lang and Kovalev try their luck together at last, while giving Sergei a last chance before benching him. I prefer Dandenault to Laraque because we need to start playing our own brand of hockey and Dandenault can play it.

To me Dandy is just useless, I like him as a guy alot but as a hockey player I don't like him.

Laraque is a better 4th liner than Dandy.

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So are you guys basing your opinion on watching the game on tv or actually being there? Cause I was there and I watched Lang alot. He was useless.

I was there too...and I agree with you. He was among the worst out there.

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