Thursday, February 19, 2009

Canadiens Lost in Shootout 4-3 Vs the Capitals

Ok, so the Canadiens lost again. I know it's disappointing for all of us. But this time, I liked the way we played. The Habs have finally started to play more as a team now. There's a lot of positive things the players could build on.

I know the first period wasn't that great. We were lost in our zone a couple of times, and if the Capitals were able to score on those chances we would be back to where we were. Carey Price was solid tonight, he made the important saves to keep the Habs in the game. He robbed Ovechkin from a sure goal with the glove in first period. Wow! What a save. I thought it went in. He also made 3-4 key stops in overtime. We can't really blame him for the three goals he let in. By the way, even though I hate it when we get scored on, I have to say that Ovechkin's goal was really a beauty.

Offensively, I felt that Higgins played one of his best games this season. He was solid on the boards and won his battles. He got a couple of good scoring chances and played more aggressive. Plekanec played a good game tonight. He generated a few good scoring chances and scored an important goal. Maybe he plays better without Kovalev in the line up and plays with less pressure now. Pacioretty did a good job tonight again, I kinda like this new line with Thomas and Andrei. They might be able to create some chemistry together in the long run. Andrei Markov also played an excellent game and collected 3 passes. Before the game, I wondered how Andrei Markov would react been paired with Schneider. Well, we scored 3 goals on the powerplay! Is Schneider really the solution to our powerplay? Lets hope they keep going.

Defensively, I felt that we did very well tonight. I was only disappointed in Komisarek's game, his play was poor and again made a bad pass which resulted in Ovie's goal. What happened to him? Is he really injured? He is really getting me worried. Other than him, we did fine. We didn't give them much chances in the second period and especially in the third period. As the game progressed, the Habs played with more confidence and applied more pressure and better forechecking. Kostopoulos played well defensively and did some really good forechecking. I remember at one point, the Capitals couldn't even get out of their zone for a few minutes because of it. Also, Schneider did very well defensively in his first game and help repair some errors.

The Habs did very well defensively against one of the hottest offensive teams in the league, especially for a team that is struggling defensively right now. Even if we didn't get the two points, I believe that for the players it's a win deep down inside. After this game, they know that they can compete with the top teams again. So cheers Habs fans, we'll get out of this slump and start winning hockey games soon.

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