Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Difficult time for the Habs

Last 10 games

The Canadiens are going through a very difficult time. The lost versus the Flames last night is even harder to accept. In the last ten games, the Habs have lost 8 of their games in regulation. The confidence level is very low. We see an extremely fragile team when they get scored on a couple of goals. Sergei's turnover that led to the Flames second goal is a good example. Afterwards, the momentum shifted, and the opponent scored another goal. It is very hard to understand what is actually going on. How can the team's play become so poor? It is still the same group of players that captured the conference championship last season with 104 pts. Not long ago, only a few weeks back, it is the same group of players that had a record of 8-1-1. For some reason, after the return of the All-Star game, the players can't perform. I have heard many reasons as to why they can't win. Could it really be because of the return of Saku? The return of a few injured players like higgins and Laraque? The fact that Kovy lost the C? Could it be that Carey Price has not fully recovered from his injury? that Carbo does't know how to coach his team? There are so many possible reasons but which is the real reasons of this bad streak? I don't know. But curiously, I have noticed that the problem is always related to the powerplay. It is weird, the powerplay usually help other teams to gain momentum. But for the Habs, it is the other way around. They often lose confidence when nothing is working during their powerplay. They try to do too many fancy moves and loses the puck possesion. Kovalev isn't as dangerous as last year anymore, everyone knows his moves now. He becomes too predictable. I believe that it is up to him to find a new way to score on the powerplay and stop trying to make impossible highlight goals. For now at least, because once his play fails, it is the whole team that loses confidence. He can start making highlight plays after the team has gained back their confidence, but not now. I believe this is the main problem for the Habs. They need to figured it out fast and resolve it. If we keep losing this way, it won't take much time for the Habs to be out of the playoffs. After last night game, the players had a meeting for 32min before letting the media in the dressing room. Hopefully, this meeting between players can help them get back to winning.

Rumors

New rumors from TSN Bob Mckenzie, apprently there have been discussions between the Habs and the Coyotes. Bob Gainey is interested in forward Olli Jokinen and defenseman Derek Morris. No players from the Canadiens was mentioned.

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