An excellent article on our new aquisition

First and foremost, good to see the team rally to a win last night. If someone said in our stretch of games between Washington, Detroit, Columbus, Pittsburg, and Washington that we'd have 5 points total, some would accept that as performing decently - we have that after only three of the five games. We're in Pittsburg tonight and hope we can keep the magic alive.


Everyone has moments in sports that get them a bit misty-eyed and I really think this article about our new aquisition, Benoit Pouliot, needs to be read. It's from ESPN though I found it off of Habs InsideOut

The article

Little brother returns, The golden boy is shipped out of town

Montreal Canadiens call up RW S. Kostitsyn, trade RW G. Latendresse for Centre B. Pouliot.

I assume I'm not the only one who didn't see this coming, despite the fact that I've been dead to the world for the past week. Poulot was selected fourth overall in the 2005 NHL entry draft, which makes me wonder if he'll poke some fun at the fifth overall pick from the same round. Though you could just look at this as Montreal trading up 41 spots four years after the fact, while laughing about how people said "Montreal is dumb taking a goalie, Theodore and Huet will always be rock solid for them"

Latender was really getting lashings for underperforming, though his real issue was trying to be a finesse player when every aspect of his build and skillset says "Crash the net you're a power forward". That said, best of luck to him in Minnesota. Good to see members of the Habs playing with a guy named Koivu.

Speaking of which, we really need to get on signing Plekanec. I don't know what the cap implications of this deal were, but we aquired an underperforming centre for an underperforming winger and somehow I doubt this was meant as just a screw you to Kyle Chipchura.

Maybe the real thing here is either our maligned winger (who has 13 points in 16 games in the AHL) is either going to move up to the NHL on a more regular basis or is going to move out of town in the very immediate future. I'm not sure which I prefer so much as I hope we just get solid play. I;d like to see both Kostitsyn's succeed, but I want what's best for the team first. I'm not worried about this callup, I'm just curious about it's implications.

In other news Greg Stewart is finally back in the AHL. Finally.

Mancrush Vindicated

I make no secrets of it. I like Kyle Chipchura. He hasn't been defensively responsible in the past, but he's aggressive, has good leadership qualities, and is strong on the puck. If he could score, he'd be what Guilliame Latendresse is supposed to be. Except Gui! is not. Which is why Chips is getting the nod tonight, and I am immensely happy.


Tomorrow I'll be debuting a new feature that'll last ten weeks - Every Sunday I'll profile a Hab as a candidate to be a "favourite player" - It's not leading to a 'decision' or anything, I just figured that the boys could use moments in the spotlight as so many fan favourites slid out of town in the off season, and now that we're 20 games in we can start talking about the character of these folks

Your guide to enjoying the habs at home.

I live in Toronto. It's a rough city to be a habs fan in; as we had the audacity to ship them via free agency a penalty-box timekeeper pretending to be an all-star defenseman.

That said, living in Ontario, or really anywhere outside of la belle Province makes it incredibly challenging to actually enjoy a Habs game. RDS is hard to stumble upon, Hockey Night in Canada coverage is lacking, and six hour commutes are somewhat inconvenient to see your team.

I'm going to try and keep this fairly affordable and vague. Not everyone can commit thousands of dollars to a home theatre.

So here I present: The Essentials to Creating a Home Habs Experience

1: You will need a TV. Not a computer, not a laptop. NHL Gamecentre on their website has some incredibly unfortunate restrictions with blackouts.. and internet connection latency

2: You'll need a cable box or sattelite. This unfortunately is non-negotiable. You simply wont get more than a dozen games without it.

3: Order the channels! If you need english coverage, you'll be shelling out around $140/season for the Center Ice package, which is great. If that seems a bit excessive you can cut the cost in half by simply ordering RDS, which only sets you back $6 a month, though you get no other teams and your games will be in French. If this is a problem to you, pull up a laptop and watch the game while listening to the CJAD feed off the internet:  http://www.cjad.com/

4: Your experience is going to be limited if you don't have good seating. A good couch or big recliner really helps take the edge off of going 0-10 on the man advantage.

5: Beer, scotch, bourbon, or ginger ale. While not openly promoting alcohol, a good sipping beverage really does add to the experience. And if you like your drinks with kick, they can help you forget it after an embarassing home loss. There's also the added subtle team loyalty if you drink Molson, or only drink Molson when the team is leading. The one buddy you could convince to watch the Habs with you will truly understand your committment.

6: Snacks. Both satisfying and an excuse to leave your seat during commercial breaks and embarassing defensive lapses.

7: Either a buddy or twitter. Just so you're not potentially drinking alone in your basement watching a hockey game with commentary that you don't understand. If you're really good at this you might even want to start a hockey blog.

The first week of comparing Kessel to Cammelleri

As I said I would do way back in late September, I'll be comparing Phil Kessel to Michael Cammalleri all year. I've spent the last month learning how to spell "Cammalleri" and it's time to begin. I'll be doing one of these once every week or two weeks, depending on how creative i feel, and at the end of each month I'll see who "won" the month.

I'd love to point out that Cammalleri has 14 points to Kessel's 3, someone would likely point out that comparing one player to another when one spent a month doing nothing is only legitimate when the player doing nothing is actually on the ice, and as this comparison has nothing to do with Jason Blake, we can only look back to Nov 2 for the comparison.

Kessel has three points since then including a game winner; though do game winners really count when your team wins by four goals? Meanwhile Cammalleri has been trying an experiment called "secondary scoring" where his line puts up very few points hoping that Thomas Plekanec is ready for a lot of work. Meanwhile there's the sensation that Cammalleri is actually focused on working with his teammates as he's assisted on goals and clearly can score himself as his shootout winner proved. That said, it might be because Cammalleri actually has NHL quality linemates as opposed to an AHL centre and a creepy albino guy who's patented skills include "going fast", "wrist shot from the blue line", and "ruining my team's cap situation for the foreseeable future"

I won't be declaring a 'winner' this week, it's more that it's good to see the party has begun for this comparison. Besides both players are at basically a point per game pace anyway so they're theoretically neck and neck.

Halak's Agent is an Incompetent Idiot.

I am a Carey Price fan. I've come near the point of being a Carey Price apologist. Sometimes I'm justified - the game against Boston was his 50th win, and it took him 102 games to do so. The only player to do better was Martin Broduer who did it in 93. The other player to do it in 102 was Patrick Roy.  He's had bad moments but he's shown the flashes of brilliance early in his career that he easily has potential to be a star, and we can't abuse this too much. I'm not saying he's the next Roy, but if he's the next [upper mid-tier goaltender] instead are we that bad off? Also, more than Halak, Price has been proven to have a game-stealing ability.

That said, I'm also a Jaroslav Halak fan. He's a hard working player who people had low expectations of, yet has been undeniably strong when given the call in most cases (though in his losses he has been terrible enough to make us briefly forget some of Price's high-glove-side embarrassments). I believe given time he is certainly starter quality. I'd rather him over Cristobal Huet, Vesa Toskala, or Chris Osgood certainly, and I'm sure he offers a better value proposition than say, Evengi Nabokov who's had a strong team hide his actual skill set. He's yet to walk in and steal a game, but I'm sure that will come with time and chances, just look at Atlanta's Pavelec.

The thing to remember though, is these players are teammates. While they would likely have a rivalry for position in starts, the fact is their main goal should be getting wins for the team, as that's the point of being on a team and why they're hockey players and not tennis players. The team -always- comes first. This is the same reason it's frustrating to see players raising their game in a contract year. This is also why it's completely unacceptable for an agent of one player to try to incense the fanbase against the other.

If you're one of the people who missed Hockey Night in Canada last night, here's the story.

Retweeted constantly on the twitter tubes last night:
"Interesting stat of the night....Price is 10W, 32L in last 42 starts. Hmm."

Much more interesting is the fact that the statistic came from Halak's agent, Allan Walsh.

We can't just jump and say "OH THESE STATS ARE WRONG" because, well, they aren't. But throwing that out there seems somewhat malicious for someone who's apparently a professional. Isn't his task supposed to be communicating issues with management and using his actual negotiating ability to turn things in favour for his client, not simply incensing a vocal fanbase against his agent's competitor?

All Habs called him out on twitter with "Not exactly an objective source. That stat came from Halak's agent. Advocacy like that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. @walsha" to which re responded "Sorry you don't like the stat, if the stat was wrong, you may have a point..I was pointing out an interesting stat for fans." which just strikes me as an irritating smear campaign, especially considering despite Halak's strong home stats, has been abysmal on the road during his career. Walsh also stated to All Habs "It's no secret who my client is....and very relevant stat as it relates to my client."; Everyone has pointed out how terrible this is, and how this will divide the fanbase, pit players and fans against each other, and potentially harm both players. But here's something no one seems to be bringing up - HALAK IS INJURED. Is Walsh so ignorant of his own client's status that he's implying that a time where having him play would be a risk to his health is the appropriate time to try and cause controversy? I mean, it's evident he wanted more backlash against Price, but at least pick a logical time to be an unprofessional scumbag.

What's funny is after Hockey Night in Canada spent their Coast-to-Coast segment ostracizing Captain Ignoramus (especially Jeff Marek and former goaltender Kelly Hrudy), Walsh twitted* to Marek "It was a tongue in cheek comment not meant to be taken seriously, forgot it was Montreal and everyone loses a sense of humor." Ignoring the fact that the HNIC staff are not specifically invested in Montreal specifically, wouldn't his prior statements to All Habs blatantly contradict that? Hell, even my attempts at being funny are better than that. And instead of apologizing for a failure at humour as he claims, he instead attacks the entire fanbase of the team. Could this possibly reflect well on his client at this point? This is almost a brazen effort to cause chaos in an already rather.. vocal.. fanbase. What gives?

Jaro, there's no way in hell you read my blog, but I wish you well. Please, for all of us, find better representation. 




* while 'tweeted' is apparently the correct term, twitted seems much more fitting of Allan Walsh

I'm a bad Habs fan.

Guys, I have a confession. I'm a bad Habs fan.

There are a lot of things that make me a bad habs fan, here's a list of the reasons:

I don't think it's appropriate to boo the team I love if they're evidently trying, or to boo a specific player on the team I love if he's had a rough night yet is still trying.

I believe singing songs referring to, or referencing the term "goodbye" should be reserved for when we actually win a playoff series or knock a team out of playoff contention.

I don't think my team's rich and illustrious history needs to have a 30 minute ceremony before every regular season game.

I desire success but I only expect effort

I think the captain of my team should be the leader of the players, not the player who's most fluent in the language of the reporters.

If my team has a rough night and defensively collapses, my mind doesn't immediately jump to "goaltender controversy"

My love of things catching fire and my love of hockey are only connected on playoff series with actual trophies on the line.

When a player is underperforming I don't associate that with media pressure, or ostracize him for his origin, be it French Canadian or Belorussian.

I think, through his time with the team, Bob Gainey has been a good general manager, and calling for his removal every time he makes a move that isn't for Vincent Lecavalier is inappropriate.

Finally, I think 1993 was a long time ago, and I want to get back to that, but I don't think every time we're near the playoffs it's fair to our goaltending staff to start mentioning Patrick Roy.

This makes me a bad Habs fan. Who's with me?