Habs Do Just Enough to End Losing Skid

Can you believe it? They were 2 minutes away from me destroying my television. Nevertheless we managed to pull through with 2 points and end the 4 game skid. With so many mistakes, this was one of the sloppiest wins of the season. There's so much to cover here, so let's get started.

First off, I would like to bring up Denis Gauthier hit on Gorges. This is exactly the kind of hit that everyone has been saying the same thing about. (I must have heard these same words about 1000 times) "The league needs to step in and do something to eliminate these hits from the game." I was watching the game on CBC and catched the panel discussing their thoughts on this hit. Thank God the refs gave Gauthier the boot because Gorges didn't look like he remembered what number he was. He didn't see him coming, Gauthier jumped into it and brought up the elbow to the head. It's a suspension plain and simple. Ron MacLean went as far as saying that he would be nailed with 20 games as he is a repeat offender. You know, there's only so much the league can do in this situation. At the end of the day, Bettman can't run out onto the ice and put up his hand to stop these hits. The players are the ones throwing them, so they need to take this seriously. Here's another interesting point brought up by the panel. PJ Stock, who back in the day was a fighter himself, said that he was disappointed in Montreal because of the fact that no one stood up for Gorges. This has been a problem year in and year out. Why didn't anyone jump on top of Gauthier and beat the living hell out of him? Not very impressed by the lack of standing up for your teammate. So what if we got penalty minutes? The game was tied and it was early in the 2nd. Let's hope to God his injury isn't too serious. The last thing we need is another injury, and to Gorges no less!

Moving on to the game. I saw some of the sloppiest play in the defensive zone today. How many times did we mess around with the puck and fail to clear the zone? Awful lazy play like that may not cost you against a team like LA, but tomorrow against a team like Boston, they will make you pay. If, in our defensive zone, we show up with that kind of performance, we're going to get pommeled.

Everyone who needed to score, did just that today for Montreal. Plekanec's play has improved in the past couple of games and he finally scored tonight. Koivu and Higgins getting a goal each is good for confidence for the comeback. A.Kost was pointless in 4 going into this one, and his goal was good enough for his 5th goal on PP.

Kovalev didn't seem to really care about the outcome tonight. There wasn't much effort coming from l'artiste when battling for the puck along the boards. Knowing Boston's solid shutdown play, he probably won't be much of an offensive threat tomorrow.

Carbo is in for a tough decision tomorrow. Well, a couple actually. First off, who starts in net? Do you go with your number 1 who is still looking rusty after 5? Or do you go with Halak who craps his pants whenever Price is on the bench? On another note, what to do with Sergei? Do you stay with the same lineup, or bring him back in? I don't know guys, only time will tell for these answers.

To rap it all up, the hockey gods were really on Montreal's side for this one. Alexander Frolov must have had 3 chances to put the game away but was either denied by Price or the post. LA's work ethic was truly admirable and will hopefully be compared to ours. Carbo needs to tell the boys to come out fast and score first. If I'm not mistaken, Montreal's record when scoring first is 17-3-3. The fact of the matter is, there is no way in hell we will win tomorrow if the same effort is repeated. You can't beat Boston by sleeping for 58 minutes and lighting up for the final 2. Hopefully, the boys will show up to play tomorrow afternoon, because another loss to Boston is the last thing I would like to see.

Photo courtesy: Yahoo! Sports