CAR 5, FML 2

Hurricanes: more dangerous than rioting Habs fans!

Tonight was a great night to be a Carolina Hurricanes fan.

I mean, seriously, think about it. Here's one of the most important franchises in the NHL, ahead of the 'Canes in the standings, and away from a playoff spot by just one point. One little, tiny, minuscule point.

(And if I were any other blogger, right now I'd be making a joke about how "little" isn't a problem for this year's Habs.)

It's not just that the Habs played poorly, it's that the 'Canes played well. I think this was less of a "Why did we lose?" and more of a "What can we do to get Eric Staal on our team?" kind of game. Honestly. Near the end of the game Staal's eyebrows looked dangerously pale, and I tend to hate hockey players who don't have eyebrows. It was a pretty close call, but he burned Montreal pretty badly tonight.

Habs I/O proves that thing about a picture being worth 1000 words

This wasn't anyone's best game. I feel like this team has been working a lot on finesse, and skating little circles around the enemy (fancy Eric Staal-style?) but this wasn't the night for that sort of play, whether they were tight or a little clumsy. Tonight, the Habs had to be the perseverant, North American-style team we thought they would be once the roster was announced. It just wasn't there tonight.

Maybe we shouldn't be disappointed. This season's Habs are nothing if not surprising, and they can lose two games in a row just as easily as they can win them, and kick the Sabres' asses while having their own handed to them - twice - by the Hurricanes.

Maybe I should have let Kristin Chenoweth sing "Maybe This Time" to me a few more times. Maybe my friend shouldn't have prayed for Canada to win a gold medal at any cost, even the Canadiens missing the playoffs. (She admitted this to me about an hour ago. I had no idea.) Maybe it's because of the ice girls.

Yeah, it's definitely the ice girls and their half-shirts and their bad mojo. Lucky for us, there are no ice girls at the Bell Centre.

Just what the doctor ordered...

... for everyone but Cammy. (Poor Mike Cammalleri. First that disgusting injury, then random, out-of-nowhere slander in La Presse. That's an FML moment if there's ever been one.)

Let's face it: the Habs don't have the best record, and they've got guys who are injured, guys who are sick, and guys who aren't playing as well as they always do. I was really hoping for a great game against the Canucks, win or lose. (Don't get me wrong - I wanted a win, but Halak and Luongo are my fantasy hockey goalies, so in this particular instance I'd get points either way.) Whoever spent $125 on scalped seats in the blues got their money's worth, for once. No, seriously, this morning I asked a scalper how much tickets were going for, and that's what he told me.

This is the kind of hockey that I'd love to watch every day... Two teams fighting for the puck, literally and figuratively, penalties going back and forth, and just enough goals to keep things going.

If I hadn't decided it already, I have to say that Joel Bouchard is completely useless. I appreciate his intentions in interviewing Kirk Muller, but he might just have the worst grammar of any English speaker on RDS. He was also wearing a shirt the colour of a Dora the Explorer lunchbox, and when asked what happened when Sergei Kostitsyn left the ice late in the 3rd and walked RIGHT PAST HIM, had little more to contribute than a Kanye shrug.
I know I do an inordinate amount of complaining about RDS, but this next thing isn't really their fault: Sami Salo's name doesn't translate to French very nicely.

If I had to guess which Habs were going to nab two penalties in this game, Roman Hamrlik might have been on the list. Yannick Weber would definitely not have been on the list. Then again, you can never predict when someone's going to get Ryan Kesler where it hurts.
I also wouldn't have guessed that a mini-rivalry is blooming between Ryan O'Byrne and Mason Raymond, but they took advantage of their shared ice time to get in a few hits. They're both my homies, so it was quite entertaining. In case you missed it, I was outed as a Raymond fan today, but it's really not Habs-threatening at all.

Me, I'm sorry, bro

When you're facing a goalie like Roberto Luongo (who's been 19-5-2 in the last two months, holy crap), you've got to step up your game. And our forwards did - those were some wicked goals. Luongo looked mighty angry after Plekanec's game-winning goal... but he knows better for the Olympics, right?

This wasn't necessarily the easiest win this team has had, but if our Habs can manage to play like this every game, it'll be a very good thing.

*Pictures cropped from Canadiens.com