Plus/Minus: Cool as ice

Somehow this Plus/Minus is longer than the two games the Canadiens played this week. And considering how long that Devils game felt, that's saying something. I took a break from it to watch The Office and I doubt I missed a single thing.

PLUS

+ Andrei Kostitsyn: holy crap. I wish Statistics Canada could give us stats on how many people got rid of their #46 shirts before this season and now regret it.
+ I almost want to give Carey Price two pluses: One for playing so well, even though one of this week's shutouts didn't belong to him, and the other for giving me the kind of happiness that only comes from giving Carey Price a plus every week.
+ Steve Bégin has a job!! Proud of him.
+ Did you guys see Marc Denis on TSN? He was much more focused and articulate than I've ever seen him on French TV. He gets a plus for keeping it together in a language that isn't his first, on a network that has slightly higher standards than RDS.
+ Building another rink for kids to skate on. Canadiens > municipal government.
+ Elsewhere in the league: hat tricks! Daniel Alfredsson (scoring his 1000th NHL point), Brad Richardson led the LA Kings to a win (matching the #GoKings' win in the Twitter hashtag battle for charity) and John Tavares and Lee Stempniak scored their first NHL hat tricks. (It's OK, Stemps isn't a Leaf anymore.)

GONE

+ If you're a Flyers fan, savour this moment for all it's worth. I may never give a Plus to a Flyer ever again. But Scott Hartnell has truly earned this Plus for donating his hair to Locks of Love. There's a sick little kid somewhere who's going to love his or her new wig, no matter whose hair it contains. And anyone who's cut their long hair really short knows that you notice when it's gone.

MINUS

- We had to wait 5 (FIVE!) days between Canadiens games.
- And then not a single goal against the Devils.
- Did I mention that I didn't see last Saturday's game, so I actually went six days between games?
- Now that Dave Morissette, giant teddy bear and BFF of PJ Stock, has left RDS, all the network has going for it is, um, Pierre Houde. And ok, Guy Carbonneau too. What are the odds that they'll hire someone else I like, or fire pretty much anyone not mentioned here?

Is there anyone left in this picture worth watching?

- Speaking of RDS: Alain Crete. The jacket. Again.- Does Mike Boone think that the Four Habs Fans are holding auditions for a #5? In the last week alone, he ripped off their "capitalize the CH wherever possible" thing, imitated the style of their Morning Skate posts, and talked about hoochies ice girls. It's not funny when Boone does it. Do what you're paid to do, guy.
- You know what? It's not even worth writing about all this "Rick Rypien attacks a fan" business. If you didn't already know that you should accept the consequences of your actions, now you do. The "fan" got a little shaken up (literally) after getting out of his seat to shout at an already angry hockey player. Rick Rypien let out his frustrations on someone other than an opponent. Whatever. And, by the way, it seems a little strange to me that the "victim" gave his statement to the NHL, then went crying to the press, and THEN went looking for legal representation after that. Then again, I am neither a lawyer nor a lawsuit-happy opportunist, so what do I know?
- Edmonton: good job getting cheerleaders. You know, because having three of the most talked-about rookies in the league isn't going to help you sell tickets. Taylor who? People go to hockey games for the skanks, right?

Not sure if this is a plus or minus
Did anyone else notice, in his pre-Senators game interview, Tom Pyatt's hair made him look a little bit like Vanilla Ice?

No power outage here

It would appear that a power outage prevented the Canadiens from skating at practice today. Or did it?
(The conspiracy theorist in me tends to come out when I'm annoyed, and I could have made plans yesterday but I decided to put hockey in those plans. And then it was 4-0.)

- Maybe an Arrested Development fan turned off the lights just to quote "Young or old, it doesn't matter... in the dark." (Any teammates that have never watched AD were probably a little freaked out.)

- Maybe they were practicing for some kind of team-building Halloween haunted house activity. (I hope it involves the Thriller dance!)

- Maybe they were trying some type of séance or something, since they got beat by the Devils.

- Maybe they wanted to see if they'd still be world-class athletes in the dark, but then chickened out.

- Maybe it was movie time.

- Maybe they turned off the lights and shouted insults at each other, in a bid to have thicker skin should some kind of Rick Rypien situation occur. (Being in the dark makes it harder to grab the guy who yelled at you.)

- Maybe it was the ultimate test for Mike Cammalleri to prove, once and for all, whether or not he is a Jedi.

I guess we'll find out tomorrow. Hopefully our team won't, ahem, leave us in the dark.

Hello again, Devils

(Note from Rookie: Site maintenance prevents me from posting pictures at this moment, which is too bad because I had a good one!)

So how'd that Kovalchuk thing work out for you in the end? I fell asleep after like 600 pages. It was a really long story, and there just wasn't enough suspense. From what I can gather, Ilya's still around and you guys only have like ten other players on the team.

In case you didn't hear, last summer we took Brian Gionta from you and things are going great. We were together for a whole season, plus three rounds of playoffs, and over the summer we missed him so much that we decided to give him our captaincy when he came back. Yeah, we're pretty happy, thanks for asking. OK, fine, now that you mention it, he and Scott Gomez aren't scoring as many goals as our top line, but whatever. This is like the only fight we've had with him and we've been together over a year. How's having an eleven-player roster working out for you so far?

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I fully expect any and all Habs fans attending the game tonight to wear their Gionta jerseys and T-shirts and show off that "C" very proudly to every TV camera and New Jersey Devil they run into.
Also, since site maintenance won't let me put up that picture, you'll have to settle for the ones I made for today's Game Day Thread at The NHL Arena.

Why the Canadiens will, or won't, win their next two games

Call this a preemptive plus/minus. The Habs face the Devils in Jersey on Friday and the Rangers at the Bell Centre on Saturday.

What's looking good for these next two games?

• The team's been freed of the dreadlocked weight that's been holding it down for the last season and a half, and we'll finally get to find out if Georges Laraque was the problem plaguing this team. (I'm not hating on anyone, but I was told to expect a vastly improved Canadiens organization this season and the stats haven't changed much since last year, so I'm inclined to believe that there's something up.)
• The team's stressed and hungry, and I'm guessing that some of the players are like me and just want the media to shut up a little. (I'm just speculating.)
• There might be a desire to kick some Ranger ass.

What's looking not so good?

• Martin Brodeur [insert rest of sentence here].
• There's still an Andrei Kostitsyn-shaped hole in the lineup.
• Scheduling. In possibly the most asinine bit of sports scheduling I've seen in a very long time, the Canadiens are playing back-to-back games in different cities for the second week in a row. Last week, they were at the Bell Centre to play the Senators and found themselves at MSG the next day to fight the Rangers. Now, just a few days later, they're being jetted from Jersey back to Montreal to punch the Rangers again. Couldn't they have, oh, I don't know, let the Habs stay stateside for two games in a row instead of tiring them out? Thanks a lot, Gary Bettman. I'm sure that boxing isn't as important as hockey.
• We're down one pair of fists and I'm guessing that the Rangers will probably want to do some more punching. 
• Let's be honest. Things aren't going as well as they could be and there's a chance that the team will lose another game. It can't be easy to play for a team when you're clearly showing up to do your job dy after day, but your team still isn't doing as well as the New York Islanders. It's kind of a slow period.

Let's be honest, it's going to be a tough couple of games, but hopefully a day off (...ish) did the team some good.