Top 5: Teams I'm A Little Bit Scared Of

There used to be some teams in the NHL that I wouldn't be afraid of playing against. But after a few GMs took it to the max during Free Agent Frenzy, I'm not so sure what to think of clubs who used to be write-offs. I've put all this time into learning about the NHL and being able to name all thirty teams in less than a day, and remembering that there are thirty teams and not thirty-two, and then July comes along and hockey players find new homes and I'm back at square one. Did you know that the Kings are pretty good? When I started watching hockey, they were garbage. It's true. I read it on Wikipedia.

A few teams have made some major changes during the last couple of weeks, and now there's quite a good chance that they'll pose a threat to the rest of the NHL.

St. Louis might have us singing the... well, you know. Their most obvious change occurred when Pierre Gauthier decided to pick up a few young players and trade a goalie for them. Remember when that happened? Then you might also remember that this season proved that when a goalie is good enough, he can carry his team on his back and take them pretty far. (The opposite is also true. But it's one or the other, nothing in between.) I wouldn't be surprised if just acquiring Jaroslav Halak is going to make the Blues a great team.
Remember the last All-Star Game, when Keith Tkachuk was invited so that Blues fans could see one of their players and not feel left out, like when you had to invite your whole kindergarten class to your birthday, even that girl who cried if her grape juice was too cold? Those days might be over.

No more sympathy All-Star invites for the St. Louis Blues!

Struck by Lightning. As if having dynamite Steve Yzerman wasn't enough, Tampa Bay took away our future coach and a goalie we could have had. Okay, Ellis only belonged to the Habs for like three hours, but Guy Boucher and his francophone players might have something to prove when they encounter the Canadiens.
The fact that Martin St. Louis is staying in Tampa will be great for the team if he continues to assist Steven Stamkos, literally and figuratively.

The Ottawa Senators... um, a pun about legislation. Sergei Gonchar is good, and was denied the Stanley Cup this year thanks to a little team we all know and love, so he probably won't like us very much next year. Add to that the law of probability dictating that Alex Kovalev will have a great season, and we've got some intense games in store for us this year.
By the way, now that he's not in Montreal anymore, do we go back to calling him "Alexei"?

The Oilers could cause more problems than BP. As if it wasn't bad enough that the Habs are usually jet-lagged or something when they arrive in Edmonton, the Oilers seem to have a shot at being the complete opposite of last year's Oilers. Taylor Hall will probably spend no time with the farm teams, and it's been said that he'd make a great linemate for Jordan Eberle, who you probably forgot was the property of one of the NHL's saddest teams. If these two live up to the hype it'll be like Kane and Toews all over again, but hopefully we can prevent Taylor Hall from collecting arrest warrants and showgirls.

Nashville makes us prey. Sergei Kostitsyn's got a shot at a career renaissance with the Nashville Predators. He's got a pretty good team supporting him, an old teammate offering to keep an eye on him, and he'll be playing in a hockey market that's not huge, so he'll have to work to get attention. I wouldn't be surprised if the Latendresse effect set in and Sergei returned to his fine rookie form, taking full advantage of his speed and talent. The Habs will probably have to be even more careful around him than Nashville's division rivals, because Sergei's passion will probably translate to some kind of serious ass-kicking against the city that disowned him.
Also Matthew Lombardi keeps getting better and better and Phoenix should never have let him go.

We'll have to see what happens, I guess.

Game Won

(You'll have to pardon my publishing this a day after the fact, but in the immortal words of Liz Lemon, "My internet is weird.")

It's too bad they don't also make shirts that say "Tomas Jagr"

I think Habs fans from the Verizon Center to Montreal, all the way across the country and the ocean, are echoing Tomas Plekanec's two-handed fist pump.

This is not last year's team. They know they're in eighth place and it'll be a long way to the top if they wanna rock and roll, but clearly they're up for the challenge. Plekanec's overblown comments about José Theodore are proof of that, in a way. Our Habs were confident. Our coach was confident. (Words I wasn't expecting to type so soon after the end of season we just saw.) It's exactly that, confidence, that's going to get us through this series. The Capitals have the satisfaction of knowing they're the best team in the league. Alexander Ovechkin is generally fearless. Throughout the season we've seen him score goals and deliver hits (and just generally be Ovechkin) without thinking twice about it.

I think the team did what it had to do. Game 1 = won.

By the way, I think the nickname "Mean Mike Green" might stick around. He's become a pesky sort of defenceman. But at least he didn't bust anyone's head open tonight.

As for the rest of the playoffs:
Ottawa was really hungry in the first game of Pens v Sens, so an upset win wasn't entirely surprising. Or maybe Mike Fisher's teammates really want him to have the Stanley Cup at his wedding this summer. They can put the cupcakes in it! ("Stanley Cupcakes." You saw it here first. Unless you googled it like I just did.)
Colorado beat San Jose? Whaaaaaaaaaaaaa? I fell asleep halfway through a then-scoreless game 1, and will probably miss all of tonight's West Coast action because of crazy early work tomorrow.
The Flyers beat the Devils... and they *are* playing against Brodeur. Whoa.
On Wednesday, Concordia hosted a free screening of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Plus, that night's Scrubs rerun featured Dr. Cox's love of the Red Wings. I figured the Coyotes just wouldn't have the juju to win a game on that particular night, but they did. Phoenix rising!
Much ado about punching when the Bruins played the Sabres... is anyone surprised?
Thanks to the Green Men, Vancouver beat Los Angeles. Go Green Men!

Hockey Day In Canada: like Canada Day but colder

It's Hockey Day In Canada time again... all the Canadianness of Roll Up The Rim, plus all of the hockey you could hope for, stuffed into ten hours of Ron McLean. (It all sounds wonderful to me except maybe that last part.) It's much more kickass, and much briefer, than a Hockey Day In America would be.

So in honour of this great day, I'm going to try and make this post as Canadian as possible. What's in store for this, the national holiday that isn't Canada Day or Victoria Day or those other ones?

(Randomly selected Canadian-born player) Travis Moen and our Montreal Canadiens will start the day off playing against Mike Fisher and the Ottawa Senators. The Habs will win because because I'll be at work for half the game and I want them to come home and watch them win.

The primetime slot this year goes to Nolan Baumgartner* and the Vancouver Canucks, who unfortunately have to hang out with the Leafs and Luke Schenn. But hey, they'll get as much attention from CBC as they could ever possibly want!!

Late-night honours go to the Battle of Alberta, which I'm guessing will be the game with the most punching. If any is allowed during Hockey Day In Canada. Brandon Prust** and the Flames are going to engage in some punching with Taylor Chorney's Oilers.
Yes, if Stephen Harper shows up in a Flames jersey (or at all), you are allowed a tantrum.

But what to eat?

It's a long day, and you're going to get hungry, and maybe you'll get bored of all the little kids' teams they interview during the day, or maybe I'll need to leave the room if anyone brings up Crosby, who does not play in Canada (again, no Hockey Day In America). So here are some snack suggestions if you're not out someplace:

Only Canadian beer. You can have a Stella or a Heineken another day.

Maple baked beans, or other cabane a sucre treats. If you feel like curing a ham in beer and brown sugar, be my guest. No, literally. Some homemade ham sounds pretty delicious right now.

Actually, anything maple. Especially those extra-sweet gooey candies or anything you can put maple syrup on.

Tim Hortons. But that kind of goes without saying.

Poutine. Oh, the cheese... (Be warned, if you're ordering in, make sure it's not one of those places that gives you barbecue sauce instead of gravy.)

Snack cakes. You know you want the bad fats. I know Kate Moss thinks that nothing tastes as good as skinny feels, but all my pants are too big for me and I know what a Jos Louis tastes like.

Alberta beef, anyone? Raised by the best cowboys on earth!

Happy Hockey Day, everyone! (Especially those cowboys. I'm trying to get in good with them in the hopes of getting a free hat.)



* Seriously you guys, for all I know I took the metro with Nolan Baumgartner today and I'd have been completely oblivious. He's my randomly selected player because a few of the other guys seemed too obvious.


** You know I came thisclose to writing "Jarome Iginla" in giant letters right there. Instead I gave a Brandon Prust to ~czechtacular as a reward for blogging this week.

A Plus/Minus in a week that almost wasn't

This was almost a week without minuses. No, really, somehow I was so optimistic that this week I found myself minus any minuses. But thanks to you guys, I waited until the most depressing day of the year to post this.
This was also the week where Montreal took advantage of a few days off to take care of business: long-awaited hospital visits, well-deserved rest for both the players and the player haters (thanks again, Burrows-Auger scandal), and the grand opening of our very own Hall of Fame.

PLUS

+ 3: one to the NHL for its donation of $100,000 to Haitian relief efforts, one for the Canadiens' charity initiative this week, and one to the other NHL teams who are reaching out to Haitian quake victims.

+ the Habs made a bunch of little kids and their familiies happy this week by opening a new rink in Mtl-North and by visiting the childrens' hospitals.

+ 2 Georges Laraque. Scored. A goal. And the rest of the team also played very, very well against the Stars.

+ Dave Stubbs for asking fans for help in identifying a song (and getting help from another favourite of mine, the hilarious Manny Almela), for another great human-interest piece (this one about Glen Met and Trevor Daley growing up in the projects), and because last week I forgot to give him a plus for his sweet, sweet bowtie.

+ The Canadiens Hall of Fame, which I haven't visited yet but will soon. If anyone's been already, send pictures!!

+ Say what you will about his recent performance (lots of people have, but I'm nice), Max Pacioretty could teach a master class in drawing penalties for the opposite team. Thanks for the power plays, little Max!

MINUS

- I'm not starting another Ryan Miller-type feud or anything, but what is it about Mike Brodeur that makes him invincible at the Bell Centre?

- I'm giving myself a minus for jinxing last night's game, when the only thing I've ever wanted to give Sean Avery is a black eye.
- The only thing worse than losing two games in two days is hearing everyone bitch and moan about it. I'm really sick of hearing others complain these days, so you'll probably hear some whining on my part as well.

- And this hockey blog's biggest minus of the week goes to a guy who doesn't play hockey.

I would like to thank Jay Leno for proving that his nightly ten o'clock show isn't, as I had previously believed, the thing that killed television. No, instead he decided to kill TV by getting his old timeslot back and taking away our Conan O'Brien in the process. It's basically the TV equivalent of all this Carey vs. Jaro quibbling, only neither of them will come out on top. They've been replaced by some old, fat starter who could apparently stop a puck back in the nineties, but never takes a risk or plays with passion. But the GM likes him and the sponsors like him. Even though he SUCKS.
Yes, Hab It Her Way is with CoCo.

A bit of extra plus for the most depressing day of the year
To end things on a more positive note, today is a special day:
#21 turns 31 today, and wretched network NBC gave him a shoutout by putting former Superman Brandon Routh on tonight's Chuck. Have a Giontastic birthday!

On this day in 1958, before Martin Luther King Jr. day was declared a holiday, Willie O'Ree broke the colour barrier and became the first black man to play in an NHL game when he suited up for the Bruins right here in Montreal.
(Yes, I'm still sharing all the little bits of history that I come across.)

Post-Ottawa victory: So many questions...

The Canadiens beat the Senators 4-1 in a game that showed how well this team has come together. (They'd make Viggo proud!)

yoinked from Habs Inside/Out

But I've still got a couple of questions after this game:

Was anyone actually surprised that Jaro Halak was in nets tonight? Because I wasn't, really, and I'm glad that his morale wasn't affected by that messy loss in Buffalo.

Haven't we hit our quota of injuries for the season? Jaroslav Spacek was hit by a puck late in the first period, possibly aggravating an existing injury. Isn't it bad enough that the Habs played without Paul Mara tonight?

What on earth is this Ryan White deal all about? Did the League really ask for him to be removed from the lineup during the game because of a call-up technicality? (I knew such a quick comeback was too good to be true.) Couldn't they have done their research like half an hour earlier? And if White had completed Sergei Kostitsyn's play and scored a goal, would it have been disallowed, as the RDS analysts said it might?

How happy are you that our special teams have finally turned into something special?

Is it just me or are Mike Cammalleri and Tomas Plekanec the ultimate dynamic duo? They have better chemistry than any other pair of guys on the team. (Do we at Hab It Her Way need to stop talking about Cammy and Pleks? Because we really can't help it.)

Speaking of duos, how awesome is it for Josh Gorges that Hal Gill is back? They not only play well together, but they're very good at intimidating other players together as well. Who'd have thought that two of the nicest guys off the ice would be bullying other guys so well at game time?

Did I start thinking about Friday Night Lights as soon as I found out that Hal Gill was quarterback of his high school football team? Yes.

yoinked from tvfanatic.com, which seems to have some pretty awesome FNL coverage. by the way, rent this show during the offseason. honestly. you'll thank me.

How much does Winchester hate his life right now after a puck bounced off his stick on its way into Ottawa's net?

Why is Scott Gomez's empty-net goal only his fourth of the season, especially after such a strong outing tonight?

Is this a new (or old) improved Sergei? He had a big game, with some intelligent plays, a few thrilling almost-goals, a quicker reaction to Spacek's injury than anyone else on the ice (team player!), and he only missed a few minutes of play after his own injury.


And finally... I feel bad completely bashing the other team, so... how much would you love Mike Fisher if he was a Hab? He was Ottawa's best player tonight and he's hella good. If I knew he'd play like that, maybe I wouldn't have made fun of his girlfriend's Christmas special on Fox. (It was out of love, I swear! I actually like Carrie Underwood.)

If you've read this whole thing before Wednesday morning, hats off to you (and thank you!). You're in for a Christmas surprise tomorrow.