While I was out

(Posted because I've had a couple things to say and hadn't blogged them, and also because poor Czechtacular is still recovering from the Habs and Oilers playing against each other in the same game.)

The return of Paul Mara's Beard! You may or may not know that this is very exciting news for me, because why should the NHL's best beard live in California? Plus, Mara probably made Ryan Getzlaf feel really inadequate about his own ability to grow hair. The Mara trade story broke literally fifteen minutes after I went to bed the other day, proving that the news just hates me. Things always happen to the Habs right after I turn off the TV or computer, or the only day of the week that I work overtime, and now apparently also in my sleep. Thanks, Pierre Gauthier, I appear to be the only person happy about Paul Mara's beard and you wait until the middle of the night to buy him back.

The curse of the "western swing." Unfortunately for me, I live in a house with people who aren't horrified by the concept of watching dance-based reality shows, so I'm pretty sure "western swing" is some type of music. But there's usually no reason to dance when the Habs show up in the Western provinces at this time of year. Last night, the Habs gave up two goals in fifteen seconds then didn't reciprocate. Oh, and James Wisniewski's face got broken. Everyone was disappointed in the team, even though they JUST LANDED in a different time zone. Does no one remember two years ago? The Canadiens surrendered like seven goals to the Oilers (minus this year's magic rookie crop) when we all could have been watching this unfold live:

It was arguably the best celebrity crazy moment of the last couple years, and I chose to watch the Habs crumble instead. (Save your arguments about Lady Gaga in an egg, because if it turns out that his Young Pheezy rapper alter ego was just a cover and Joaquin Phoenix is Lady Gaga, I'll hate to say I told you so.)

Luckily this time around I taped my NBC comedies and the Habs only gave up three goals to the Oilers, so all I missed was Justin Bieber getting shot on CSI. I can live with that, because "watching Justin Bieber get shot" involves "watching Justin Bieber."

We've got to count our blessings, Habs fans. We can't be all doom and gloom, mere days before the Heritage Classic! Come on.

Gauthier speaks!

Pierre Gauthier awoke from his slumber today and held a press conference. He even missed a World Cup semifinal game for said press conference, so we thought it would be something big. From what I can gather, this is what he had to say:

"We want to keep Carey Price and Maxim Lapierre. As you know, we haven't officially kept them yet, but there's been talks. Oh, and Glen Metropolit, Paul Mara, Dominic Moore, and Marc-André Bergeron don't have contracts yet because I don't want them anymore. If anyone wants to pick them up, go for it."

No proof yet if this press conference was brought to us by the letter M, and how Lapierre feels about surviving this alphabetical holocaust.

I was really hoping we'd hold onto Moore and Metropolit for a little longer. Moore is exactly the kind of guy you'd want on your supporting cast: he's smart, not physical enough to take dumb penalties, but he's enough of a go-getter to score when it counts. He seemed to fit pretty well into the team's lineup. And he speaks a little French, which probably tickled half the city's media. Gauthier got a lot of praise when Moore proved himself to be a good acquisition at the end of the season and during the playoffs, but that's all over now.

I'd have kept Glen Metropolit on the team mostly for emotional reasons. And believe me, when he first put on the CH I never would have said that. Never in my life would I let myself actually like a player who's been both a Bruin and a Flyer, I said. I quickly, and somewhat begrudgingly, changed my mind. Metro is a truly good guy, and it's a shame that his skill set makes him a good stopgap, and not a franchise player. He's the kind of guy that could be a good captain. I'm not trying to put down any of the guys who've already been (rightfully) hailed as The Next Habs Captain, but Metropolit should have been considered among them. He's smart, experienced, reliable, and patient. He can lead his teammates while handling the extra load of being the team's ambassador to the media. Plus, he's easily one of the nicest guys in hockey. I've never heard a single story about him being rude or even curt. When he's back home in the GTA, he goes back to his old neighbourhood, the one he worked so hard to get out of. He plays hockey with the underprivileged kids. He visits his grandmother. He's like Shane Doan without a permanent address, or Sidney Crosby without the Scrooge McDuck fortune.

You know that feeling you get when someone you know, who's not a terrible person, but not necessarily more desirable than you, gets ENGAGED and you're single? That's how Metro and Moore must feel.
I joked about this earlier on Twitter, and what's sad is that it's kind of true. These players don't deserve to be bounced around from team to team like this. I'm going to miss them. I'm also going to have to make new Christmas graphics next year.

Goodbye, Mara's beard. May you ever grow in our hearts.

All the best to these players, and whatever teams they end up with. Hopefully not teams I hate.

On another note, congratulations are in order:

To Geoff Molson, who will succeed Pierre Boivin as President of the Canadiens, a job whose description I still do not understand. (Between you and me, I think Molson might've greased the team owner's palm to get this job.)

To Sergei Kostitsyn, who officially belongs to the Nashville Predators for one year. He gets $550 000, face time with Shea Weber, and a chance at redemption. Go Sergei.

HIHW gets hairy

You knew it was coming. Everyone loves looking at awesome beards. My Paul Mara fandom and hours spent researching this category are proof of that. Obviously, like basically everyone else on the Internet, we had to honour the best playoff beards and hand out the Paul Mara Memorial Trophy for Best Playoff Beard (since Paul Mara's Beard didn't get to enjoy any playoff glory this year.)
Now, I decided to make this category all about beards, so Jonathan Toews' mutton chops, the Pouliot-stache, and PK Subban's helmet strap didn't quite qualify. Much love, though.

So, who did make the cut?
Todd Bertuzzi has a playoff beard that the Internet seems to love as much as bacon.
Kris Draper's beard most reminds me of Paul Mara's, as it is both ginger and quite awesome.
Patrick Marleau's beard is great. You can't even see any face behind it. I didn't know he had it in him.
Joe Pavelski is half-cute, half-awesome with this beard. Mostly awesome. He looks completely different in playoff mode than he does in his roster shot.
Glen Metropolit trimmed his beard, but it still looked great.
Roman Hamrlik... I wish I had a better picture of his beard in all its glory.
Tom Pyatt grew the best rookie beard this season, and I'd be saying that even if it wasn't the exact same beard that Ryan Gosling had in The Notebook. #94 gets extra points in the "I wrote you every day for a year!" category.
Mark Stuart has such a great beard that honestly, I have no idea who he is other than the Bruins' #45, but I saw this picture and nominated him.

Eight nominees is a lot but for all I know, I omitted someone so if I did, that's what the comments section is for!

Plus/Minus apologizes for a weak week in blogging

Last week's Plus/Minus was overdue and below par, and then we didn't write as much as we usually do in a week, and this week's is also a couple of days late, so you probably hate HIHW right now, but HIHW still loves you. See? I'm making this Plus/Minus all fancy and up to standard.

PLUS

+ To our Hamilton Bulldogs for clinching their division title! Take THAT, other AHL teams!
+ To this guy...

because for some reason this made me laugh really, really hard. Congratulations, Hunter Bishop's cousin! Welcome to the fam.
+ Six wins in a row. Plus an OT loss that gave us one point, so six and a half wins in a row. Go Habs Go!
+ Plekanec's injury didn't seem to be that serious! For once in our lives!
+ To the Habs fan in Toronto who attended Saturday's game wearing a Kostopoulos jersey.

MINUS

I hate you right now, Regis... what? It's Regin with an N? Whoops...

- Let's be honest, it would have been nice to beat the Leafs. And the Sens.
- Bob Hartley gets the quote of the week: "Une game de hockey c'est comme la vie. Tu sais que ca va être un party mais faut que tu decides quand." (For you people not working in francophone offices, that roughly translates to "hockey is like life, you know it'll be a party but you gotta decide when.") If he never gets another coaching job and tires of being on RDS, he could always try his hand at writing American Pie movies.
- I gave myself a standing obligation to give Alain Crete a minus every time he wears that terrible eyesore of a camel jacket. So here it is. At least he's wearing it less often.
- File this under "words I never expected to put in the same sentence": I'm really glad that Travis Moen didn't lose an eye.
- Ryan O'Byrne, as I've said before, is steadily improving, but in order to really be Fancy New O'Byrne he needs to spend less time in the penalty box.
- Paul Mara's gone. Stupid shoulder surgery.

There's nine games left in the season. Nine games for our Habs to kick a little more ass before the toughest part of the year. Let's get it together, fans, and lose our minds in preparation for the playoffs. I promise I'll try to be here along with you, as long as the Internet permits it.
Go Habs Go!

So... what did I miss?

Lucky for me, there was no game yesterday, because I'm currently enduring a blogger's worst nightmare.

The wrath of angry Ryan Miller fans? No. (I played nice while I was in the States.)
Stuck in an elevator with Réjean Tremblay? Oh dear god no. Let's hope that's avoidable.
Someone stealing my content? Um... maybe a little.

If it's none of the above, then it's clearly a lack of internet.

So until my wireless fixes itself, I'll be updating from my desk at lunch (as long as I'm still here) and trekking to my basement to use my slow, virus-ridden, battle-scarred desktop.

Things I missed this week:

• A chance to watch my first full episode of Grey's Anatomy in over a year (what? I promised a friend I'd watch it with her, I swear), bumped by the two-hour midseason return of FlashForward. I haven't yet finished the first half of the season, so my apologies go out to whichever Fiennes brother is on that show. (I'm going to guess it's Joseph.)
• Some Paul Mara news! Seriously, the last time I saw his name anywhere was in LA, outside the offices of this Paul Marra. He needs shoulder surgery, which will happen on Tuesday, so at least now we know for sure that he'll be out until next season. If the rest of the team don't compensate for his absence with awesome playoff beards, I'll be very disappointed.
• Guy Carbonneau turned 50, and all the people who love the Habs this season and were bashing everything about last season recently changed their tune and now appreciate the good that came out of it.
• In case you also missed it, in the same vein is a great article by Brian Wilde about Bob Gainey's contribution as GM.
• On the "who's dis guy" front, the Habs signed free agent Hunter Bishop, who, apparently, exists. I didn't know teams were allowed to straight-up buy players after the trade deadline, but you learn something new every day. Maybe tomorrow I'll try to find out who this Hunter Bishop is, and whether he has a first name. Two-year contract, and he's is currently with the Bulldogs.
• I just realized that "Hunter Bishop" and "Hamilton Bulldogs" have the same initials. Someone, quick, turn #HBFTW into a Twitter trending topic!
• Conflicting reports about Mike Cammalleri's return, which will be soon but not immediately. Probably next week. Everyone seems to agree that he's close to form.

11 games left, busy stretch coming up for the Habs, and hopefully I'll have Internet sometime before the end of the season.

pretend there's a relevant photo of the Canadiens in this space, since I'm working with limited resources here.

Plus/Minus: Ain't no sunshine when they're gone

This wasn't exactly the best week we've seen for the Habs this season. The team on the road was a bit like the weather at home: it started out beautiful on Monday and everyone was in a great mood, but temperatures dropped. A lot. And now it's really damn cold.


Plus

Hallmark was right! A hug makes everything better.

+ 2: one to Pouliot and one to Gionta, for scoring the Habs' two goals this week.
+ This awesome work of Photoshop:

Proof that Four Habs Fans can be genius even without an army of hoochies.
+ The Washington Capitals finished the job for us and beat the Florida Panthers.
+ A few extra months with Guy Boucher has probably made Yannick Weber much, much better, and the team needs another good defenceman right now and also I think he's awesome.

Minus

- 2 to the damn injury fairy again. (I should probably come up with a sketch of her, but my Photoshop access right now is even more limited than my skills. She probably looks like what a Lady Gaga/Rick Tocchet lovechild would look like, if Lady Gaga had a uterus. So yeah, she's not so pretty and I hate her.) First off, my cat (not the one with the Facebook page) motivated me to give Paul Mara's continuing injury a minus. She's walking around the house saying "Mara, Mara" as I type this. I'm guessing she really misses him.
And now we've lost Cammy to a painful collision. I hate Hockey Day In Canada.
- Another Lightning game, another round of "How much does it suck that Lecavalier didn't make Team Canada?" Yes. It sucks. But if you're complaining about this now you're either a month too late or two weeks too early.
- I'm not sure what makes me sadder: two of my favourite players getting into a huge argument in the locker room, or said argument becoming the biggest story of the week. If there are problems at the heart of the team, journalists and fans aren't going to solve them.

In last week's Plus Minus, I hoped that this week would be calmer than last week, and then NOTHING happened. Seriously, the best thing that happened to me this week was my forgiving actor Jon Hamm for being a St-Louis Blues fan. (He willingly made a fool of himself on Saturday Night Live.) Careful what you wish for, Rookie. I'm currently eating my words like they're covered in chocolate, so no uncalculated optimism for me today. There will be hockey games in the next seven days and then we'll see what the Canadiens will do in them, and then I'll blog. That's what's going to happen this week.

Superman returns: Game Preview 12-28-09

He defies gravity. I'm not making this up.
Perhaps my title is jumping the gun a little, as there is (edit: was) a chance Brian Gionta may not lace up tonight as planned, but his optimism is a good sign. Roman Hamrlik, for his part, probably won't be ready until the Habs hit Florida. He and Paul Mara were kept on the ice the longest today, according to the report on CJAD this afternoon. Back in the nation's capital, where many traveling Habs' fans are bound to make the trip to tonight's matchup, the Sens are without captain Daniel Alfredsson, Nick Foligno, and (Rookie's "best friend") Jason Spezza, and are 5-5-0 in their last ten games.

St. Isidore-raised Benoit Pouliot plays his first career game in Ottawa tonight while Jaroslav Halak merits his fifth start in a row, looking to be five for five (but preferably not to be pelted with shots as he has been as of late. He's made a grand total of 180 saves over that stretch).

Insert Fancy Bullet Points Header Here

• My own "best friend" Alex Kovalev has been responsive to his Team Russia "snub" as of late, winning the game in the shootout for the Sens in Buffalo, 3-2.
• Recently-engaged Mike Fisher had the other goal in said shootout, and isn't just your regular everyday pretty-faced scoring threat. His two-way ability has one big highlight: physicality. He knows how to hit, when to hit, and who.
• Chris Neil brings the reverse argument to the table, providing his brand of intimidation with a scoring touch. Coming off a knee injury that kept him out 14 games, he scored in his second game back. One of his other four goals this season was in the last game against Montreal.
• Jarkko Ruutu is also an underestimated offensive threat, particularly in the shootout.
• You thought I'd forget him, didn't you? Milan Michalek leads the team with 16 goals, two of them shorthanded.