Habs Hit Hard at Home
NHLHS writer Christopher Nardi takes a look at the happenings from game three between the Montreal Canadiens and Washington Capitals. Game four happens tonight.
It was the first home game of the fairy tale Canadiens, returning to Montreal with a very unexpected win in game one of the series against the wrecking ball that is the Washington Capitals. Expectations were very high for this team, and it could be heard from the 21,273 fans, or shall we call them referees, filling the seats of the Bell Centre Monday evening. The fans knew that their team could score goals, just as they had in their previous 6-5 OT loss in Washington, and the fact that they had blown a two, and then one goal lead in the third period was nothing to fret, Jaroslav Halak was in nets!
Right?
The Canadiens did what was expected of them in first frame. With the vibrant crowd the Habs have always had behind them in a very loud fashion, they came out flying from the start, pushing and shoving to the best of their abilities (and size) and firing as many shots as possible towards a rusty Varlamov. Yet the Canadiens’ scoring chances were severely undermined by two useless penalties taken by Andrei Kostitsyn at 7:52 and Tomas Plekanec at 16:40 for high-sticking and tripping, respectively. Regardless, the Habs seemed to be energized by the crowd and were able to fire 10 shots on Varlamov, including a great shorthanded chance by Brian Gionta during Kostitsyn’s penalty. The Habs seemed set to win another upset game on home ice, and if you listened to the noise from the fans, you’d think they were about to win the cup.
If I had told any Montrealer at the end of the regular season that #41 Jaroslav Halak would let in eight goals in 51:25 before getting chased in favour of Carey Price, chances are various objects would have been thrown at me, including, but not limited to, rocks, OPUS cards, school bags, and a copy of the latest 24hrs newspaper. Let’s face it, they would have been right; the goalie’s stellar play had kept the Habs in the playoff race. But ever since letting in three goals in the final period of regulation in game two, and the ensuing Capitals GWG in OT, Halak’s play has been anything but stellar. His situation was no different in the second frame of game three.
The Capital’s first goal came only 1:06 into the second period, on a shorthanded attempt by Boyd Gordon. Gordon was fed a long pass from Tom Poti which reached him behind the Montreal defensemen. All that was left for him then was to skate up the wing, shoot the puck and take advantage of the fact that Halak couldn’t cover it up to push in the loose puck.
Three and a half minutes later, Brooks Laich’s silenced the enthusiastic Montreal crowd with a shot from the left of a very well screened Halak. Handling the puck nicely behind the opposing net, Laich is able to pass the puck to an open Mike Green before getting himself open enough to take the pass back and fire a quick wrister past two Habs, two Caps, a walled-in Halak and into the twine. The shot was not a powerful one, and should have been a routine save for Halak, had he been ready for the shot and not trying to see past the four players completely blocking his sight.
The nail in number 41’s coffin came at 8:33 of the second. Following a laser of a slap shot by Montreal defenseman Marc-André Bergeron, which hit Capitals netminder Semyon Varlamov straight in the mask, Laich picked up the juicy rebound and carried the puck out of his zone before passing it to Brendan Morrison, who shot from the circle. Unable to control the rebound, a crashing-the-net Eric Fehr easily picked up the puck and slammed it home, making it 3-0 for the Caps. Habs coach Jacques Martin then decided to do the one thing no Canadiens fan hoped he would see during the playoffs: he sent Carey Price into nets. With a 13-20-5 record during the regular season, hosting a .912 S% and a 2.77 GAA, Price was vastly outshone by his Slovak teammate this season, but needed to find his playoff magic of the 2007-2008 playoffs again.
What followed was what I call a gorgeous shot by a player who is by no means a stranger to gorgeous goals. The Great #8, Alexander Ovechkin scored his second of the series with a one-timer that is best defined by Pierre McGuire “I don’t care who the goalie is, there’s no stopping this.” At that point, the Habs were just getting outplayed, outmanned, outhit and outawesomed by a Washington team that was cycling the puck beautifully, communicating their intentions properly all the while controlling the game in the neutral zone with effective passes and a lot of speed, two things the small Montreal team are supposed to be built on. The Canadiens weren’t in the game, and the fans acknowledged it by flipping them off with the boo-birds.
Early in the third period, Plekanec scored his third goal of the series, a powerplay goal off a hooking penalty by Laich. The Montreal crowd seemed to regain a little life, but after the goal, the Montreal squad returned to its lifeless hockey it had played all night long. Any hopes of a possible comeback were crushed and blown away by Matt Bradley, who scored his first goal of the playoffs 44 seconds before the end.
So what now?
First of all, if the Habs want to win just one more game, they have to do practically everything better than they did on Monday.
The only thing that was commendable was their PK, going seven for seven, limiting the Capitals to only five shots in the process. Beyond that, the list of things that the Habs need to do is roughly: crash the net, avoid stupid penalties (I’m looking at you, Scott Gomez), make better passes, crash the net, screen the opposing goaltender, pick up Varlamov’s juicy rebounds by crashing the net, better goaltending, more speed in the neutral zone, much, much better passes, and creating traffic in front of the net. You can see that the reoccurring theme here is that the Habs NEED to get in front of Varlamov.
Although size is not on Montreal’s side, speed should be, and what I saw was a Canadiens team trying to get too many shots off from the point, without any screen, and without even making an effort to try to pick up the rebound. A perfect example of this would in the first period, when Gionta rushed in on Varlamov during a shorthanded rush. The most shocking was not that Gionta got through the line of d-men uncrushed, but that after feeding him the puck, Gomez did not follow the play but returned to the bench, leaving Gionta alone. Had Gomez decided to follow the play, he would have been right on the receiving end of a fat rebound from Varlamov, and facing a wide open net.
Can you imagine what would have happened if Montreal had scored the first goal? Shorthanded? I don’t know if they would have won the game, but the roof would have been blown off by the fans, giving Montreal not one, but TWO stadiums with defective roofs! So if the Canadiens want to win the next game, look for them to go to the net more, or at least post some screens in front of Varlamov to at least give their point shots a chance of going in.
Oh and on a controversial side-note, put Price in nets, and ride the hot goaltender. Price did not look shabby at all, for all the 23 shots he faced. Until my next recap, enjoy this AMAZING playoff hockey!
Christopher Nardi
NHLHS Canadiens Correspondent
dragonlancehuma@gmail.com
Twitter: @dragonlancehuma
