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Habs start off well below the boiling point |
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If you wanted to suggest the Canadiens bout against the Leafs reminded you of last season, well, you'd have just cause.
The Habs couldn't manufacture a drum beat, let alone establish rhythm. And it wasn't for lack of effort.
They started off great, and the penalty Ryan White took is the kind of penalty you don't mind, even if it negated a goal. The energy of that early shift should've set the tone, and if it didn't, the flawless penalty kill thereafter would've done the trick. It would've, had Erik Cole not put the Leafs right back on the powerplay.
The first shot Carey Price faced was behind him. Price was caught cheating to his right as Kadri swooped through the slot and beat him on his left. It wasn't the start he was looking for, but if it weren't for him, who knows what the final score of this one would've been.
Heard that before, have you?
From there, Tomas Plekanec made a poor decision to snow Ben Scrivens on a 1-on-3 play in the second period. If they called it a few times in the playoffs last season, then surely they'd be calling it in the regular season.
It didn't take long for Tyler Bozak to put the Leafs up by two, but it took a bit too long for the goal to produce the wake-up call Montreal needed.
The third period belonged to the Habs, but Brian Gionta's first goal in more than a calendar year wasn't enough.
The scoresheet made it painfully obvious the game was won on special teams. Though the Habs managed their lone marker on the powerplay, they came up short on their other four opportunities. The Leafs were 2/5 with the man advantage. But if you watched the game, there were clear discrepancies at five on five.
The Leafs supported the puck well, they kept the Montreal attack (if that's what you'd call it) largely to the perimeter, and they capitalized at the key moments of the game. Their best line was their top line, and they got a solid performance out of their blue line.
The Canadiens were the opposite.
Sufficed to say this pot's going to take some time to boil. Earlier in the week, Michel Therrien was quick to caution that it wouldn't be perfect from the start. It wasn't.
Now, the question is, how quick can they rebound?
It's going to be a tough test when the high-flying Panthers visit the Bell Centre Tuesday. Fresh off a 5-1 over Carolina, they have a tough challenge in Ottawa today. They'll either be riding momentum, or gasping for air on the second night of back-to-backs. Either way, the Habs will have to find discipline, cohesion and chemistry in a hurry.
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Notes:
-I'd say if the Canadiens can get through their first 6-8 games at .500 that'll be enough time for them to pull all these new elements together. But that's a steep challenge, and the pressure will mount dramatically if they lose Tuesday.
-Had to like the character they showed in the third period, but once again, not enough paddles rowing the boat.
-Top line was a no show, and I characterized them as that to Michel Therrien, to which he responded: "They didn't execute.". Asked Max Pacioretty if he was sticking around when he popped into the room after to grab something from his locker. He wasn't interested. Not very typical of him, but neither is not showing up for the game.
-It took me this long into the blog, but here are my thoughts on Alex Galchenyuk:
Speed. Check.
Talent. Check.
NHL shot. Check.
But you can't change the fact that this was his first game at a level that's more than two above Junior. And though Canadiens fans don't want to hear criticism about Galchenyuk, there were a few things he struggled with.
Not that he didn't make some good plays coming up the ice or in the offensive zone, but when someone leaned on him on the faceoff, when plays came quick around the boards with a defenseman bearing down on him, he struggled to make the play. And that's not to say he's not ready for those parts of the game. It's too early to say that.
I'd agree with Therrien's assessment that he played well, didn't get himself in trouble, and that he didn't look out of place. But there are adjustments to be made, and if he truly is ready, he's a different player from game one to game two.
Also, we obviously have to take nerves into account. It would be impossible to not be nervous out there, especially after all the anticipation and all the fuss before the puck actually dropped.
Though he was good, take a look at the starts some other rookies got off to. Jonathan Huberdeau may be a year older, Vladimir Tarasenko-- three years Galchenyuk's senior, but all of them are rookies. The kid has that potential, but will he realize it this early.
Let's see how quickly he adjusts.
-Not too sure why there was so much twitter outrage over Galchenyuk and Bourque switching places halfway through the game and on the powerplay at times. Bourque was playing well, and it's those little battles that he's more accustomed to winning than Galchenyuk is at this level.
I know everyone wants stability next to Plekanec, and they want the kid to get his best chance at success, but there's nothing wrong with giving him some minutes next to Eller and Moen in order to take a bit of pressure off him and perhaps give him a better match up to work with.
As far as ice-time was concerned, Galchenyuk was right in there with his contemporaries. At 13:06, he had his chance to show what he can do. Nail Yakupov played 16:20 last night, and the Oilers went to a shootout. Yakupov finished at -1, and recorded one shot on net.
-If the Habs don't want to talk about P.K. Subban while he's not around, they better find a way to play much better without him, particularly on the powerplay. What happened on the point was laughable.
Francis Bouillon could barely take me seriously when I asked him if he was expecting to see some time on the powerplay.
-This is the year that Lars Eller's supposed to bury his chances. He had a pretty great one in the second period. Missed the net.
-Thought Alexei Emelin looked good, as did Raphael Diaz. With Subban signed (whenever that goes down), I still don't see how the Canadiens would start Tomas Kaberle ahead of either of them. Maybe I'm missing something.
-Andrei Markov put some reservations to bed with a real solid game as the leading ice-time getter on the Habs side. He made some great passes, and he only got run over a couple of times. All in all, the Canadiens had to see his game as a major positive.
-Josh Gorges on the other hand... might take a couple of games to shake off the rust.
-Prust, Armstrong, White... they did their jobs. If the top line was there, perhaps there'd have been more flow from shift-to-shift. No question, the energy these players brought was a big positive in the game, and they were very dependable in their own end too.
-Lastly, props to the Canadiens for doing something right Saturday. The pregame spectacle brought back that warm fuzzy feeling. Too bad it helped the Leafs more than the Habs, but it sure was good to see Jean Beliveau pass that torch to Brian Gionta.
The Ole song at the beginning of the montage? Only in Montreal can the word Ole become a French word. Listen to it in the song... it's pronounced O-Lait.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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