Ten Habs Notes:
1. What's it going to take for Jacques Martin to risk playing P.K. Subban and Yannick Weber in the same game (both on defense)? Is he worried the Canadiens might score too much on the powerplay? Is it possible they won't inject the speed quotient sorely lacking from Hal Gill, Roman Hamrlik and Jaroslav Spacek? Is that the last card to play before the Canadiens need to trade for a reliable blueliner to help supplant the missing quotient Andrei Markov was set to provide this season?
2. Alex Picard is -5 in his last four games. He's played more than 20 minutes just once over that stretch, and dipped below the 14-minute mark in one of them. At a certain point, you can't point the finger at Subban or Weber. Being in the negative is one thing, being the direct reason your team gets scored on to lead to your minus-rating is another.
3. If Picard doesn't get a rest, Spacek would benefit from one. Potentially, an extensive one. Hamrlik falls into that category as well. And who knows what kind of injuries Josh Gorges is playing with, but he might as well park it if he's going to continue this way.
Brings us full circle-- Is it time to get someone in on the blueline to help this team?
Speaking of timing....
4. As Max Lapierre was heaved into the boards from behind last night, I was saying to some friends "If it was any other player this would be a 5-minute penalty."
I was sure it was at least 2:00.
Coincidental minors? Lapierre for diving? If that isn't emblematic of how the refs feel about Lapierre and his bullsh*t, what is?
You have to wonder how that impacts the rest of the team. Do they suffer injustices because the officials are executing their unspoken code?
5. Speaking of players you might see traded out of town (Lapierre), Andrei Kostitsyn and Benoit Pouliot have been in a competition for who stays by year's end. Anyone care to guess who the Canadiens will keep out of those two?
Will either of them be in Montreal, long-term?
6. The Canadiens have figured out the defensive side of the game as well as the Red Wings have. That fact hasn't been as apparent over the last two weeks +, but that's largely because they're sacrificing defense because they're frustrated with the lack of production up front.
They have ways to go in terms of figuring out how to do things offensively without breaking from the confines of their system.
The Canadiens aren't big up front, but they are shifty, and they need to find a way to shift more to the inside of the ice. Otherwise they're going to continue to struggle to find the back of the net with regularity.
As Hal Gill told Pat Hickey of the Montreal Gazette, last night, "We have to play a little simpler, a little uglier. That would be more our style."
7. It's not as if the schedule becomes more forgiving over the coming weeks, ahead of the All-Star break. The Canadiens have back-to-back games to close out December, after a date with a resurgent Washington Capitals team. Their first game back at the Bell Centre is against the red-hot Atlanta Thrashers.
January has them play the Penguins twice in a week, the Rangers twice in a week, with the Bruins sandwiched in between. Calgary, Buffalo, Anaheim, Ottawa and Philadelphia round out the January docket.
It's pretty clear the Canadiens need to snap out of their funk immediately.
8. Not to say Carey Price has been the reason they've lost any of the six games in this recent skid, but he's been a shade under excellent--where his team needs him to be every night.
9. I stated last week that this adverse patch the Habs are running through represents Brian Gionta's first real test as Captain. If the Habs don't begin to revert to things that have made them successful this season, Gionta will have to lead his group back to basics.
10. How many games have the Canadiens gotten contributions from both top lines and won? How many games have they had their offense carry them to victory? Time for this team to get back to playing the style that's been mapped for them, until they can acquire the help up front to make the burden lighter in that sense.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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