O'Boy...

By most accounts, this was a game the Canadiens should have won... by many accounts, this was a game the Canadiens needed to win... and for 55 minutes of play, it looked like the Canadiens really wanted to win tonight.

Rather than clog the neutral zone, cut passing lanes and smother the puck carrier, the New York Islanders went after the Canadiens with a transition game of their own and allowed for the most exciting game Habs fans have seen for weeks.

Finally allowed some space to maneouvre and the occasional odd-man rush, the Canadiens were finally beginning to look like last year's team--heck, like last month's team. Movement, speed, creative passing and in-close chances abound in a game that showed signs of a turnaround for a slumping Montreal club.

Chances didn't translate into goals for Montreal's top lines though, each putting up notable pressure and scoring opportunities without anything to show for it. Posts, bounces and great saves by Joey MacDonald kept the game close, leaving Montreal ahead by one late in the 3rd period on goals from unlikely contributors Steve Begin, Josh Gorges (his 1st in 89 games as a Canadien) and Maxim Lapierre.

With under 5 minutes remaining, a delayed penalty to the Islanders looked to spell the end of things when the night's most unlikely goal-scorer, Ryan O'Byrne took center-stage, casually sliding the puck into the deserted net in his own end.

A noticeably deflated Canadiens club proceeded to extend their power-play impotence on two separate occasions prior to the beginning of an overtime period in which their snakebitten offence still could not find the back of the net.

Stoned twice in a shootout in which two Islanders scored, Montreal had to leave the ice with a loss in the first game they've actually deserved to win in 7 tries.

The loss extended Montreal's winless streak to 2 games and Montreal fans' memory of O'Byrne's fatal error indefinitely...

"To you from failing hands Breezer throws the torch; be yours to put in your own net."

Running count of the use of the term 'O'Byrne-d' starting... now.

Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures...

The struggling Senators host the slumping Canadiens in Ottawa tonight, both teams looking to rebound from their respective downturns.

Montreal is 'Canadian-dollar bad', tumbling drastically from last year's impressive highs but not yet at critical mass. The core strengths of last year's team, including team speed, sharp passing and Alex Kovalev in particular have in large part disappeared, which has consequently had a similar effect on the Habs' fortunes to that which the drop of commodity prices has had on the Loonie. Guy Carbonneau has reacted to the situtation by shuffling the deck once again, hoping to find some chemistry and balance among his offensive lines.

Ottawa is 'Global-finances bad', falling further and further into the depths of a terrible depression with no end in sight following an extended period of inflated expectations without the necessary fundamentals (toughness/goaltending) to support them. Adding injury to insult, Mike Fisher and Chris Neil will both miss at least two weeks of action with knee injuries. In an effort to rescue/stimulate the sagging Sens, coach Craig Hartsburg will reunite the Spezza-Heatley-Alfredsson line while the players, for their part, have elected to grow mustaches.

My condolences go out to Jason Spezza's upper lip and the shame it is soon to know.

Tough to Watch...

Players struggling through a stretch of games like that being experienced by the Canadiens right now generally repeat one thing through all of their interviews--"It's not fun."

I couldn't help but think of this line as I brought myself to write this amidst my workday... as busy and mundane as my typical workday can be, it doesn't suck as much as thinking of the Canadiens' play of late.

This blog was supposed to be a fun diversion. Yes, there was to be a fair amount of work involved, but it was new, interesting and full of possibility. Rather, I am at a point where it has become painful to watch the team, let alone write about their performances. Likewise, the Canadiens have seen what was supposed to be a phenomenal season, ripe with celebrations and expectations, turn absolutely sour.

If 'coming to the rink' every day isn't much fun for me right now, I can only imagine how much the 23-man roster representing Montreal must be enjoying themselves...

But maybe that's just what they need... and I don't mean a 'wake-up call' or a reminder that skill won't get them anywhere without the effort backing it. These guys are professionals, and should need no such prompt to get their asses in gear.

What I mean to say is maybe these guys need to stop enjoying themselves so much. I would even hazard to say that they need somebody to blow up. This team needs to hate losing, and I mean HATE it, like Kevin Lowe hates Brian Burke.

I don't believe there's any need to panic just yet and no need to shake things up via trade or other roster changes. All that's needed is for this foul funk to permeate and linger just long enough... right up until the point that somebody, or everybody, erupts.

The common excuse that guys are beginning to grip their sticks too tightly isn't nearly enough... I want to see a few guys snapping sticks and slamming them against the walls in frustration... I want to see some emotion.

I won't go so far as to say that losing is a good thing... getting your ass handed to you over and over again is never good for confidence... but somewhere along the way, confidence will no longer matter as the distaste of losing will consume this group, stoke their competitive fires, and get an undeniably talented team back on track.

All it takes is a shared vision or, in this case, a shared hatred.

Foreword -- Stormy Weather...

Montreal brings their road-show to Carolina tonight, icing the exact line-up that struggled to keep pace with the injury-riddled St-Louis Blues on Sunday...

Carolina has lost 3 of their last 4, with Eric Staal (whose quasi-justified 7-year, $8.25M/year  contract extension was just recently out-crazied by the Avalanche signing Paul Stastny to a 5-year deal worth $6.6M/year... straight out of his entry-level deal) putting up just NO goals and just 1 assist in his last 7 games.

Eric must be looking forward to playing Montreal however, with 8 goals and 8 assists in his last 12 games against the Habs, putting together a strong case as heir-apparent to Erik Cole's 'Canadiens-killer' throne. No matter how poorly things may be going for the 'Canes, no matter how desperately against the wall their backs may be, they seemingly always find a way to work their way past the Canadiens.

If Luke Decock's intuition is right, failure to pull one out against the Habs tonight may be a nail in the coffin of coach Laviolette's suddenly precarious tenure behind the bench in Carolina.

The Canadiens will look to avoid playing a prolonged game of 'Where's Wardo?' by putting some pucks on net in the first ten minutes of play (a feat they have not accomplished in their last few outings), and may look to an unlikely source for some offensive output tonight... Josh Gorges, goalless as a Hab in 97 games now, was provided a stick-sacrificing ritual courtesy of Carey Price, who shredded and scattered the bits of Gorges's stick around the RBC Centre to help break the curse that has kept him off the scoresheet.

Finally, in today's installment of "All is Right with the World", Sergei Samsonov has 0 goals and 3 assists in 18 games and stands at minus-10, allowing Hurricane fans to feel our pain... only they now have him under contract until 2010-11. He is pictured above in his favourite position--the perimeter.

Afterword -- A Near-Disastrous Weekend...

Montreal was coming off their worst performance of the season in Boston, and was heading into a gut-check weekend with back-to-back match-ups against Philadelphia on Saturday and St-Louis less than 24 hours later.

I was coming off a busy week at work and had planned a nice weekend with my girlfriend to celebrate her birthday, not knowing we'd wind up checking our own guts... as things turned out, it was to be a near-disastrous weekend for us as well as for the Canadiens.

Saturday morning came upon us in our suite at the Bed & Breakfast I had booked, though my girlfriend was not feeling up to par and passed on the breakfast that I was hoping would justify the cost of the room. The day had been set aside for leisurely shopping, though we would visit just one store before Jade gave in to the nausea she'd been experiencing all morning.

Just blocks away from our room, I was given urgent warning to pull over and so I did, stopping just in time to witness Jade vomit downstream (thanks to steady rain and a steep incline near Mount-Royal).

We followed by heading directly to our room, where Jade tried to sleep off her sudden illness and I wrote up my game preview for the Flyers game. True to form, she decided to tough it out and make an appearance at the Irish Embassy, where friends and family were to meet up with us to watch the game.

The Canadiens were playing respectable (if uninspired) hockey through 20 scoreless minutes of play and our company was beginning to loosen up when, nearing the end of the 1st intermission, I suddenly felt a tinge in my stomach. I mentioned to Jade that I wasn't feeling well and motioned towards the bathroom, instantly feeling disoriented. By the time I reached the stairs, I was dizzy and out of breath.

Next thing I knew, I was being picked up off the bottom of the stairs, lifted out of a puddle of my own puke. The bouncer was telling me he had already checked my ribs in case any were broken during my tumble down the flight of stairs, which was apparently overheard by the bar staff. I tried to regain composure, washing myself off in the bathroom, only to be consumed once again with the illness that ravaged me for the remainder of the evening.

Between spells of vomiting, I could overhear the displeasure of the fans at the Irish Embassy, disgusted with the performance of their team. Making my way back to our room in time for the 3rd period, I could overhear on the TV in the other room that they had fallen down 2-0 and were showing few signs of life.

The Habs did very little to appease my condition and, upon watching the seconds tick down on yet another discouraging outing, I was incited to unleash one final torrent of vomit into my trusty garbage can (apologies to the housekeepers).

Still feverish and bruised from head to toe, I watched the Canadiens slip out of St-Louis with a much-needed but far from convincing victory.

The weekend could have been worse, though I'm sure we all wish it would have been much better... well, less nauseating and far less painful, to say the least.

Finally, an enormous thanks to the wonderful staff at the Irish Embassy for their genuine concern and selfless assistance through a scary experience. Your help and hospitality were immeasurably appreciated!

Foreword -- No Love for Familiar Foes...

For the first time since the Canadiens were eliminated from the playoffs last Spring, the Philadelphia Flyers visit Montreal tonight.

The Canadiens are coming off an embarrassing defeat at the hands of the Boston Bruins, while Philadelphia has been struggling out of the gate, posting a 5-6-4 record to date. If you think things have been getting hairy here in Montreal after a couple dismal performances and a 9-3-2 record, imagine what must have been said during Philadelphia's team-meeting, which they called in place of their scheduled practice yesterday morning in Verdun.

These teams have played some wickedly entertaining games in the past couple seasons--Montreal's speed against Philly's toughness--though its impossible to guess which two teams you are going to see tonight.

Will Montreal effectively utilize the speedy, skilled transition game that allowed them to dominate the Senators on Tuesday, or will they resemble the soft, sluggish and uninspired club that never really showed up in Toronto and Boston?

Will Philadelphia come out with the smashmouth mentality and explosive firepower that has been the trademark of the Flyers, or will they be exposed as the defensively inept and uncharacteristically disorganized club that needed 7 games to record their first win.

Photos at Habs Inside/Out's photo gallery may provide a hint as to Montreal's performance tonight: images from yesterday's practice session do not show a single smile... photos taken during practices prior to Columbus/Toronto and Boston were full of happy Habs, including this gem of Robert Lang. Happy Habs are bad Habs... will the reverse apply?                                                                                                                   One thing is (hopefully) for sure... with all the hullabaloo surrounding Georges Laraque's non-action so far this season (and don't think for a minute that he doesn't know it), the slightest affront by a Flyer tonight will awaken the big man from his slumber to re-assert himself as the Heavyweight Champion of the World... but then, maybe no affront is needed...

Afterword & Analysis -- Ewww...

It pains me to write this right now, but not as much as it hurt to watch what just went down...

We saw what this team is capable of against Ottawa, and thought performances like the one against Toronto were mere aberrations...

We were wrong.

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

SETTING: TD Banknorth Garden in Boston to 16,816 fans, many of whom looked stunned and near-suicidal in their bleu-blanc-rouge.

PLOT: I had predicted the game would resemble Mike Komisarek and Milan Lucic colliding at full speed... little did I know, the most notable collisions between the two would be Lucic's fist connecting with Komisarek's face, and the game played out more like a fat kid against a twinkie. Montreal looked absolutely listless, uninterested and uncompetitive. Boston didn't exactly look like a group of superstars, but did enough to humiliate the Canadiens from start to finish.

HEROES: Few and far between on the Montreal side, though Saku Koivu, Francis Bouillon and Guillaume Latendresse in particular appeared as though they at least cared... a little. The rest of the team's greatest contribution? Making Shawn Thornton, Marco Sturm and Stephane Yelle look like the second coming of the Legion of Doom.

ANTAGONISTS: Anybody wearing black and yellow, but mostly Milan Lucic... what can I say about this character? I'm quite certain I would love to have him on my team, but playing for the Bruins, he shall heretofore be the focus of Habs fan hatred for the duration of his career, and maybe longer... the big galoot runs all over the opposition and runs his mouth all night long with a perennial smirk on his face. Give him the spotlight after a goal or a fight and he comes across like a jacked-up wrestler after one too many Red Bulls. Funny how quiet he was when Laraque wanted words with him earlier in the game... Lucic voodoo dolls available soon.

CLIMAX: Price's penalty for 'playing the puck in the restricted zone' (the first time I've seen that call)? It became rather clear following the Dandenault-Komisarek misstep that led to the B's first goal and a couple more deflating goals that it was gonna be 'one of those nights'. The penalty to Price was just the nail in the coffin.

DÉNOUEMENT: It was a long, painful unwinding, from the end of the first period to the final siren... Komisarek, you may have noticed, did not play again following his fight with Lucic. Barring an injury (oh please, no), his absence was a message from Carbonneau, who does not want his #2 defenceman goaded into fighting; that's not Komisarek's responsibility anymore.

THEMES: Humiliation, deja vu (Re: Toronto), inconsistent efforts... 4 straight listless outings on the road now. The Canadiens didn't lose like this when they were bad, so why now? Still only one line performing, and the Carbo-carousel of line juggling has officially begun. Also, why is Laraque so important to this team if nobody will fight him? Komisarek and Bouillon shouldn't have to do that job anymore.

Some of the rest is too hard to talk about right now... on to the next--Philly on Saturday, and a good test for a team struggling to assert itself.