I’m having trouble getting worked up about a Habs Senators series

Carey Price.

Don’t get me wrong. I am super excited that the Canadiens are in the playoffs for the first time in two years and even happier that Montreal finished second in the conference, giving them home-ice advantage through at least the first two rounds. This is all good.

And I know I have been preaching for quite some time now that I believe the ideal scenario was for Les Boys to meet anyone but the Leafs. So I guess I got my wish.

So why am I so underwhelmed by the match-up? I guess it’s ’cause we have no modern post-season history with the Senators. Habs fans can’t really get a hate on for the Senators the way we do for the Leafs and especially for the Bruins.

There’s a great rivalry – Battle of Ontario and all that – between the Leafs and the Senators. But Habs-Sens? Not so much. Heck it doesn’t even seem like going to a hostile arena when Montreal plays in Kanata – there seem to be more people cheering for the Habs than for the Senators, just underlining the team’s identity issues.

The weirdest thing is that I’m actually more pumped up about watching the Leafs Bruins slug-fest right now. La question qui tue – who’s gonna try to punch our friend Milan Lucic’s lights out?

That said, I’m sure Canadiens Senators will be a good series once it’s up and running. The teams have played close games for the most part this year and it’s likely to be a long series. In other words, by game seven we might even have a rivalry going.

There will be some great mano-a-mano combats. Will Craig Anderson be the difference-maker or will Carey ‘What Me Worry’? Price finally shed his sleepy playoff past history and show that he really is a thoroughbred?

The other great duel will be between two star blue-liners, in Erik Karlsson and P.K. Subban. I’m predicting P.K. wins this one. Price vs. Anderson, I’m not so sure.

So I joked on the Daybreak podcast Wednesday that it’d be the Sens in three – the Toronto media’s wet dream – but here in the lofty confines of the Top Shelf space I’m saying it’s Habs in seven, with the seventh game going to extra time.

 

Milan Lucic is public enemy No. 1 in Montreal

Filmmaker Rafael Ouellet showing his true colours!

Milan Lucic was already pretty high up on the public-enemy charts in Montreal but he soared to the No. 1 spot Monday with the news that Alexei Emelin will miss the rest of the season after smashing into the freight train that is Lucic Saturday night at the Bell Centre. The Canadiens defenseman has a torn ligament in his left knee.

This is obviously very bad news for the Habs going into the stretch and if the Habs do meet the Bruins in the playoffs, the lack of the feisty, physical Emelin will be felt within the Habs ranks.

This is of course not the first time a Bruin has sidelined a key Montreal player in recent years – there was that ugly incident a couple of years back when Zdeno Chara came mighty close to separating Max Pacioretty’s head from his body. It’s also not the first time Lucic has done some damage to a Hab. Remember that infamous fight that left Mike Komisarek hurt all those years ago. Komisarek was never the same player after that.

That said, much as it pains us, you do have to give Lucic the benefit of a doubt here. Check out the video. Emelin is lining up Lucic for a big hit and Lucic puts up his arms to fight back and leaps a little into the air. It looks like there’s some knee-on-knee action going on but it doesn’t appear to be intentional.

I got into a bit of a fight with hardcore Bruins fan – and fine, fine filmmaker – Rafael Ouellet on Twitter Monday. Don’t tell him but the director of Camion had a point, writing that “Lucic had 1/8th of a second to react/protect himself….I don’t think any of it was intentional.”

But you know the Bs are sure happy to see the back of Emelin this year. He’s been a real pest for them. Remember when he whacked Tyler Seguin and seconds later Chara was on him, using Emelin’s surgically-reconstructed face as a pushing bag. The Boston boxers don’t like Emelin and you know they’re pleased as punch – pun intended – to have one less Hab who knows how to hit.

Cos let’s face it, Montreal doesn’t even remotely compete with Boston in the toughness department. Sure there’s Brandon Prust but much as I love the guy, what’s he’s going to do after Chara pulverizes one of our guys. Prust can maybe take a swing at Chara’s mid-section.

It’s always the same. The Habs are going to have to win it with speed, skill and heart, battling against the sheer physical might and street-smart team spirit of the Bruins. And as of today, that series just got a little bit harder for Montreal to win.

http://www.hockeyfights.com/fights/49297

Can we at least start the discussion about P.K. Subban as a potential Norris Trophy candidate

It came up again last night on Hockey Night in Canada, the notion that P.K. Subban might be a Norris Trophy candidate, and the idea was quickly shot down by one of their commentators, which is par-for-the-course for that most Toronto-centric of TV shows.

But enough’s enough. Can we at least start talking seriously about the entirely reasonable idea that Subban could well be on the shortlist for the 2013 Norris Trophy? The Habs most exciting player – in a tie for that honour with Brendan Gallagher – is having a career season.

The Canadiens defenceman has ten goals and 17 assists in 28 games. He’s a potential game-changer every night. Is there a player in Bettman’s League with a better one-timer from the blue-line? When he and Markov are roaming the blue-line on the power play, it’s a thing of beauty and you show me another team in the NHL that has such a powerhouse duo on its PP defence.

And he plays the game with such passion every night. He hits hard, he skates hard, there’s just no down time with this guy. Did you see that end-to-end rush in Boston Wednesday night? Pretty sweet. And I’m just sorry he missed Lucic by a couple of inches that night. Cos if he’d fully connected, our good pal Milan would still be wondering which team he was playing for today.

He had a goal and an assist that night in Boston – the most exciting Habs game so far this season – and notched another three assists in Saturday night’s 3-0 thumping of the sad-sack Rangers.

But still the Subban hating continues. He’s booed in every rink and there’s only one word for that kind of thing – and it’s an ugly word that speaks volumes about the lack of diversity in professional hockey. Same goes for that idiotic Sports Illustrated piece that claimed Subban was the most hated player in the League. Why is it that Subban has faced so much criticism from the moment he first started creating excitement with the Habs in the 2010 playoffs? Why do so many spend so much time giving him a hard time?

But it’s the grumblers who’re going to look like the bitter, short-sighted malcontents they are when Subban rightfully takes his place as one of the dominant D-men of this era. I’d bet money on that happening. Soon.

 

Max Pacioretty confused by Brendan Shanahan’s decision….and who can blame him

I was listening to clips of Max Pacioretty on 98.5 earlier Tuesday night and man did he sound peeved off. He was giving his first public reaction to the National Hockey League’s decision to suspend him for three games and it’s hard not to sympathize with him.

Listen, I’m not contradicting Monday’s blog. Patch deserves the suspension – though it kills me to say that given that he’ll miss a crucial three-game road trip through California that just might decide the Canadiens’ season (and coach Jacques Martin’s fate). It was a dangerous head shot on Kris Letang Saturday night and there’s no place in the League for that kind of hit.

But Pacioretty is quite right to say the players have no idea what’s right and wrong given the nutsy inconsistency of NHL head disciplinarian Brendan Shanahan’s decisions on head shots this season. Milan Lucic can do a pretty good job of taking off Buffalo Sabres’ goalie Ryan Miller’s head and there’s no supsension – ’cause he’s a Boston Bruin I guess. Ryan Malone also nearly decapitates the Habs’ Chris Campoli and again there’s no suspension – ’cause the guy getting his head ripped off is a Hab I guess.

“I’d like to see a little bit of consistency,” Pacioretty said on Tuesday. “If the onus was on the hitter every single time I’d be fine with the suspension, but you’ve seen instances where they’ve placed onus on the person receiving the hit as well and that’s why I’m confused and a lot of other players are confused as well.”

What Patch is referring to here is that Shanahan said he was NOT suspending Tampa Bay’s Malone because Campoli changed the position of his head just before the hit. But that’s almost exactly what Letang did Saturday, dropping his head in order to rip a shot in Carey Price’s direction. Pacioretty says he made eye contact with Letang, the Pittsburgh Penguins defenceman saw him coming, but still elected to put his head down to make the shot.

Pacioretty really sounded genuinely upset and you gotta know he was thinking – ‘WTF! I nearly got killed by Zdeno Chara, with a hit from behind. The guy slammed my head into a partition at the Bell Centre, I was carried off the ice on a stretcher, taken to the hospital and might never have played hockey again. And Chara? He got nada!’

Why not just give an automatic two-game suspension for a head shot? How complicated is that? But instead Shanahan’s inconsistency has folks – and particularly Habs fans – wondering if the League doesn’t have it in for the bleu-blanc-et-rouge.

Pacioretty deserves the suspension but the NHL is a joke

I said it Sunday and I’ll say it again today – Max Pacioretty’s hit on Kris Letang was an illegal head shot and he deserves to be suspended. That play has to be taken out of the League. It doesn’t matter what you think of Patch or what you think about what happened to him last year, that was a dirty play that merits a suspension. So NHL head disciplinarian Brendan Shanahan is quite right to send Montreal’s most talented forward to the press box for three games. 

But you know what? The NHL is a joke. If Pacioretty deserves that three-game suspension, what about Tampa Bay’s Ryan Malone who nearly took off Montreal Canadiens defenceman Chris Campoli’s head this past October? It was an almost identical hit to the Patch hit yet Malone was not suspended. That’s a joke.

http://youtu.be/Wp4UxGZaz-Q

Then there’s the Milan Lucic attack on Buffalo Sabres goalie Ryan Miller. That was a deliberate attempt to injure a goalie from a player renowned for his dirty play. Again no suspension.

http://youtu.be/TERA-GY2K1o

Both of those bad decisions came from Shanahan.

And the icing on the cake is the now-famous Zdeno Chara hit on Pacioretty last year when he smashed him into a partition at the Bell Centre. Pacioretty was carried off the ice on a stretcher. No suspension. Montreal fans are gonna be mighty upset in the coming days and I understand why. Pacioretty deserves the punishment but so did Chara, Lucic and Malone.

There are two choice words to describe this League – Mickey and Mouse.

- Brendan

 

Interviews after Saturday’s morning skate

These are all interviews after the morning skate today in Boston.

- Keane