I’ll admit it. I miss Milan Lucic. I also miss the days when Zdeno Chara could play half the game and put a STOP DANGER sign up in his own end. I even miss Tim Thomas, mostly for the moments when a P.K. Subban bullet would go whooshing by his ear. Yeah, that was quite the rivalry back in the heady days of 2009-13 when the Bruins and Habs would engage in on ice warfare without one of the teams ever truly dominating the other. But to a younger generation of fans it must already seem like ancient history.
The 2015-16 edition of the Bruins is an interesting mix of players seemingly put together on the fly by rookie GM Don Sweeney. They’re younger and quicker up front (even more so now that Chris Kelly is done for the season) but more than a little leaky in their own end. And as long as Tuukka Rask (3-5-1-3.47-.879) continues to look more like Hannu Toivonen instead of a former Vezina trophy winner, the Bruins appear to have little chance of returning to the playoffs.
Rask’s record against the Canadiens is so one sided (3-14 regular season) they decided to start Jonas Gustavsson, who again showed why his nickname “The Monster” applies not to his height but to the size of the rebounds he allows.
Like top teams often do, the Habs found a way to win a game they likely would have lost had they been facing a better opponent. Where have you gone, Nathan Horton?
THE GOOD
- David Desharnais-Dale Weise-Tomas Fleischmann. For the longest time they were the only Montreal trio to consistently threaten offensively. Apropos then that Desharnais scored the game winner, his 5th goal of the season. A year ago Desharnais didn’t score his 5th until December 23rd or a span of 35 games. His line mates didn’t hit the scoresheet but it might have been Fleischmann’s best overall game of the season as he played the puck like a yo-yo while Weise had a couple of excellent chances to keep pace with Jamie Benn and Tyler Toffoli behind Tyler Seguin for the NHL’s goal scoring lead. Apparently nobody has told these guys it’s time to slow down.
- Power Play. Two more goals including the game winner following a Lucic/Brad Marchand-like brain fart of a cross check by David Krecji in front of the benches during a line change with just 2:03 to play. Montreal’s power play has quickly evolved from new work-in-progress to efficient to dangerous to lethal at 27.3%.
- Alex Galchenyuk. Important night as his line wasn’t generating anything until Galchenyuk went to work nine minutes into the third period when it was mostly his hard work that paid off. First he won a physical battle with Adam McQuaid (6’4″ 211 pounds) to keep the puck in deep. Then he got help from both line mates in the opposite corner of the rink before getting the puck back from Devante Smith-Pelly, worked himself into a position to shoot, and hit the net where there was a bad goal waiting to happen, as Eller wisely went to the net to poke in his 5th goal of the season and tie the game at two. There was Galchenyuk again on the game winner working himself free, taking a feed from Andrei Markov, and firing on Gustavsson who got his blocker on it but the force of the shot sent him reeling backwards and he was in no position to stop the rebound which went directly to Desharnais. Game over. The Elliott Friedman HNIC report that somebody is pushing San Jose on Patrick Marleau has me thinking that it’s Montreal. They need to find a winger for Galchenyuk. Or, if not the Habs, another team(s) in the East (Ottawa?) that realizes it must get quicker to keep pace.
- Tomas Plekanec-Brendan Gallagher-Max Pacioretty. Very slow start, mostly because of the early penalties. But they got it going early in the second when Gallagher made a perfect saucer pass over the stick of Chara to Plekanec who waited out Gustavsson before, are you ready for this, ROOFING it (Habs were going up there all night) for his 7th goal of the season. Pacioretty’s empty netter iced it but more importantly acted as a slump buster to snap a six game scoreless drought while moving him back into the team lead in goals scored alongside…Weise.
- Mike Condon. Terrific first start against his hometown team (Needham, Mass. is a suburb of Boston). Didn’t let early power play deflection goal by Loui Eriksson affect the rest of his night. We’ve never seen this kind of regular season roll by a rookie goaltender (6-0-1) to start his career.
- Alexei Emelin. Must have seemed like old times for the Habs most physical player. Among his game leading 7 hits was a classic “Welcome to the NHL” jolt to Frank Vatrano who was making his NHL debut (it was cool to see Vatrano, another Boston area kid who was leading the AHL in goal scoring, beat Condon in front of his father and uncle who celebrated the occasion with the help of a friendly fan in a Habs jersey). Must be a bit of a relief for Emelin to know that he can do his thing without the risk of getting his balls massaged by Lucic.
- Paul Byron. First exposure to Montreal-Boston and he made sure he was noticed (5 hits). Better yet was his post-game guest appearance on L’Antichambre on RDS. The entire segment, hosted by Pierre Houde with panelists Mario Tremblay, Denis Gauthier and Mathiew Darche, was conducted in French. Impressive. Like, it could have been Paul Biron impressive.
THE BAD
- Goalie Interference. For the second time in three games the Habs had a goal called back because Gallagher was in the crease draped all over the goaltender. Unlike the Ottawa game when the Habs right winger clearly bumped Craig Anderson, there was a lot more interpretation needed on this one. The play on the ice was called a goal – which was scored by Plekanec after Pacioretty took the puck to the net and had three separate whacks at it before he was pushed into the crease – but once Claude Julien challenged the call it became evident that Gallagher had made contact with Gustavsson. He did so only because he was pushed by Chara but still, it’s Gallagher. He’s allowed to chase the puck into the crease (for him it’s a prerequisite) but also has to make an effort to get out. His argument was that he was blocked from doing so. Under normal conditions he’d have a case. But not this season. Not yet anyway.
- Referee T.J. Luxmore. Habs fans grumble even before Chris Lee drops the puck to start a game. They had reason to grumble in this one but it was Lee’s inexperienced partner who was the culprit. Luxmore twice fell for the Bruins’ embellishment act. (“We don’t embellish” said coach Claude Julien once upon a time before catching himself. “And when we do we are spoken to and stop it.” Presumably we’ll never see Colin Miller or Torrey Krug embellish ever again.)
- Andrei Markov shooting the puck at the Bruins bench. Brought back memories from the late 70s when Guy Lafleur intentionally fired a shot at Mike Milbury after a whistle. Markov had reason to be upset at Miller for flopping to the ice after Markov’s missed attempt to trip up the Boston defenseman. But he was much angrier over Miller’s attempt seconds earlier to take him out at the knees, which Markov managed to avoid at the last moment.
- P.K. Subban. While Markov’s partner had another strong game offensively – keeping control of the puck in a tight area along the boards while being checked by Max Talbot before feeding Gallagher to help set up Montreal’s first goal and sending 13 shots at the Boston net – what is going on with those unforced give aways in his own end? He got away with a nonchalant turnover on a back pass against the Islanders that looked a lot like his first full season in the NHL, and there he was again twice throwing pucks blindly up the middle of the ice in the third period. Condon bailed him out the first time stopping Ericksson while a stick got in the way of a Patrice Bergeron shot on the second one.
THE UGLY
- I’m not sure which was worse. Nathan Beaulieu’s stick to the kisser of Zac Rinaldo for which Beaulieu was properly penalized with a match penalty. Or Claude Julien for sending Rinaldo onto the ice with 30 seconds left in a game that had already been lost. This was the second match penalty delivered to a member of the Canadiens at the end of a game this season. The other? October 10th in Boston when Torrey Mitchell slew footed Rinaldo after Julien sent the notorious cheap shot artist over the boards for the final shift of a game that had already been lost. Sense a pattern here? If you still don’t recall what happened, Rinaldo rammed Brian Flynn heavily into the boards which prompted the retaliation by Mitchell. This on the heels of a warning issued to Rinaldo by the NHL Player Safety Department, even before he played a single shift for his new team. If Beaulieu, who did what anybody who plays the game with a head on their shoulders would do, gets suspended for this then so should Julien.
