Game #59Montreal Overwhelmed By Young Oilers

Details

Date: 17/2/2011
Opponent: Oilers
Location: Edmonton

Loss: 1-4

Habs Goalie: Price (L)
Opposition Goalie: Khabibulin (W)

Habs goalscorers: Halpern
Opposition goalscorers: Hemsky (2), Eberle, Jones

Play of the game

A Subban shot towards the end that went wide was, disappointingly, our best play of the game. Right after we killed a 5-on-3 we seemed to show some life. Weber did a good job to flip a high one in the air into the neutral zone. Their Gomez did an excellent job of controlling the puck and got it to Gio before getting it back. He then found a streaking PK who made a nice move to get in close. It was the story of the night, however, as the eventual shot went wide.

Dome hockey team

The 6 players we're playing in a no changes, do or die contest in the dome

Forwards

Scott Gomez - Game Puck
Is this the start of something? Camms could be back which means we could have two real lines (man, is Moen ever brutal or what?). If Scott plays like he did tonight with Cammalleri and Kostitsyn on his wings there would likely be very different results. A game like tonight wouldn't just be a good game in our eyes, but likely also in those who value stats above anything.

Lars Eller
I wondered if this could be Lars' last game with the big club this season, but then he went and played well enough to justify his spot. I can't however, really see a place for him long-term as it seems the third line is already set and I am not sure if he is a fourth-liner. I think that everyone involved would benefit from him being a top-6 in Hamilton rather than a bottom-3 up here.

Andrei Kostitsyn
Andrei was our most dangerous forward tonight and I wasn't the only one who thought so. JM was using him more and it seemed to help him with his confidence. He was connecting well with Gomez throughout, but I would still like to see him reunited with Pleks as that combo worked so well for us early on this year.

Defencemen

Yannick Weber
Yan was our best defenceman tonight and he was rewarded with an insane amount of minutes. Our D continues to drop which means the young Swiss rearguard, who started the season as our #8, is up into our top-3. He is doing a formidable job, but it would be nice if he could go back to learning his trade on the third pairing.

Roman Hamrlik
I almost put the Wis in here, but thought that that was a bit silly, so went with the least bad of the remaining four. That, tonight, happened to be Hamrlik. I wasn't too big on his defensive play, but did quite like what I saw from Roman in the offensive zone. With all the injuries we have we have to be very careful with him as at his age he is the most likely one to pick something up as fatigue must now surely be becoming an issue. Is Chelios available? He can't be too much worse than Nash or Mara.

Goaltender

Carey Price
This was a bit of an off game from Carey. He has saved much harder stuff than he let in tonight. Edmonton, however, is never a good place for him and it showed again tonight. With a tighter D corps this could have been a win and we wouldn't have noticed any weaknesses as those shots would have never been so dangerous; so, much is forgiven.

Comments

We lost the winnable game which in a way may not be a bad thing. We still have two more games to play in the west and I am sure that we will play better now having lost to the league's worst team. A win would have been nice, but maybe this loss will serve as a reminder to us in the coming weeks. It can be a reminder that no opponent should be taken lightly, a reminder that constantly pinching our D-men will bite us and a reminder that we must be much more efficient as we are too vulnerable; our lack of depth is starting to show on the face of the team. Sunday will be a good game, but now it has to be more than a shinny game, it has to be a win. We can't slide too much and I would much more comfortable heading to Vancouver off a win rather than off 3 losses in a row.