Game #32Refs Travel Back In Time; Calling Foot-In-Paint Heritage Rules

Details

Date: 15/12/2011
Opponent: Flyers
Location: Montreal

Loss: 3-4

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

Habs goalscorers: Desharnais, Leblanc, Cole
Opposition goalscorers: Talbot, Zolnierczyk, Simmonds, Meszaros

Play of the game

Cole's goal wasn't the prettiest of the night, but it was the goal that let the Flyers know that we were for real, that they would have to work hard to beat us. It was a PP goal on a night when we should have scored more of those, but at least we scored one. I always like scoring at the end of the period, this is because momentum rarely carries through the intermission and taking advantage of the type of momentum that we had going at the end of the second was paramount.

Dome hockey team

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

Forwards

David Desharnais - Game Puck
I was very happy with Desh's play tonight. He scored a goal and an assist and was our best forward throughout. His goal was a smart goal, the type of goal one would expect from a player like David, a player that has had to be very smart just to make it to the show.

Erik Cole
Erik played another good game and because of it was a no-brainer for the dome. Other than the stellar offence, that he obviously brought, there were hits, 4 of them in all. Is it just me or is he a better player now than the one we remember in Carolina?

Michael Cammalleri
I am starting to feel a bit bad for Camms. He is getting a very bad reputation of late and I think it all stems from his low goals total. To call him useless other than when he scores is a bit unfair to him as a player. He isn't Cole or Plekanec, but he isn't Darche, Nokelainen or Blunden either. One thing that he rarely gets credit for is his defensive play, specifically his play on the PK. Tonight he played over 3 minutes man-down and helped the Habs go 6 for 6 against the hot Flyers. Oh, there were also 7 shots (10 attempts). The goals aren't going in, but the effort was there tonight, in both ends. The goals, I assure you, will come.

Defencemen

PK Subban
Kaberle was OK, but didn't do enough on the PP to work his way to the dome. Gill was solid throughout, but his wasted offensive opportunities were frustrating to watch. Didn't like what Campoli brought tonight, scary in his own end at times. A player that I was happy with was Subban. Nothing flashy, just good strong, positional hockey. He doesn't get many a night off when it comes to tough assignments, tonight was no exception.

Josh Gorges
I was happy to see Emelin back in and was happy with the 6 hits. I even liked the pinches he made, but I still felt that tonight Josh was my man. For many of the same reasons as PK, Gorges finds himself in yet another dome.

Goaltender

Carey Price
Carey has had better nights, but he wasn't that bad. The Flyers are a good team and unless you are excellent you can expect at least 2 against you. I guess we won't win many games by letting in 4 goals, but I didn't feel that anyone could have done a much better job than he did. Oh wait, there is one: Chris Lee. If he learned the rules of hockey we likely would have won this game.

Comments

A loss isn't great, it is zero points after all. But, when we accept that we can see that the Habs put the effort in tonight. There were good chances and they played well enough at both ends to warrant a win on most nights. There are things, however, that we can't control. Those that we can control include the PP and making sure that we go more than 1/9. This has been the story of our season and will continue to be until we turn it around. We can't blame the Habs too much though as guys like Cammalleri, Desharnais, Subban and Weber are no Kovalev, Koivu, Markov or Streits when it comes to playing with an extra man. So, we can't expect to be top of the league anymore, but I guess asking for Kaberle to turn us into a top-20 team would be a suitable Christmas wish.

Things that we can't control are things like the reffing. Tonight I felt that there were three goals that could have gone the other way. All were because of goalie interference type things and all three calls went against the Habs. The first was a Montreal goal that got called back. Lee called the famous 1999 (non cup-winning, of course) foot in the blue rule. Remember the one where a player like Cole screens the goalie, doesn't touch him, but has his skates in the painted ice that really has no purpose whatsoever? Ya, of course you do. The next two were called as goals for Philly. Both goals involved contact on Price, both probably should have been disallowed. It is thus surprising that Lee can find a hockey helmet big enough as he didn't even have the courtesy to seriously review any of those calls. The call on the ice stood all three times. We may not have won the game had these three (or even one of them) gone our way, but it would have helped. The good thing is that we don't really have to change the way we played, we just have to change who we let ref our games.