Montreal Canadiens 1-2 Washington ‘We should be named the Expos!’ Capitals
TopShelf’s Completely professional GameReport:
Patrice Brisebois scored for the misfiring Montreal Canadiens, Jaroslav Halak made 24 saves in his third consecutive start but it still wasn’t enough for the home team as the Habs went down by a score of 1-2 to the Washington Capitals at the Bell Centre on Saturday night.
Montreal came into the game with their well-publicized struggles on the powerplay as one of their main concerns, and their exploits in this game surely did nothing to reassure their worried legion of religious fans.
The Canadiens, who have tried numerous different combinations wth the man advantage in a desperate attempt to make things right, went 0 for 9 and did not look anything like the team that ruled the special teams category the last two seasons.
Halfway into the first period, the Capitals showed the Habs how it was done. Nicklas Backstrom collected the rebound given by Halak from Ovechkin’s shot on the powerplay and took full advantage of the situation by netting his 10th of the year to put his team 1 goal up.
Just like Jose Theodore did two weeks prior when the teams met in Washington, this time it was rookie Simeon Varlamov’s turn to steal the show. The Russian netminder, who was called up from the Caps’ AHL affiliate on Friday evening, pulled off save after save to frustrate the home team.
His stranglehold was finally broken late in the second period when veteran Canadiens defenseman Patrice Brisebois beat the young goalie with a strong slapshot on Varlamov’s right to put the scores even at 1 apiece.
After the goal, the momentum obviously swung in Montreal’s favor, but once again Varlamov was huge in stopping everything he came into contact with, repeatedly frustrating the home faithful.
But the rookie goalie also had his goalposts to thank for keeping his team in the game, as on 3 separate occasions the metal bars were responsible for robbing the Habs of certain goals.
Washington must have felt it was their night at that point, and when Michael Nylander took Alexandre Giroux’s rebound shot and put the puck off Halak’s skate and into the net, the Capitals’ players were seen celebrating as if they had just won their division.
A hard fought game ended in a victory for Bruce Boudreau’s men as the Canadiens ended their record seven-game homestand in a loss.
TopShelf’s notes o’ da day:
-What will it take for our players to stand up for our goaltenders? Semin completely ran Halak yesterday and Markov and Tanguay just stood there. Tanguay might as well have gone up to Semin and been like “OMG! ALEX! OMG ARE YOU OK!!?!? I TOTALLY LIkE, DID NOT MEAN TO TRIP YOU THERE! I SWEAR, OMG, ARE YOU GONA BE OKAY!? DO YOU WANT SOME CHIPS AHOY!? OMG I AM SOOO SORRY!”
-We didn’t play a bad game, but noone can score right now. Face it, when only Patrice Brisebois has scored in your last two games, there’s gona be some major cold streaks going on. TOMAS PLEKANEC! CALLING MR PLEKANEC TO THE BELL CENTRE FOR IMMEDIATE SCORING-STREAK! CALLING TOMAS PLEKANEC!
-When you put guys in front of the net on the powerplay, good things happen. Look at all the guys with the big slappers in the league: Chara, Phaneuf, Souray, etc… They don’t receive the puck, look for the perfect pretty play and then if they don’t find it, they shoot. Instead, they receive the puck and take the mothercucken shot right away. Yes, motherCucken. It’s a rooster curse.
-Tongue has to play with the right players to produce. He’s like chocolate chips. Ordinary alone. But combine them with cookies, and you have the recipe for a 100 point season…and deliciousness.
-It might be time to call up Yanick Weber. Seriously, we’re 29th in the league on the powerplay. You know the worst part? WE WITNESSED IT LIVE! When we went 0/5 yesterday on our way to 0/9, Pierre Houde goes “And your Montreal Canadiens are now 29th, right behind the Dallas Stars!”. It’s like being seeing Britney Spears’ vagina – you remember where you were and what you were doing when you saw it, BUT YOU WISH YOU DIDN’T.
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Hey! no insulting the Expos! NO NO NO!
hahah, but honestly, the habs sucked so much ass last night, oh my god.
It was depressing.