Montreal Canadiens 3-2 Nashville ‘Barry Trotz will be here FOREVER! NO ONE LEAVES!’ Predators
TopShelf’s completely Professional GameReport:
Andrei Markov tallied a goal and an assist, Jaroslav Halak made 23 saves and the Montreal Canadiens rebounded from Tuesday’s loss in Boston by beating the Nashville Predators 3-2 tonight at the Bell Centre.
Markov is now only one point short of his 300th in the NHL, and the All-Star defenseman almost registered it when he took a shot at an empty net with seconds to play but the puck didn’t cooperate.
Both teams started the game cautiously, and seeing how this was the 11th meeting all-time between the two clubs, they weren’t sure what to expect.
Montreal attempted to impose their own rhythm on the game, with the Kostitsyn brothers testing Nashville goalie Pekka Rinne out early on.
But a combination of good goaltending and poor finishing kept the scores level, until late on in the first period at least…
Josh Gorges carried the puck into the offensive zone and made a nice drop pass to Guillaume Latendresse who wasted no time taking a slapshot from the left circle that beat Rinne with 34 seconds to go in the period.
The second was a different story altogether, proof of that was the shot count: overwhelming advantage to Nashville by a count of 10-2.
They converted on one of those when, 6:35 into the period, Kevin Klein sent a shot in from the point and Jean-Pierre Dumont was at the right place at the right time to tup the puck past Halak.
Barely two minutes later though, Montreal went ahead once again. On the powerplay, Andrei Markov sent the puck across the ice to the elder Kostitsyn who was left unmarked to Rinne’s left, and the Belarussian winger made no mistake putting his team a goal up with a nice wrist shot.
There was a barely a minute on the clock in the final period when the Habs struck again. Markov took a wrist shot which deflected off of a Nashville defenseman’s skate and evaded Rinne to give the home team a two goal priority.
But again, the Predators showed they were a feisty bunch. Vernon Fiddler took the rebound from Ville Koistinen’s shot and beat Halak with a quick backhand to put his team within one with plenty of time on the clock.
But try as they might, Nashville couldn’t get back in it as the Canadiens picked up their 8th win in their last 10.
TopShelf’s notes o’ da day:
-Conversation between Guy Carbonneau and his team tomorrow morning at practice:
Carbo: “So uh, guys. For the next, oh I don’t know, 7 HOURS!?, we’re gona work on some target practice.
Komisarek: “Uh, coach, don’t you think that’s a bit excessive?”
Carbo: “Excessive? Let me ask you Mike, is missing the EMPTY net 4 times excessive? Yeah, 4 times. Did I mention it was empty?”
Andrei K: “Ha, yeah, dat waz preety bad goyz”
Higgins: “Dude shut the fuck up, you’re 0 for 378 career in shootout.”
Andrei K: “and yew az fragile as Marteen Havlat”
Sergei K: “haha, goud one beeg bro”
Andrei K: “Thankz leetle bro”
Higgins: “I graduated from Yale you know…”
Andrei K: “Yah, and I gradouate from school of shut da fuck up”
Sergei K: “haha, goud one beeg bro!”
Andrei K: “Thankz leetle b…”
Carbo: “ENOUGH!”
Gorges: “I was traded for Craig Rivet and totally surpassed expectations!”
-So uhhh, that invisible goalie was good eh?
-Steve Sullivan – out for like 17 years, comes back like 2 weeks ago! What a fucken player! Smart, small, and hands you’d be lucky to see on an African jazz dancer.
-Halak, once again, did just enough.
-Andrei Kostitsyn is on fire. No two ways about it.
-Speaking of Belarussian people, Sergei can find his older brother even with like, people blocking the field of vision. He can find him with zero visibility, the kind they get when planes can’t take off! They have the Titsyn radar!
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