Montreal Canadiens 6-5 Florida ‘Seriously? Fucken Florida?’ Panthers
TopShelf’s completely Professional GameReport:
Andrei Kostitsyn scored two goals, his younger brother recorded two assists and the Montreal Canadiens barely beat the Florida Panthers by a score of 6-5 in a shootout on Sunday afternoon at the Bell Centre.
The Habs were seeking their first win in 2009 after losing in New Jersey on Friday night, but they didn’t get off to the start they wanted early on.
Florida raced into the lead by scoring two goals in the first period and putting Montreal in a hole.
First it was Brett McLean who did the damage. Centre Shawn Matthias cycled the puck behind Jaroslav Halak’s net and found McLean, who brought it out and slipped it past the young Slovak netminder to put his team a goal up.
A bit over five minutes later, Bryan McCabe added salt to the wounds by accepting a pass at the point from Stephen Weiss and ripping a slap shot past Halak for his 8th of the season.
But if Florida struck quick in the first period, Montreal did so even quicker in the second. Robert Lang passed the puck to diminutive defenseman Francis Bouillon who wasted no time in wiring a shot from the point that evaded Craig Anderson in the Panthers net.
Less than 30 seconds later, the Kostitsyn brothers combined their efforts to put their team on level terms. Sergei cut off Anderson’s pass and then hurried to pass it to Andrei in the slot who beat Anderson who was desperately trying to get back into position.
Montreal’s line of Maxim Lapierre/Tom Kostopoulos/Guillaume Latendresse then continued their good work by putting their team in the lead for the first time of the game.
Kostopoulos was left completely unmarked in front of the Florida net and had night and day to put his own rebound over Anderson for his 3rd of the season.
Robert Lang wasn’t about to be left off the scoresheet though, and he put Montreal two goals to the good with less than five minutes remaining in the period with a wrist shot from a 2-on-1 rush that that barely squeaked by Anderson.
But Florida made a game out of it once again when Radek Dvorak slipped the puck past Halak on a breakaway for his 5th marker of the season.
The elder of the Kostitsyns then claimed his second of the game following a turnover in the neutral zone. The Belarussian winger broke in alone on Anderson’s right and beat the goalie with a quick wrist shot to give the Canadiens their second two goal lead of the game.
The Panthers launched another comeback when Jassen Cullimore took a slap shot that beat the screened Halak to put Florida within one.
And with just over a minute remaining, Dvorak silenced the capacity crowd of 21 273 when he scored his second of the game with a slap shot after a scramble in the crease sent the puck to him in the slot.
Both teams had chances to end the game in the overtime period, but a combination of bad luck and good goaltending sent them to a shootout competition.
After both teams’ first set of players failed to convert on their attempts, Andrei Markov finally managed to beat Anderson with a nifty backhand move to hand the Canadiens their first win of 2009.
TopShelf’s notes o’ da day:
-Downtown Parking: $12
Filling up a Toyota Yaris with gas prices at a beautiful 72 cents: $28
Buying a touque, gloves and scarf to protect my baby-butt soft skin from dehydration: $35
Going to the game after the first period, watching the Habs’ comeback and getting the tickets for $12: MOTHERFUCKEN PRICELESS!
-We won the game and barely had a goalie. Yay! Guy behind me going “HALAK! PEEWEE! HALAK! PEEWEE!” was pretty humorous.
-HEY SAKUUUUUU!!! I MISS YOU SAKUUUUUUUUUUUU!
-You know those Kiss cams they have where they show two people on the big screen and they have to kiss? The prize should be a car and it should be called a Rape cam! Place the camera on two strangers and see if someone actually starts raping the other person infront of 20 thousand people to win a car.
-Powerplay’s brutal. YANICK WEBER!? JUST FUCKEN TRY IT MAN!
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