Montreal Canadiens

[ericdaoust]

Habs are slow and sloppy defensively. Woywitka, Tinordi and Weber have been guilty of turnovers or sloppy play. Habs took a penalty after a flurry around Price.

[ericdaoust]

Cammalleri and Plekanec do good work shorthanded but this is ruined by another soft goal on Price. 2-0 Stars.

[ericdaoust]

3-0 Stars after someone fell in Price's feet. I give him a pass on that one. Terrible defensive coverage.

[ericdaoust]

Tinordi needs to work on his coordination and decision making with the puck. Also, please put Emelin on the ice more often.

[ericdaoust]

First period ends, still 3-0 Stats. Best Habs player so far is Brock Trotter. He skates well and is confident with the puck.

[ericdaoust]

Cole/Plek/Camm looked good on the PP. Cole ripped one off the post. The 2nd unit did nothing and I didn't really catch who was out there. Tons of new names and numbers to get used to.

Meanwhile another defensive turnover and Barch was left wide open for a goal. 4-0 Stars.

[ross10019]

Cole/Plek/Camm looked good on the PP. Cole ripped one off the post. The 2nd unit did nothing and I didn't really catch who was out there. Tons of new names and numbers to get used to.

Meanwhile another defensive turnover and Barch was left wide open for a goal. 4-0 Stars.

I think Cole is going to make our PP even more dangerous, you can put two solid forward units out there with Cammy/Cole/Pleks/AK/Gomez/MaxPac and Markov/Subban/Webber on the points.

[ericdaoust]

Cole scores on a nice wrist shot. The top line looks good. The other lines... not so much.

[ericdaoust]

Andrei Kostitsyn scores on a great wrist shot.

Did someone serve a round of Red Bull? Habs get about 2 minutes straight in the Stars zone with Kostitsyn leading the charge. The team changed all 5 players and maintained possession. Woywitka finally slapped in a goal. 4-3 Stars.

[ericdaoust]

Ian Schultz falls on top in a nice even scrap. Lawson looking good in goal since entering after the score became 4-3.

[ericdaoust]

I would seriously throw my wallet at Kostitsyn if he could play like this all season.

[ross10019]

I would seriously throw my wallet at Kostitsyn if he could play like this all season.

Great to hear!

[ericdaoust]

It's 6-3 right now. I'll go ahead and do the write-up right now.

My Habs' 3 stars:
1 - Erik Cole
2 - Andrei Kostitsyn
3 - Brock Trotter

My observations:

-I thought Yannick Weber disappointed. Gill was the only other Habs regular from last season on the blueline tonight and I thought Weber would step up and be more of a leader. He had plenty of chances but had more turnovers than anything and made the same rookie mistakes that the rookies are expected to make.

-Rafael Diaz looked much better than Weber. He plays the same style but was far more assertive. He was a bit slow and weak on the final goal by the Stars as the opposing forwards beat him down the ice to score 3-on-1 with Woywitka defending.

-I wonder if we'll be seeing Travis Moen in the press box as 13th forward this season. Brock Trotter could steal a spot and I think his speed is far more useful to the team.

-Emelin looked a bit green but the skills are there. I think he can be effective in a lot of situations because he skates well and does have some stick skills.

Other observations can be found in prior posts in this thread.

[ericdaoust]

Preview for tonight's game, including the return of Max Pacioretty...

French: http://www.rds.ca/canadien/chroniques/326766.html
English: http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=376345

[ericdaoust]

First period over... 1-0 Buffalo.

Budaj looks good. Very calm and efficient. The goals was a cross-ice one-timer that barely squeezed by.

Gomez is injured so Pacioretty-Desharnais-Gionta is the top line for this evening. They looked very good together. All three are go-getter types and they cycle very well. Pacioretty was particularly physical.

Gorges is in. He looks good and was effective killing a penalty.

Subban looks like Subban. Some good play and took a bad penalty.

Andreas Engqvist looked good yesterday and is playing well today as well.