"Denis Lemieux: I’m tired of it! Puke! Blah! All the time, puke!Reggie Dunlop: You’re a goalie, you’re supposed to be like that."
This exchange took place between coach Dunlop and goalie Lemieux in the 1977 cult movie classic `Slapshot `. It happened between periods as the Charleston Chief net-minder suffered a mini – breakdown after being bombarded by shots.
Carey Price must have the same feeling after facing 47 shots last night in a 4 – 3 overtime loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning. At least Lemieux did not have to fight off bad officiating.
The Chesire Cat
It all started with a five minute major to Maxime (The Cheshire Cat ) Lapierre. The Habs were holding a 2 -1 lead a quarter of the way into the second period and appeared to have the `The Flying Frenchmen`from Tampa down and out.
Lapierre pushed an already falling Downie from behind and the Lightning skater fell heavily into the boards. The NHL introduced a five minute major for hitting from behind to reduce the number of career and life ending injuries. This is a good thing. Penalizing a player for five minutes in this situation is a definite no – no. If you pluck a handful of hairs from an already balding man`s head , you may have sped up the process but face it – the dude is still going to be able to enter a Bruce Willis look a like competition. Lapierre deserved two minutes if any…
The momentum turned quickly into Tampa`s favor and if not for the courage of the fearless Price – the S.S Canadiens would surely have been lost. It was only a matter of time before the Lightning found a hole and former Hab Brett Clark did just that . He deflected a shot from just inside the blue-line and suddenly the Bolts were back in the contest.
Kostistyn `s Alarm Goes Off
Luckily for Les Habitants, forward Andrei Kostisyn did not hit the snooze button on his five hundred dollar alarm clock for the entire sixty minutes. He took a nifty pass from Tomas Plekanec and reminded every Habs fan why management has not given up on the gifted Russian.Will this be the start of a prolific Andrei or will his next goal be in the New Year? Unfortunately, even the most gifted Psychic will not answer that phone call regardless of the fifty dollar an hour charge.
Kostistyn`s goal gave the Habs life while defeating Tampa`s inflated bolt of energy and Les Habitants entered defensive mode which appeared on this night to be an end to the Lightning`s surge. Just over two minutes remained in the game when the referee seemingly decided that he was not getting enough attention.
P.K Subban chased Lightning forward Ryan Malone into the corner and and in the fashion that a child would swat at a pesky fly, P.K gave Malone a one handed swipe which caught the opposing player on the arm.
The referee apparently witnessed a much bigger flying insect than the entire population of the Bell Center and deemed Subban`s slash held enough force to possibly send Malone`s arm into the not so cheap seats. Subban went to the box for two minutes and felt shame while the Bell Center crowd grew angrier than an Ontario resident who missed the closing hours of the beer store by a few seconds.
On the ensuing penalty and with only a minute and eighteen seconds remaining, Stamkos roofed a Martin St.Louis rebound and sent the game and the crowd`s emotions into overtime. Do referee`s get paid time and half for overtime and shoot -outs ? This would be the only rational explanation for such a poor call at a very important time of the game. Somewhere in the NHL `s haste to `clean up` the game of hockey, common sense was given a game misconduct.
The remainder of the game was played in the shadows of the Richard Riot until Malone netted the winner with fifty -one seconds left.
A City where Hockey Matters
Gary Bettman should turn off the basketball highlights on ESPN and take notice of last night`s game. This is Montreal – not Nashville. The fans here are quite capable of commencing another riot especially if Carey Price continues to dominate. Heck, they need to boo someone don `t they ? Montreal fans, spoiled by almost a quarter century of Cups – expect perfection from their players which is why they boo Price. In their minds, a referee`s job is much simpler than a goalie`s workload so if the continuous bad calls come against the Habs, everyone should remove their Clarence Campbell masks from their closets and get ready for an interesting end of October.
More Goals Needed
The Montreal Canadiens played a good game – not a great one. Plekanec, Cammalleri and Kostistyn were a threat most of the time while Gomez, Gionta and Pouliot appeared to back-check more often than not. Lars Eller was a no – show and looked in awe of Tampa`s stars from the beginning of the game. Growing pains come with the territory as both Eller and Subban will continue to make early career mistakes.
Coach Martin is known for his defensive genius but that genius must come into play sometimes and not the entire game. Once the Habs went up by two – they were either caught totally off guard by their early first period success or Martin was scared into an early Halloween by the likes of Stamkos , Lecavalier and St. Louis. Boucher`s animated and charged image behind the Lightning bench was also a reason to make Martin jittery as he attempts to prove to the Canadiens`management that they made the right choice by keeping him and letting their farm team coach leave for Tampa.
The Habs play Friday night in Buffalo and return home for a game Saturday against the Ottawa Senators.
In the words of the sportswriter from Slapshot ;
"Dickie Dunn: I tried to capture the spirit of the thing."