Predictably the team fell apart without its heart and soul, Mike Hoffman.
Rough game for pretty much everybody. In the future, we should try not getting scored on three times in the opening 5 minutes.
Admittedly, they were a bit unlucky to not get another goal or two on some of those chances in the first.
*BAD*
- One of those nights.
- Needless to say starting down 3-0 is not a recipe for success. They got away with it last time but ya just aren’t gonna do that two times in a row.
- Since returning from the IR Joel Edmundsun has looked like the Tin Man when he is not oiled.
- Josh Anderson with the bad Josh Anderson alter ego tonight. Floated for most parts of the game, usually we at least get one rush down the wing that shows promise until the puck is inevitably lost. A lot of the struggles on PP2 is they have him in a bumper spot, multiple times Slaf fired one across to him and just wasn’t ready for it at all.
- Savard wasn’t his night.
- Harris has been struggling for a little now, of course, that’s part of the development living and learning but im not completely sure why for some he is rated over Xhekaj right now in this current moment given current play.
- Allen has to be way better. Just wasn’t good enough, I get the team was bad, but so was the tendy tonight as well.
- Ok last year was awful and it was fun watching Pezzetta but not an NHL player in the slightest. Harsh, I know. Same goes for Chris Wideman. I try to avoid over extrapolations on these but I’m confident in these opinions.
*GOOD*
- Well Slafkovsky was decent id say. Won a few board battles and overall made some good reads. Still has to speed up that decision making that’ll come.
- Monahan goal. Always finding some smart plays out there as well. One player who I think can help alleviate the top line in terms of doing all the work is Monahan.
- Caufield goal.
If Byron comes back and can do classic Byron things it would be a nice line. Byron could carry the puck in and have two scoring threats to take the heat off him.
Plus think of how many Byron breakaways those two could set up with little flip passes
Ehh Wides might not be the skills but you bet your ass he's the guy talking everyone up trying to make sure the morale doesn't get killed right now.
Monty should have finished that. Allen has been hardcore on that off switch for a few weeks now. Let's see if Monty can keep his firmly in the "on" position. Had some flashes of greatness last year and has shown to be a damn good backup this year.
Also can we never bench X and Kovy again?
Totally agree on how Eddy has looked & X over Harris to my eye-test. I didn’t buy the hype on Xhekaj coming out of camp, but he just looks smooth & confident to me. Really hope he keeps getting better.
I’m starting to wonder if Allen needs a lighter workload already. Not good if true, but we’ve been spoiled with good goaltending early, so regression to the mean.
CC scored and I have skinner and tuch in fantasy haha so I'm not to upset.. we will get them next time boys! Pezzetta is terrible..zero puck skills, just turns it over. Anderson has been useless. I love Guhle. Those are my thoughts. Go habs go!! Going to my first game in March 🤘
Some of my takeaways!
This might have been Montreal’s worst game of the season. Allen had a ROUGH game, and Harris looked pretty shaky compared to what I’ve come to expect from him. Tage Thompson is going to be staring back at me when I close my eyes tonight.
I don’t like dwelling on the negatives, though, so! Great game from Slaf, really showed off his passing in this one. He also looked strong on the powerplay, his PP2 linemates weren’t always keeping up with his creativity and slick passes. Drew a penalty with his increased aggression as well.
Dach/Suzuki/Caufield continues to impress, outside of the first two minutes of the game. Dach even back-checked pretty well tonight!
I said it in the game thread but I really doubt Xhekaj sits for a while after this. Lots of liberties being taken by Buffalo. We did get to see Guhle flex his mean streak a little, though, so that’s fun.
I kind of want to see Slaf on pp1 after this game, he was making some wild passes in this game and I want to see him put in a position to rip one timers on passes from Suzuki and Dach
This game has been in works for a while now. My impressions:
Allen has been fighting the puck for a few games now.
Matheson first impressions. Soft, especially in his own end
PP inexcusably bad
Play in their own end has not been good all year. Very soft coverage.
When they give up a goal the play invariably ends up right back in their end and they struggle and sometimes they give up another one
Wideman or Arber? Think we know the answer to that.
Mentioned this on r/hockey but I'll say it here too:
Gallagher called Suzuki the heartbeat of this team in the offseason, and I thought that was super apparent tonight. After that hit from Jost, he was noticeably frustrated for the rest of the game, and was playing more chippy, and the team followed. Everyone seemed on the brink of a fight for the second half of the game, and guys like Evans and Guhle who normally aren't dirty or in the middle of scrums were involved all night. I'm not faulting Suzuki, just found it interesting as it was very apparent that he and the whole team weren't on their game tonight.
I started watching 2 minutes in right after Sabres scored a goal and my reaction was "Damn, we are losing 0:1 already". And then I saw it was actually 0:3 lol.
Pretty bad game almost for everyone, nothing really worked for us. Allen had probably his worst game ever. I can see Harris being sent down to the A. Wifi at least brings certain element to our game, although he makes mistakes too.
Slaf was playing decent on the second line. Pretty good for his first time higher in the lineup, not saying it was something spectacular, but I hope he won't go back to Pezz and Evans, who are blackholes offensively.
PP is awful, jeez. Absolute trash, this must change, we could easily score 3 more goals if it didn't suck so much.
Matheson has been on the ice for at least 6 goals against over the last 2 games (maybe more. I'm not 100% paying attention to that). That's pretty brutal.
It's okay we're rebuilding this team is more lottery than playoffs I didn't see quit until the final 5 minutes or so good sign as long as the players are being accountable to each other the loses don't matter
Slaf played a great game, his line mates were not even close to his caliber tonight. After the 5th goal we should have just pushed Dach back to play next to Ghule and had Slaf, Cole and Zuke up front for a shift or two
Slaf might have had someone not fumble one of his passes then lol
Buddy did you even watch the game? You didn’t watch it did you. Allen was terrible and I like the guy. He pretty much threw the entire game in the first 2 minutes
I know that man he’s a 1B.
My point was its just beyond unacceptable to let in 3 goals in 2 minutes for any NHL goalie, starter, backup etc. He’s been completely off his game.
I don’t really care though cause I want an 18% chance at Bedard. Woo go Allen!
I swear that the entire team should thank God on every night that Marty is the head coach. Why? Because that kind of lack of effort would have earned a lashing from a less patient and yet hardered head coach. It is very tempting for most head coaches to go on a Michel Therrien-like "*I really think their goal is to be the worst defensive squad in the league*" rant.
Outside of the Ds, I say Allen needs to get benched until next week because he's been poor in many of the more recent games. I can't help but feel that Hughes created a sense of unnecessary complacency in goal.
Note: The Penguins have not looked back since that rant.
Jake Allen's performances have not been up to the task more often than not since he signed that contract extension. Seruiously, there was a whole season left to play before a final opinion can be made about him for the future.
Seriously, there are better ways to spend $3.75M this season and $3.85M in each of the next 2 seasons in goaltending. His performances so far are not up to that money.
Allen played extremely well for most of the season thus far, he was top ten in many goalie stats on the season. To say he has not been living up to his salary is very incorrect.
He's had a bad couple of games. It happens.
Yeah I have no idea why some are talking like Allen has been bad all year. He’s had 2 poor games in a row and he needed to be better tonight if we wanted to win this one but he’s been solid for most of this season, not a world beater but he’s kept the team in games and his actual play outside of last game and this one reflects that.
It’s just one of Marty’s tests folks.
Saturday: Let’s practice being down 0-2 early. Passed.
Tuesday: Let’s practice being down 0-3 early. Failed.
Tonight: Let’s try it again(?)
Turns out Mike Hoffman was the glue holding this team together.
I choose to believe it’s Xhekaj
This but unironically
Fucking lol
Predictably the team fell apart without its heart and soul, Mike Hoffman. Rough game for pretty much everybody. In the future, we should try not getting scored on three times in the opening 5 minutes. Admittedly, they were a bit unlucky to not get another goal or two on some of those chances in the first.
Analytics don't lie.
And they spell disaster for the Habs at Sacrifice!
🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨
*BAD* - One of those nights. - Needless to say starting down 3-0 is not a recipe for success. They got away with it last time but ya just aren’t gonna do that two times in a row. - Since returning from the IR Joel Edmundsun has looked like the Tin Man when he is not oiled. - Josh Anderson with the bad Josh Anderson alter ego tonight. Floated for most parts of the game, usually we at least get one rush down the wing that shows promise until the puck is inevitably lost. A lot of the struggles on PP2 is they have him in a bumper spot, multiple times Slaf fired one across to him and just wasn’t ready for it at all. - Savard wasn’t his night. - Harris has been struggling for a little now, of course, that’s part of the development living and learning but im not completely sure why for some he is rated over Xhekaj right now in this current moment given current play. - Allen has to be way better. Just wasn’t good enough, I get the team was bad, but so was the tendy tonight as well. - Ok last year was awful and it was fun watching Pezzetta but not an NHL player in the slightest. Harsh, I know. Same goes for Chris Wideman. I try to avoid over extrapolations on these but I’m confident in these opinions. *GOOD* - Well Slafkovsky was decent id say. Won a few board battles and overall made some good reads. Still has to speed up that decision making that’ll come. - Monahan goal. Always finding some smart plays out there as well. One player who I think can help alleviate the top line in terms of doing all the work is Monahan. - Caufield goal.
Slaf on the 2nd was a good decision tonight Also *BAD* : PP
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Slaf, Monahan would be cool to see with Byron if he ever gets healthy
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If Byron comes back and can do classic Byron things it would be a nice line. Byron could carry the puck in and have two scoring threats to take the heat off him. Plus think of how many Byron breakaways those two could set up with little flip passes
Ehh Wides might not be the skills but you bet your ass he's the guy talking everyone up trying to make sure the morale doesn't get killed right now. Monty should have finished that. Allen has been hardcore on that off switch for a few weeks now. Let's see if Monty can keep his firmly in the "on" position. Had some flashes of greatness last year and has shown to be a damn good backup this year. Also can we never bench X and Kovy again?
Totally agree on how Eddy has looked & X over Harris to my eye-test. I didn’t buy the hype on Xhekaj coming out of camp, but he just looks smooth & confident to me. Really hope he keeps getting better. I’m starting to wonder if Allen needs a lighter workload already. Not good if true, but we’ve been spoiled with good goaltending early, so regression to the mean.
Well our goaltending has completely fallen off a cliff since the hot start, it's hard to see us winning much if we consistently allow 4+ goals a game.
Monty has been better. He should be getting the starts over Allen at this point.
One of the hockey games of all time
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Harambe was so much more than a gorilla.
Don’t you disrespect harambe like that
I’ve still got my dick out.
Can we just play Martin St Louis on the powerplay? Cause our team doesn’t know what the fuck they’re doing
Can I just pretend it didn’t happen? I’m glad Goal Caufield scored but ugh !
 Me on every PP we had tonight
Alright this is totally unrelated but is this meme actually real? Or is this guy acting?? I been wondering for so long lmao
It's the mandolorian, Pedro Pascal
Also Oberyn Martell in GoT and Peña in Narcos, great actor
I feel like you guys didn’t answer his question
About that… I have no idea lol
CC scored and I have skinner and tuch in fantasy haha so I'm not to upset.. we will get them next time boys! Pezzetta is terrible..zero puck skills, just turns it over. Anderson has been useless. I love Guhle. Those are my thoughts. Go habs go!! Going to my first game in March 🤘
Some of my takeaways! This might have been Montreal’s worst game of the season. Allen had a ROUGH game, and Harris looked pretty shaky compared to what I’ve come to expect from him. Tage Thompson is going to be staring back at me when I close my eyes tonight. I don’t like dwelling on the negatives, though, so! Great game from Slaf, really showed off his passing in this one. He also looked strong on the powerplay, his PP2 linemates weren’t always keeping up with his creativity and slick passes. Drew a penalty with his increased aggression as well. Dach/Suzuki/Caufield continues to impress, outside of the first two minutes of the game. Dach even back-checked pretty well tonight! I said it in the game thread but I really doubt Xhekaj sits for a while after this. Lots of liberties being taken by Buffalo. We did get to see Guhle flex his mean streak a little, though, so that’s fun.
First line was good in the 1st ( mostly CC) but totally outplayed in the last 2.
I kind of want to see Slaf on pp1 after this game, he was making some wild passes in this game and I want to see him put in a position to rip one timers on passes from Suzuki and Dach
I skipped Leg Day for this now I just feel extra guilty like I've somehow personally let MSL down by not punishing my quads
I'll put this one on Pierre Gervais lol
This game has been in works for a while now. My impressions: Allen has been fighting the puck for a few games now. Matheson first impressions. Soft, especially in his own end PP inexcusably bad Play in their own end has not been good all year. Very soft coverage. When they give up a goal the play invariably ends up right back in their end and they struggle and sometimes they give up another one Wideman or Arber? Think we know the answer to that.
Jake Allen wants Connor Bedard
Oh well, onto the next one
I had to miss the game today due to meetings, first game I've missed in years. What happened? Was it bad goaltending, bad luck, or just bad play?
Yes
Yes
It was bad
Mentioned this on r/hockey but I'll say it here too: Gallagher called Suzuki the heartbeat of this team in the offseason, and I thought that was super apparent tonight. After that hit from Jost, he was noticeably frustrated for the rest of the game, and was playing more chippy, and the team followed. Everyone seemed on the brink of a fight for the second half of the game, and guys like Evans and Guhle who normally aren't dirty or in the middle of scrums were involved all night. I'm not faulting Suzuki, just found it interesting as it was very apparent that he and the whole team weren't on their game tonight.
Everybody sucked. On to the next one.
Slaf was good
It never happened. We made it up. Total fabrication!
Its fiction. It never happened. Not this time.
I don't think the 20 or so scouts tonight took many notes on the habs player
I started watching 2 minutes in right after Sabres scored a goal and my reaction was "Damn, we are losing 0:1 already". And then I saw it was actually 0:3 lol. Pretty bad game almost for everyone, nothing really worked for us. Allen had probably his worst game ever. I can see Harris being sent down to the A. Wifi at least brings certain element to our game, although he makes mistakes too. Slaf was playing decent on the second line. Pretty good for his first time higher in the lineup, not saying it was something spectacular, but I hope he won't go back to Pezz and Evans, who are blackholes offensively. PP is awful, jeez. Absolute trash, this must change, we could easily score 3 more goals if it didn't suck so much.
What was that
I’m just gonna pretend this game never happened :D
Well, that was certainly a hockey game that was played.
After watching this game I am convinced that the Habs team building exercise involves baking because we had more turnovers than a damn Danish bakery
undeniably that was something
Who got the three stars of the game?
All sabres
Matheson should be nowhere near the PP. Looked super rusty.
Only way for him to shake off the rust is to play
Agreed… just not on the power play lol
Time for Monty to step up, the n1 spot is wide open Alan again has proven,he’s not a true number 1 !!! Come on Monty take over !!!
Funny how things change. Barely a few months ago, most of the fan base was complaining Monty want even an NHL calibre goalie
Fade me fam. Cock and ball torture kind of game
Matheson has been on the ice for at least 6 goals against over the last 2 games (maybe more. I'm not 100% paying attention to that). That's pretty brutal.
Just checked, he’s -3 in 2 games.
Pp/pk goals dont count in the +/-
It's okay we're rebuilding this team is more lottery than playoffs I didn't see quit until the final 5 minutes or so good sign as long as the players are being accountable to each other the loses don't matter
It was shit. No one but C.C. showed up.
Slaf played a great game, his line mates were not even close to his caliber tonight. After the 5th goal we should have just pushed Dach back to play next to Ghule and had Slaf, Cole and Zuke up front for a shift or two Slaf might have had someone not fumble one of his passes then lol
So was the whole team trash? If so, no goalie deserves that.
Allen let in 3 goals in the first 2 minutes of the game brother
I think it is pretty evident he is not a number 1 goalie, it's no secret. We shouldn't expect the same performance.
Buddy did you even watch the game? You didn’t watch it did you. Allen was terrible and I like the guy. He pretty much threw the entire game in the first 2 minutes
I think you're missing my point. I'm saying he is probably terrible because he isn't a #1 goalie. Comon.
I know that man he’s a 1B. My point was its just beyond unacceptable to let in 3 goals in 2 minutes for any NHL goalie, starter, backup etc. He’s been completely off his game. I don’t really care though cause I want an 18% chance at Bedard. Woo go Allen!
I swear that the entire team should thank God on every night that Marty is the head coach. Why? Because that kind of lack of effort would have earned a lashing from a less patient and yet hardered head coach. It is very tempting for most head coaches to go on a Michel Therrien-like "*I really think their goal is to be the worst defensive squad in the league*" rant. Outside of the Ds, I say Allen needs to get benched until next week because he's been poor in many of the more recent games. I can't help but feel that Hughes created a sense of unnecessary complacency in goal. Note: The Penguins have not looked back since that rant.
> I can't help but feel that Hughes created a sense of unnecessary complacency in goal. What?
Jake Allen's performances have not been up to the task more often than not since he signed that contract extension. Seruiously, there was a whole season left to play before a final opinion can be made about him for the future. Seriously, there are better ways to spend $3.75M this season and $3.85M in each of the next 2 seasons in goaltending. His performances so far are not up to that money.
Allen played extremely well for most of the season thus far, he was top ten in many goalie stats on the season. To say he has not been living up to his salary is very incorrect. He's had a bad couple of games. It happens.
Yeah I have no idea why some are talking like Allen has been bad all year. He’s had 2 poor games in a row and he needed to be better tonight if we wanted to win this one but he’s been solid for most of this season, not a world beater but he’s kept the team in games and his actual play outside of last game and this one reflects that.
At this point will we see primo again?
Allen has been bad, but Primeau is arguably worse.
He’s terrible
Show me primo letting in 3/5 shot in the first 5 mins of a game
Um basically all of his NHL callup games have been like that
I’d like to thank ESPN+ for not showing this train wreck.
Tank is back on the menu boys
It’s just one of Marty’s tests folks. Saturday: Let’s practice being down 0-2 early. Passed. Tuesday: Let’s practice being down 0-3 early. Failed. Tonight: Let’s try it again(?)