Sunday, October 28, 2007

What a Week

The week is officially over. The numbers are staggering. The Canadiens won their fourth in a row on Saturday night against the Penguins with a solid effort, despite blowing an early 3-0 lead. The efforts of the team were rewarded with extraordinary success on the Power Play.

Alex Kovalev got his 800th career point in his 1000th career regular season game. Saku Koivu has 11 points and is 56% on faceoffs through 10 games. Tomas Plekanec has 10 points over the same span. Andrei Markov already has 2 game-winning goals counting Saturday's shootout winner. Carey Price recovered from some marginal goals against to stop all eight of Pittsburgh shootout attempts on Saturday night. Kyle Chipchura got the first two goals of his blossoming career.

The goaltending has been extraordinary at times, and very solid overall. Carey Price is still looking for his rhythm between the pipes, but looked as calm as a veteran in the shootout situation. Can't wait to see him get a start at home. Seems like he's the type of guy who rises up to the pressure. The Leafs are in town for Hockey night in Canada next week......

Big week ahead. Four straight home games as the Habs welcome the Thrashers on Tuesday, Flyers on Thursday, Leafs Saturday and Sabres on Monday night.

I'm interested to see if Mikhail Grabovski remains with the team. Loved Andrei Kostitsyn getting under "Cindy" Crosby's skin the other night. He riles easily and sure gets away with his share with the NHL officials.

Looking forward to talking to some of the Philadelphia Flyers players and getting their take on the latest ugly incident that their club has been involved in. It's hard to believe that this is already the third such occasion already this year that the Broad Street Bullies have been under a microscope for the on-ice conduct of a player. It's no coincidence. This is a franchise that experienced its most glorious moments while employing a squad full of goons. It's going to be interesting to see how the NHL deals with it. Steve Downie got twenty games, Jesse Boulerice got 25. Does Randy Jones get 30?

Patrice Bergeron was motionless. It was scary.

This kind of stuff has to stop. Whether of not players are injured on the plays, these types of hits happen all the time in the NHL. Often no penalties are called at all.

Perhaps the Flyers should lose a spot on their 23-man roster for the length of the suspension. It really seems as if the message isn't getting across with the league's handling of the issue so far.

Too bad for Randy Jones. Young player, off to a great start this year, caught in the heat of the moment in a hockey play that really could have gone either way. It's more bad news for the NHL, as this seems to be pretty much the only type of thing that gets the game National media attention in the States and the game deserves better than that.

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