Posts Tagged ‘Andrei Markov’

Andrei Markov to become a Canadian citizen

Andrei Markov, one of the best defensmen in the NHL and a defenseman who we’ve had for the last 10 years in Montreal, will become a Canadian citizen on Friday July 16th 2010.

I’ve always been a huge Markov fan and he’s almost been a forgotten star in the NHL because he seems to do everything so quietly…. like ranking among the top offensive defensemen in the league.

Andrei, congrats on becoming a Canadian citizen.

@yarfangor on twitter wondered if that meant Markov could now play for Team Canada…..

Habs vs Caps – My Game Thoughts

Tonight…. in just a couple of hours The Montreal Canadiens will play game one against the Washington Capitals.

I suppose one could look at an 8th seed team and automatically write them off as they face such a high powered offense in Washington. Not only Washington’s high powered offense, but the once Habs net minder Jose Theodore who’s been playing VERY well the last few months….. his season started with such tragedy and he’s played some very inspired hockey this year.

I was heartbroken for you Jose…. but I’m glad you’ve had a strong season.
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Montreal Canadiens vs Atlanta Thrashers – 2009/2010 season 38th game highlights and comments

Here are the game highlights from the Montreal Canadiens vs the Atlanta Thrashers played on December 21th 2009…. but first some comments.

The Canadiens won the game 4-3 in Overtime (which was predicted with little time to play in the 3rd on Twitter by Arpon Basu). It wasn’t the prettiest of games. Montreal were again outshot by a very large margin. Overall team defensive play has to be improved to cut down on the shots that make it to either Jaroslav Halak or Carey Price.

You can’t expect to win very many games in the NHL if your opponent is in your zone firing rubber at your goaltender most of the evening. Although I will say that in the case of the Montreal Canadiens at least Jacques Martin has 2 very capable young goalies to rely upon. But they won’t steal every game.

Jaroslav Halak was, in the end, left to face 53 shots (that made it through to him) stopping 50 of them. Is that not scary? If I was coaching this team that would be one of the most frightening numbers that I would have to face…. never mind they somehow won the game. The last several years the Montreal Canadiens were outshot alot and though this year it seemed that it was getting a bit better early on it’s pretty much back to where it was in terms of these shot totals.
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A little bit of Habs news today

It was reported that David Desharnais is heading back to Hamilton. Desharnais played just under 8 minutes against the Penguins, no points and -1.

Hoping that he’ll be back sometime.

And RDS is reporting that Andrei Markov started skating and that there’s a chance that he could be back in the lineup as early as late December.

Imagine if Markov did come back healthy and ready to go by early January… just in time to get in sync for the playoff run….

Gomez, Spacek, D’Agostini and the newly acquired Benoit Pouliot were also skating today.

The game against the Penguins had the Habs down Markov, Gill, Gomez, Spacek, Gionta, D’Agostini and Andrei Kostitsyn…. am I missing a few???

The team played with effort and heart.

Imagine what this team may look like in Januray or February is these guys are back and the team is relatively healthy. I’m optimistic… At the rate of NHL injuries this year though…. there are no guarantees.

My evaluation is still…

As I mentioned yesterday in the post titled “Has the season self-destructed??” I think it’s been pretty hard to clearly evaluate just how good this team is.

There has been some raunchy performances on the one hand. On the other hand there have been some great performances where they’ve been in the game or have won.

Last night against the Washington Capitals were one such game were I wasn’t filled with optimism before hand but afterwards I certainly was.

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Has the season self-destructed??

The constant injuries and lack luster play has certainly been tugging away at the optimism I had coming into the season. A quarter of the way through it’s still pretty hard to read exactly who this team is. But although it is hard to discern it’s not really something that can be faulted on management.

I’m not saying that there haven’t been moves (or “non-moves”) made in the last few years that I think were bad in hindsight leading up to today… but what I am saying is that one can’t honestly measure just how good this team is

We’ve been without our best player and other players who were keyed in as integral parts of this team.

When compared to last year’s team and the “core” that the Habs had prior to this season it still speaks loudly to me that this group is 10-11-0 after 21 games… without Markov… and other pieces of the puzzle also out.

There’s a great article on the numbers without Markov over at Lions in Winter… check it out.

There’s been quite a bit of doom and gloom from what I’ve been hearing in regards to the season and the talk about a “rebuild” has begun. Honestly, I think we’ve just begun “the rebuild”.
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Habs bits of the week

Thought I would highlight a few articles that I read over the last week.

Price/Halak – The Stats – October 2009
by Chris Boyle for Eyes on the Prize

This is a great article on the goaltender statistics and it cuts through to the bare facts.

Chris does a great analysis of the shots both Halak and Price have faced will visual graphs displaying where the shots were taken from as well as the save percentage per area.

Really worth the read!

Hockey Night in Canada Takes Interest in All Habs’ Feud
by Rocket for All Habs
AND
UPDATES: Walsh controversy
by  Rocket for All Habs

The night that I wasn’t on Twitter at all (you can find me on twitter at @yves_on_habs) there was a bit of controversy as Halak’s agent Mr Allan Walsh tweeted a comment about Carey Price’s stats. If you want the whole story please read the articles on the All Habs blog!

Well written and described.

Learning to live without Markov
by Topham for Lions in Winter

This article contains some numbers showing just what the team’s play has been like when Markov has been out. Some interesting numbers in this article and if you thought Markov was an important player the team’s most important player this article might provide proof of his value through the last few seasons.

Andrei, I miss you!

Thinking about the team 3 games in

So we’re 3 games into the 2009/2010 NHL season. In these first 3 games there’s been many ups and downs already.

The Canadiens have had 2 big injuries and 1 minor injury in their first 2 games and thankfully last night everyone made it out ok!

Here’s a few thoughts on some ups and some downs so far (in no real particular order).
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A look at possible player achievements for 2009

The pre-season is almost with us! Just gotta wait a little bit longer to see some “bleu-blanc-rouge” hockey!

I thought I’d take a look at what we could see individual players achieve in 2009. What career achievements could be made by players on the Habs roster. I haven’t listed all the possible numbers…. but listed many.

So here’s my little preview!
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Montreal’s secret weapon – Andrei Markov

Ok, Andrei Markov isn’t exactly a secret in the NHL… after all he’s a 2 time all-star. But when it comes to hearing lots of hype about a player being a monster or the real thing… there’s just not much hype around Markov.

I just read this article titled “Why Andrei Markov should be the next captain of the Montreal Canadiens” and generally enjoyed where the writer took it.

One thing the author mentioned is “Markov plays a very quiet game“. Odd but I agreed.

It’s odd because there’s a certain paradox at play with Markov. Here’s how he matched up against the other defensemen in the league.

In 2008-2009 :
1st in assists with 52 (Rafalski was 2nd with 49)
2nd in points with 64 (Mike Green 1st, playing with Ovechkin)

In 2007-2008:
4th in goals with 16
6th in points with 58 (remember that dynamite PP?)
7th in total points

And he’s already ranked 7th all-time in points in a Montreal Canadiens uniform for defensemen.

The paradox in the statement that Markov is kind of a quiet player is that his numbers are huge. 2 years in a row and on 2 very different teams he’s been amongst the league leaders.

Interesting that the last couple of years I started to hear the analysts saying that Alex Kovalev was Montreal’s most talented player but Andrei Markov was Montreal’s best player. Because really it’s true.

For all the hype that Kovalev got he just wasn’t the gem of a player that Markov has been. Kovalev has been called a game breaker or game changer but I believe that Markov has been every bit as much of a game changer. Probably even more so. Because his puck moving skills rarely take the night off. And not only that he rarely took a bad penalty last season.

I’m starting to warm to the idea of Andrei Markov being the next captain in Montreal. The skill and consistency that he’s shown certainly warrant the opportunity. He might be a silent leader. I don’t think that’s good or bad depending on who the assistants are.

I’m not sure how much it’s been mentioned as alot of the current attention has been given to our new UFAs like Cammalleri who is a new fan favorite in Habs shirt sales. Lot’s has been said about seeing Cammalleri speeding in with the shot from a Gomez setup…

But how about the thought of Cammalleri, Gomez… all these guys being setup by Andrei Markov.

Because you know it’s gonna happen.