Posts Tagged ‘Carey Price’

A 1 – 2 Goalie punch?

Alot is being said about the goaltenders in Montreal in the media. Will one get traded? When? For who/what? Which one?….etc.

This morning I read this great article on The Hockey News site titled “Top Shelf: Re-packaging the 1-2 goalie punch“.

The author (Ryan Dixon) mentions that there is another team doing a very similar thing that is going on with the Habs as of late. That is, each goaltender has played a substantial number of games.
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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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Montreal Canadiens vs New Jersey Devils – 2009/2010 season 35th game highlights and comments

Here are the game highlights from the Montreal Canadiens vs the New Jersey Devils played on December 17th 2009.

I missed the first period of play as I was at my daughter’s Christmas concert. (She did very well!)

Something the Canadiens have to improve on is the penalties they take. Again last night they took bad penalties which always puts them behind the 8 ball. While their penalty kill has been good this year (currently 8th in the league) it’s certainly not a reason to play shorthanded. Even when your only goal comes short handed (Travis Moen scored Montreal’s goal shorthanded).

Last night wasn’t the most exciting hockey in the world…. lot’s of shut down style defense. In the end though the one thing that sticks in my mind is New Jersey’s first goal. A long shot that was going way over the net…. Price puts his glove up…. the puck hits his glove, goes directly on the right side post…. bounces up to his feet…. where the puck then hits Carey’s skate as he skates back…. and the puck goes into the net.

Bad.

Here are the game highlights:
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Carey Price named 2nd star in the NHL this week

Carey Price has been playing some fantastic hockey as of late. After a little bit of a slower start some fans were sounding the panic alarm about Price and some of us were thinking that maybe the fact that Martin seemed to be rolling with a “win and your in” game plan might create some hunger with the goaltenders… a healthy competition.

One thing is for sure, Price is looking like he’s got that confidence back.

The NHL has certainly noticed by naming him 2nd star.

Congrats Carey!

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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Montreal Canadiens vs Carolina Hurricanes – 2009/2010 season 21st game highlights

Here are the game highlights from the Montreal Canadiens vs Carolina Hurricanes, played on November 17th 2009.

The Habs won this game 3-2 with Maxim Lapierre providing the shoot-out winner while Carey Price had another very strong showing.

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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!

What I’ll be looking for – Habs vs Avs

Tonight, the Montreal Canadiens take on the Colorado Avalanche and is the Canadiens home opener.

Coming into tonight I’ve seen positives and negatives in the previous 5 games. The Avalanche should provide a very formidable opponent. They’ve got some great young talent and their taking off.

Here’s what I’ll be looking for tonight:
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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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Thinking about the changes made after the first game

Thursday night.. at long last the 2009/2010 NHL season got underway. Getting back to Habs hockey…. love this time of year.

I got to watch a good chunk of Thursday’s game. I missed some of it so I’m not going to write a game recap or anything like that. But there were a few things that I did notice that I thought were worthy of a comment.

I can remember last season, and the season before and etc…. The Montreal Canadiens had a core of players for a good number of years, the veteran guys who weren’t brought back…. some who just up and left.
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