Game 26 Recap: Habs Can't Escape Sharks Bite L 4-3 (SO)
by Kevin van Steendelaar on Dec 2, 2011 1:45 AM EST
in Habs Game Recaps
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Bad enough it was a west-coast game on a Thursday night, but tack on five minutes of overtime and a 6 round shootout and it makes for a long night for Canadiens fans. It feels even longer, as the San Jose Sharks continued their home ice supremacy over Montreal with a 4-3 win.
Joe Pavelski's change-up beat Carey Price five-hole to ice the victory fir the Sharks, who have won their last six meetings with the Habs at home dating back to 1999. That will carry on at least another two years, barring any Stanley Cup Final match-up, based on the current scheduling format.
Mike Cammalleri opened the scoring, hiding in the crowd in front of Antti Niemi and tipping in a P.K. Subban shot at 13:21 of the first period.
The Sharks responded 41 seconds later, after a Canadiens transition hit a snag, allowing the home team to recover. With the Canadiens forwards caught up ice, the Sharks had time to set up and finished it when Jamie McGinn slapped in a Michal Handzus pass.
David Desharnais put the Habs back in front, after a slick no-look backhand pass by Erik Cole send him racing solo in on Niemi at 4:41 of the second period.
The Sharks bit back as Logan Couture found the open space in front, and used Yannick Weber as a screen, to beat Price at 6:18.
Desharnais returned the favor to his Canadiens line-mate, at 8:45 of the third period, to put his team back in front. After stripping Joe Thornton (Yes, Joe Thornton!) behind the net, the tiny Habs forward wrapped the puck in front to a waiting Cole.
With a 1:26 to play, a talent laden team managed to tie it back up. Price was unable to handle a Martin Havlat shot, and with Couture on top of him, let it slide away to a waiting Ryane Clowe.
It's was clearly a goal that the Canadiens goaltender wanted back, especially after the busy night he had. The Sharks fired 41 pucks at the goal, had 23 blocked and another 18 miss the net. Price had to be brilliant on multiple occasions, including the overtime.
The Canadiens will stay in San Jose over night, before heading to southern California Friday. They face the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday afternoon (3:30 EST). Don't ask if Andrei Markov will be playing or not. Nobody seems to know.
Scoring Summary from NHL.com
Game Notes
The Sharks dominated the faceoff dot all night, something they do rather handily at home. They were 39-23 on the night. Logan Couture schooled Tomas Plekanec with a 14-5 margin.
They are also a team strong at driving the net, and the tying goal was an excellent example of that. Their biggest down side on the night was 22 turnovers. Two of those led directly to Canadiens goals.
One of the best highlights of the evening for me was listening to the CSN coverage of the game. One of the best in the NHL, the Sharks play-by-play crew of give an unbiased perspective of the game. They even turned things over to RDS, during the second period, to give their viewers a bilingual experience.
On the Montreal side of things, Louis Leblanc had 14:25 TOI. Though he had no shots on goal, it was visible that he is just a step or two from making it to the NHL level or, as one comment in the game thread noted, capable of faking it.
Alexei Emelin had 5 hits on the night, the biggest of the game came against Pavelski.
Hockey de la LNH - Canadiens vs. Sharks (via leopod2008)
There were only two penalties all game and for a change the officials seemed to run a solid 65 minutes of hockey.
Anyone notice that the first four shootout attempts on Carey Price went blocker side?
Travis Moen as your fifth man in the shootout?
Advanced Stats: Shift Charts / Head to Head / Corsi & Fenwick
Three Stars: 1. Ryan Clowe 2. David Desharnais 3. Logan Couture
Winning reaction from Fear The Fin and Battle of California
In case you didn't stay up..
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The sharks crew was objective tonight
But trust me, usually they are one of the worst in terms of bias. Them and Detroit strike me as the two worst. You got them on a good night!
They did start to overkill the whole French thing, pretty much to the point of making it sound like every Habs fan was from QC.
But overall I thought they were rather good. Keep in mind we have some sadsack crews in the Eastern Conference.
Thanks for chiming in with us on the thread too!
Kevin van Steendelaar
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by Kevin van Steendelaar on Dec 2, 2011 1:54 AM EST up reply actions
pretty much to the point of making it sound like every Habs fan was from QC.
And spoke French…
by Simon Lamarche on Dec 2, 2011 2:25 AM EST up reply actions
PG in California
Any word on whether Gauthier joined the team in sunny California? Do you suppose he’ll try to do business with Disney while he’s in the state… and Ryan will end up joining our Canadiens on the journey back to Quebec?
I’d be shocked if Ryan is traded before the All-Star break. Too high a salary for a December trade.
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I think he made the trip. The Leblanc callup was released in Anaheim.
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by Kevin van Steendelaar on Dec 2, 2011 9:55 AM EST via mobile up reply actions
During his tenure, has Jacques Martin ever coached a healthy Montreal Canadiens team? How many games has Andrei Markov played for Martin?
The closest to a healthy line-up was probably game 6 & 7 against Washington in 2010.
Despite the injuries, the Canadiens play hard and have a chance to win on most nights.
Injuries? Coaching?
Blaming injuries is kind of weak, it seems to me. JM’s coaching is more of an issue. Yes, the team’s D corps is very young and Markov (and Spacek) would improve the D. Losing Gomez doesn’t seem like much of a loss. Losing AK for 6-7 games, or Cammy for 5 games, or MaxP for 3 games – that’s the norm in the NHL.
It’s JM’s “system” that is supposed to make his other weaknesses tolerable, but as Price said last night, there’s at least 5 or 6 games this season (2 of the last 3) that the Habs have lost a 1 goal lead with less than 5 minutes to play. With 17 or 18 of their 20 best players in the lineup every night, I don’t think you can blame injuries.
The PP is god-awful and they have how many good players to man it – PK, Pleks, Cole, Cammy, Gionta, DD, AK, Weber. You have a MAN advantage for cris’ sakes … any 5 NHL caliber players should be able to score at 20% rate with that advantage.
Question for you: how competitive do you feel that a team operating at the salary floor should be?
Because, due to all the injuries, that’s essentially been the Habs.have been for most of the season. Actually, they’ve been worse off. The salary floor is 16 million below the cap and the Habs currently have [b]20 million[/b] in cap hit not playing for various reasons. That’s big enough that you can claim “yeah but Gomez is completely worthless” and [i]still[/i] end up 13 millions down, almost at the salary floor!
Yikes, now that I look at it this way, it’s been even worse than I thought. The Habs have not had 17 or 18 of their 20 best players in the lineup every night; it’s usually been 15 or 16… and typically, they have been short 2 or 3 of their best 6.
“Blaming injuries” isn’t weak, it’s accepting reality. It’s just sound analysis. The media too often fall into player-thinking here; the players have to view this from a competitive-thinking standpoint, and can’t let injuries become an excuse for lowered performance. The media follows this line of thinking, which is silly for an outside analyst. Of course injuries are a major factor, and that should be exceedingly obvious, or else you have to question the value of the injured players.
Think about it for a moment. If the Habs were able to perform as well missing, say, Markov than with him, then why bother having Markov at all? The guy who’s replacing him is clearly doing just as well, and likely costing under a million. That means Markov provides zero value for an extra four million plus. If the Habs can be reasonably expected to do as well with Markov than without, then he’s useless, and they need to cut ties with him ASAP and look to use that money on a player that will actually improve their chance of winning.
In reality, of course Markov’s replacement is not as good as Markov. This weakens the team and a weaker team will win less. Ignoring this or describing them as irrelevant because “it’s kind of weak” or “it’s not an excuse” is bad analysis, plain and simple.
Incidentally, another problem I often see is unrealistic expectations due to overestimating the talent of the league. 20% rate is a very good PP, around 7th or 8th in the league. That means units comprised of the top offensive players of the best PP clubs (which is a heck of a lot more competent than “any 5 NHL caliber players”) do not in fact score at a 20% rate with the man advantadge.
by MathMan on Dec 2, 2011 1:46 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Salary floor -
Should’ve hit “reply” on my other “reply” – my bad
The question of salary floor is meaningless. Players get hurt, both good and bad. You have to eliminate Gomez’s salary right off the top since he’s not even in the Habs’ top 10 players right now, and probably outside of the top 13-14 depending on what you think of AK, Spacek, Eller and Moen. The real question is, How much better would the Habs be if Markov gets (and stays) healthy and the Habs replaced Gomez with a player that was worth even $5MM of the $7MM that we’re paying Gomez?
If Markov and MaxP play in the next game after LA and nobody else gets hurt on Saturday, the Habs will have 18 of their 20 best players on the ice, with only Spacek and Gomez on the sidelines. That’s $11MM of “wasted salary” that’ll be injured for Habs, which is probably the amount that you’ll find for 15-20 of the other NHL teams next week. Apples-to-apples, and we’ll see if our Habs can rise above .500 with injuries no longer an excuse for poor results.
No they won’t. Where did you learn to count? They would still be at just 15 of their 19 roster players.
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by Andrew Berkshire on Dec 2, 2011 3:11 PM EST up reply actions
Where did you learn to count, son?
2 + 6 + 12 = 19 ?
Nah, I still think it’s 20. And the only way that Habs have fewer than 18 of their top 20 players (which includes the #2 goalie) is if we agree that White would replace the #4 center (Nokelainen) or Darche on the 4th line, and if it’s true that Campoli would displace Weber, Diaz and Emelin. Neither of those assumptions are air-tight.
Right and wrong -
It’s right to say that any team will be better if it has its best players in the lineup. But in sports, injuries are a common occurence. That’s true of the NHL. Across the league, probably every team will play most of its games with 2, 3 or 4 of its top 20 players on the shelf. (The Pens for example lost the best player in the NHL for 20 games, but still played very well.)
Don’t agree at all with the claim that Habs have played ANY of their games with “2 or 3 of their best 6” players hurt this season. That’s absurd. Based on performance over the past 12 months and contribution, along with pure talent, my guess at the Habs’ top 6 players would include the following to choose from: Price, Plekanec, Subban, Gorges, MaxP, Camalleri, Markov, and Gionta. Besides Markov, the only players in this group of 8 to miss more than 2 games are Cammy (what 6?) and MaxP (2). I defy you to find another player on the Habs that would be in their “top 6” … good luck, brother. So no, the Habs have generally had at least 17 of their best players on the ice, and often 18 or 19 …
With respect to the PP, the Habs PP has been terrible and most of their best players (see above, but include DD and Cole) have been available nightly … but the PP is terrible. If you see it differently, that’s fine.
the Habs have generally had at least 17 of their best players on the ice, and often 18 or 19
Do you even know how many players are in a lineup? At no point this season have the Habs had their 19 best players in the lineup because there are only 19 players to dress. Right now the Habs have 13 of their 19 top players playing.
Before you make bold claims, you should check to see your information is correct. At the very most this season the Canadiens have had 16 healthy players. THE MOST. Most games has been 15 and under.
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by Andrew Berkshire on Dec 2, 2011 3:09 PM EST up reply actions
Ignoring the MaxP suspension, the 6 players are -
Who? Markov, Gomez, Spacek and Ryan White?
Who’s #6? Enlighten me. Ryan White is a stretch to get to 5 … who’s #6?
Yes, but
that’s a real stretch if you wanna call the player they signed to be #6, 7 or 8 Dman one of the team’s top players …. Weber has struggled recently, but Weber and Diaz are no worse, really. And we’re ignoring the fact that Gomie’s injury forced JM to use DD at #2 center. I’ve heard the criticisms of DD, but he’s clearly one of the team’s most talented O players … I live in the Bay Area and watched him dance circles around J Thorton all night yesterday.
Campoli is definitely one of the team’s 18 best skaters. He’d be #4 or 5 on the depth chart, not 6-7-8 — he’d play ahead of Weber, Diaz, maybe even Emelin.
DD is a good offensive player, but defensively it’s a lot more problematic. He tends to get smoked on matchups on the road (although he can still come up with offense, as we’ve seen!) and that’s part of why JM gives him top-notch wingers.
Maybe so -
DD should have good wingers, as they’d be wasted playing with Gomez. He has room to improve, no doubt, but has a jump that nobody other than Cammy has among the top 9 forwards (except maybe AK when he chooses to play)
If everybody’s healthy, I personally think we’d see PK-Gorges, Markov-Spacek, Gill and pick a player. JM loves Gill, who provides good PK … not sure you can argue that Campoli is better than 5/6 … and Emelin, Weber or Diaz could easily displace him depending on what type of team you’re looking to play.
Campoli is higher on the depth chart than Spacek and Gill. He was playing with Gorges on the second pairing to start the year ffs. Now if Markov is back, and Emelin continues progressing, maybe he’s the 5th D, but that’s still in the top 19 players.
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by Andrew Berkshire on Dec 2, 2011 4:12 PM EST up reply actions
Markov, Gomez, Spacek, White, Campoli, Pacioretty. All players who would be on the roster without question if healthy.
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by Andrew Berkshire on Dec 2, 2011 3:17 PM EST up reply actions
Ok -
well, White and Campoli are a joke, or certainly debatable … and Patches isn’t hurt and hasn’t missed any games to injury. So go easy on the hyperbole with your “get the facts straight” responses. Of the 19 top players on the team, they typically have dressed 16 or 17 nightly, that’s my point.
Whether he’s hurt or suspended means nothing for the point of the amount of important players that aren’t on the ice. Especially since it means the team is out its best defenseman, second best forward and a big amount of depth. They’ve gone down to the 11th defender on the depth chart (St. Dennis) and the 15-16th forward depth players (Palushaj-Leblanc).
by Stephan Cooper on Dec 2, 2011 4:03 PM EST up reply actions
Whether or not you think it’s a joke or not is irrelevant, White and Campoli are among the top 19 players on the team.
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by Andrew Berkshire on Dec 2, 2011 4:13 PM EST up reply actions
C'mon?
Be reasonable – sure they’re top 23, but no guarantee that White would dress ahead of Nokelainen or Weber to play on the 4th line if everyone is healthy. Similarly, Campoli may be no different than Paul Mara last year and hasn’t shown anybody in MTL that he’s better than Diaz, Weber and Emelin. Is he? Maybe, but that’s TBD
You have any doubt that White would dress over Darche right now?
And Campoli is an established #4 defenseman, he’s easily better than Diaz.
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by Andrew Berkshire on Dec 3, 2011 12:25 AM EST up reply actions
I would call Campoli an established bottom-pairing defenseman since that’s what he was on other teams when he succeeded. They might have started him with Gorges to try something, but he’s no #4…
by Simon Lamarche on Dec 3, 2011 1:24 AM EST up reply actions
Oh, the backup goalie doesn't dress -
He’s in street clothes in the dressing room until the starter gets hurt?
Teams dress 20 players on game day, no?
How many games this year has there been 20 players who get ice time? Zero. No goalie has been pulled, so we’re talking 19 skaters.
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by Andrew Berkshire on Dec 2, 2011 4:14 PM EST up reply actions
Fair enough - let's check the numbers
After 26 games, if we look at the appearances of top goalie (#1 or #2), top 11 forwards (since nobody can say who #12 would be on any given day – could be Weber, White, Nokelainen), and top 5 Dmen (ditto for #6 Dman – could be Weber, Campoli, Diaz or Emelin). Nobody can argue that the #12 fwd or #6 Dman is typically the difference between winning and losing a game.
Goalie – 0 games lost to injury
Forwards (top 11) – 30 games of 286, excludes MaxP’s suspension (13 Gomez, 10 AK, 5 Cammy, and 2 Eller)
D (top 5) – 45 games of 286 (26 Markov, 14 Spacek, and 5 Gill)
So that’s 75 games lost to injury for Habs’ top 17 skaters, which equates to 16.9% of all games. With 53 of those games spread across 3 players (Markov, Spacek and Gomez) and we can all agree that Gomez and Spacek aren’t in the top 13-14. Said another way, the Habs have lost only 17% of their best players to injury, and 35% of that lost time is just 1 of their top 8 players (Markov).
To me, that’s not a team devastated by injuries … that’s a pretty healthy team.
D should read 45 games lost out of 130 games (5 * 26)
Total lost games = 75
Over 26 games * 17 skaters = 442
75 / 442 = 16.96%
So your calculation, flawed though it be, and skewed by reactionary evaluations of Spacek and Gomez, suggest the Habs lost 1/6th of their most effective man-games to injury, and somehow this is a “pretty healthy team” rather than one that’s not “devastated by injury”?
By this standard, then there’s no such thing as an unhealthy team in the NHL. And what it would take to be “devastated by injury” doesn’t bear thinking about.
Check the record books -
I don’t have time to confirm the exact year, but I’m guessing it was ‘01-02 or ’02-03, the Habs lost over 400 games to injury for players that would otherwise have been in the lineup. That’s a lot of injuries.
Including marginal players like White and Campoli helps your “argument” that the team has been hobbled by injury, but they’re not vital players … if Markov didn’t play this year and team kept up at current pace, they’d lose about 210 games to injury to their top 17 players, including Markov’s 80 games. 130/80 suggests that they’d be missing 1.6 of their other top 16 players all season. Or they’d have 14.5 of their top 17 players every game for 80 games. If that’s a team devastated by injury, then you’re right … let the injury bug be the excuse. No team can compete if 1 or 2 players are out of the lineup every night!
1) Your number are not counting the players that are injured but still plays. Subban has a shoulder injury, Plekanec has back or hip problem, Pacioretty has a wrist injury, somehow I don’t think Camalleri was at 100% when he came back.
Yes every team has players that are playing injured. But they will give them less minutes or some game off. Do you think Montreal can afford to have Plekanec or Subban take a night off to rest?
2) Just look at the D when Gill was injured. There was 3 rookies and 2 sophomores. People might argue that only 2 out of the 6 D that were dressed should be in the NHL.
Injuries to depth players will affect any teams. Even more so when the players replaceing them are also injured.
Injuries are a common occurence, but Montreal’s injury situation isn’t “common”. They have had the most injuries in the league, by either cap hit or by man-games. It’s actually pretty amazing that Montreal still manages to ice a competent team despite this.
That kind of is the issue. People often hear complaints about injuries when a team isn’t fielding a full lineup, which is common. So they shutout the argument when its a legitimate issue i.e. being the among the most afflicted in the league.
by Stephan Cooper on Dec 2, 2011 3:59 PM EST up reply actions
Please Acquaman,
Let the team leave the upper right quadrant, preferably by moving to the left. Because if the frustrating results don’t drive me insane, my fellow fans may very well do it.
People don’t want to believe that luck is a factor because they have been taught that good teams win on skill. They analyze the outcome, not the process.
I know the bottom left one does because of the 2010 Playoffs!
I was talking about this the other day with a friend of mine.
Players in particular have been taught that a little bit of skill, lots of effort and a healthy dose of confidence (what’s a healthy dose of confidence? It’s decided based on skill * Nationality * Position * Salary * Contract status * R, where R is whatever point the observer wants to make).
A coach should never tell a player that he was unlucky, he should just tell him to be confident and work harder.
But then, you take 2 guys who were taught that way and you put them in a room with 2 of their fans from the media and you ask them to evaluate a game or a play or a player.
Watch an hour of that every other night for a few years…
Most people I talk to understand if I make an example from another field:
Let’s say, 30 students take on a chemistry exam with 82 questions. They all have exactly 64.3 minutes to study but some get there late and have only 45 minutes.
The questions are multiple choices (A, B, C and D).
Does the smartest student have the best grade?
Maybe, if he has 64.3 minutes and he’s lucky and no one’s more lucky than him!
by Simon Lamarche on Dec 2, 2011 8:04 PM EST up reply actions
Well, Sean Gordon, who I berated earlier this week, did a piece on the playoff math for the Habs, and he’s not terribly pessimistic about the chances, and says he counts 6 ‘coulda, shoulda been wins’ so far and only one win that shoulda been a loss (the Carolina shootout).
Anyways, the Globe comments section are always funny, but here’s one that baffled me from WVE66:
The problem with the Habs is Jacques Martin. His teams play such a strict sytem that players get overvalued (kind of like Minnesota Wild goaltenders when Jacques Lemaire was the coach). The players look good because of the system, rather than the system looking good because of the players. The Habs have too many players who are good but not enough who are great. Until management (and fans) realize this, the Habs will fumble along on the edge (one side or the other) of making the playoffs.
So the problem is the coach, who puts in place a system that makes the players look good?
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“System” seems to be the criticism buzzword for Martin the last season and a quarter. I wonder where its popularity began. Of course, in the 09-10 playoffs “the system” was given credit for Halak’s goaltending streak even though we know that luck at both ends played a larger role than a “system” of allowing shots from anywhere and everywhere.
I just read that comment and not know what the heck is wrong with the Canadiens. The players are good but not enough are great is the only reason I can find, and that management doesn’t realize it yet. They don’t realize it yet because Jacques Martin is making good players look good via his system. Therefore Jacques must go.
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That’s hilarious because if anything Martin’s system creates forwards that are incredibly undervalued.
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by Andrew Berkshire on Dec 3, 2011 7:27 AM EST up reply actions
I’m not sure I agree with that, unless you are talking about Plekanec.
Conversely, I don’t think DD is “incredibly undervalued”. ;)
I don’t think there’s any doubt that his system limits offensive production. The only forward who’s really excelled past his average is Plekanec, who has always been undervalued anyway. But guys like Cammalleri and Kostitsyn are probably 30+ goal scorers in most other systems even if their +/- gets worse. Because people put so much value on goals, they would automatically be considered better because of increased goal totals.
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by Andrew Berkshire on Dec 3, 2011 1:45 PM EST up reply actions
Yes, there is doubt — I, at least, do not for a second think this is the case. Cammy was on a 30-goal pace in 2009-2010. Gio was on a 35-plus goal pace in 2009-2010 and had 29 the year before. AKost is just not a 30-goal scorer. Montreal had enough shots and scoring chances to be a top-10 offensive club last year. And the system doesn’t seem to be hampering Cole, Desharnais, or Pacioretty any this year.
Don’t lay the lack of offensive puck luck at the coach’s feet. The Habs don’t score but it certainly isn’t for lack of trying.
The one area where his “system” might limit offensive production is because the Habs seldom go for the blowout, yet then again, the Habs have won a large chunk of their games by 3 goals or more.
What’s a pretty big signal to me is almost every single player on the Canadiens last season having a supbar shooting percentage year. That just doesn’t seem statstically possible even with crap luck. If Desharnais was being limited I’d be shocked because the system caters to him more than any other player. Constant strong wingers, constant weak competition.
I was thinking the Habs rarely go for the blowout as well, but their numbers when leading by two are pretty outstanding. (2nd in the league before the Anaheim game)
The things that JM does that limit offense imo, are the defense first attitude, which wins games but doesn’t foster a lot of offense, as well as the strict adherence to short shifts. There have been quite a few times where a line has gained the zone and looked dangerous only to dump it in and go for a chance. That’s pretty obviously a coaching tactic.
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by Andrew Berkshire on Dec 3, 2011 2:30 PM EST up reply actions
So you think that Jacques Martin is depressing the team’s overall shooting percentage, which is something teams have never shown a talent for doing? I, for one, don’t think for a second he’s getting Cammy to hit the post so much. But let’s look at your claim in detail.
If Martin is depressing shooting percentages to the extent you describe, this points to a rare, unique, and completely crippling form of incompetence. Even a slightly worse defense wouldn’t overshadow the gain to be made by going back to a more normal shooting percentage last year (we’re talking 20 to 30 goals!).
It’s also puzzling to me why his system crapped out 5-on-5 shooting only in 2010-2011. That’s actually back to normal this year, but apparently that fix to the system had to come at the expense of the PP. The Habs’s 5-on-4 shooting percentage is not only worst in the league, they are worse than any club’s 5-on-5 shooting percentage! If it’s his PP scheme is causing that, it’s a candidate for worst PP scheme in the history of hockey.
So.. taking your reasoning to its logical conclusion, you should really be calling for the coach to be fired yesterday. Even an average coach would do better simply because an average shooting percentage would lead to more goals for than they could possibly lose with weaker defense. If what you describe is true, then either his vaunted system or his PP incompetence is killing the team, plain and simple.
So.. taking your reasoning to its logical conclusion, you should really be calling for the coach to be fired yesterday. Even an average coach would do better simply because an average shooting percentage would lead to more goals for than they could possibly lose with weaker defense. If what you describe is true, then either his vaunted system or his PP incompetence is killing the team, plain and simple.
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