Habs Chase Anderson in 6-2 Win over Sens
by Kevin van Steendelaar on Dec 27, 2011 11:06 PM EST
in Habs Game Recaps
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PrintSo there's possibly a new good luck trend at EOTP. Andrew Berkshire is visiting family, with no feed of the game and choppy internet, and yours truly took his step-daughter to a movie.
So what did the Montreal Canadiens do in our absence? They merely scored a 6-2 win over the Ottawa Senators, despite being outplayed my their opponents.
After an early Senators goal from Zack Smith, at 1:42, fans watching and the masses of Habs faithful on attendance at at Scotiabank Place were likely saying, "Here we go again."
The Habs then managed three goals on five shots at Craig Anderson, who left in the second period after surrendering an early fourth marker.
Lars Eller led the offense with his second short-handed goal of the season at 5:08 of the first, firing a wrist shot past Anderson's outstretched glove. Supporting tallies came from from Tomas Plekanec (12:39) and Mike Cammalleri (15:25).
Asssisting on all three Canadiens goals in the first period, Raphael Diaz. Who knew?
Cammalleri, under recent scrutiny as an underachiever, then chipped in on Louis Leblanc's second goal of the season, that chased Anderson in favour of Alex Auld.
P.K. Subban who, like Eller, was benched in Thursday's loss to the Winnipeg Jets, responded from his "embarrassment" with his second of the season at 5:53.
Jason Spezza, left unattended at the corner of the net, added the Sens second goal of the evening at 6:49.
The Habs then added insult to injury, by managing a power-play goal in the third period from Erik Cole.
The shot count that Carey Price faced alone (36), was one of several indicators of how the Sens dominated the evening. The Corsi and Fenwick numbers are further proof as to how this should have been a home team win. But as a former Habs coach once implied, the Canadiens relied on special teams and good goaltending on this night.
The Senators had shot totals of 16 and 13 through the first 40 minutes, making Price earn his First Star.
The Canadiens snap their five game losing streak, and gave Randy Cunneyworth his first NHL win as head coach. Some may think Cunneyworth's benching of Subban and Eller was genius, but who's kidding who? I'll leave you guys to debate that.
The team now gets ready for their annual end-of-December Sunshine State tour, as they face the Lightning on Thursday.
Things come better in two's: Seven Habs had two-point evenings.
A minor issue: The Senators didn't help themselves out of their hole, taking three minor penalties in each of the last two periods, with two off-setting calls in the second period.
Three Stars: 1. Carey Price 2. Erik Cole 3. Raphael Diaz
Advanced Stats: Shift Charts / Head to Head / Corsi & Fenwick
The losing side at Silver Seven
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I checked in on the score during the movie, and saw who was scoring. I checked in with Andrew to get a better feel of what was going on ie: lucky chances.
Didn’t think one game would turn Eller, PK AND Cammalleri around.
Kevin van Steendelaar
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by Kevin van Steendelaar on Dec 27, 2011 11:17 PM EST up reply actions
They still suck at possession. 5 goals on 9 chances, well, twist it any way you want, it’s bad.
Seems TB is without Ohlund, Brewer and Hedman. That’s a break… Randy may luck himself into a 2 games winning streak.
Changes to the system! Healthy Scratches! 4th line giving energy! Man, we aren’t out of the woods yet (is that even an english expression? I’m just translating “on n’est pas sorti du bois”)…
Yep, that translates into an English expression.
I saw the highlights… looked more like Anderson was awful than anything else. The Habs ran into a shitty goalie. Pretty simple game story there.
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by Bruce Peter on Dec 28, 2011 12:32 AM EST up reply actions
2 Points! is 2 Points!
Well on one side it is nice that they picked up a valuable 2 pts. tonite with the victory in regulation time. On the otherside of the coin…….what does this do to quell the firestorm that’s been brewing in Montreal the last 10 days or so? Is RC going to be granted some sort of reprieve until they come home from Florida? Merci Buckets, I hope so for his sake and the Team’s.
"It's only through change we learn to grow".
His lines made sense and he limited the fourth line’s minutes. Kept Blunden under 8 minutes. It’s a start, but it’s an illustration of how far he has to go that vague baseline competence has to be considered an improvement.
Unfortunately, 6-2 win or not, replacing Martin by Cunneyworth probably still means the Habs sacked the season.
Congratulations to Randy Conneyworth
Contrary to what’s been written by many reporters; French speaking Habs fans don’t have anything against Randy Conneyworth. They all wish him the best, but they’re angry at the GM for not having better planed the future behind the Canadiens bench. Naming a head coach without any experience in the NHL, when there are many other experienced candidates available (some of whom can speak French) was a mistake for a majority of Habs fans, no matter if they’re English or French speaking according to the poles. Just wanted to point that out!
Would ‘a majority of Habs fans’ have disagreed with Muller or Boucher as a head coach replacement? Neither of them had any experience behind the bench at the NHL level (Muller didn’t even have head coach experience at any level) prior to leaving the Montreal organization, yet were brought up as being the top Martin replacement candidate fairly often, if I remember correctly.
by yerrow peril on Dec 28, 2011 11:28 AM EST up reply actions
Just watched the highlights. People were raving on twitter about Diaz’s 3 assists. He was only involved in the play on one goal and 1 assist shouldn’t have even counted. I still fail to see why he’s so loved.
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by Andrew Berkshire on Dec 28, 2011 3:01 AM EST reply actions
I watched the game and can’t say he was a difference maker out there. He played some solid minutes and made the right play more often than not and it paid off for him. I was more impressed with Cammi’s play who has looked more like his old self than at any other time in the season. He forechecked, went to the net and jumped on rebounds. This took a lot of pressure off his linemates and got some offensive play started. In my opinion he had more impact than Diaz. But Diaz got the numbers so he got the kudos.
by Silvertip on Dec 28, 2011 8:51 PM EST via iPhone app up reply actions
I did not see much of the game – last 10 minutes or so, but do have an observation… with respect, many who blog here are sounding as unfair to RC as the dolts over at HIO were to Martin.
Like others here, I thought the Martin firing was a big mistake. And I will grant you that many early moves by RC looked pretty bizarre. Some still do.
But let’s keep in mind that while we all get to watch, judge and comment, RC is the one who has to actually do something to get this team back on track… with no Gomez, Gionta, Markov, White and less fan support than Martin had (if that is possible). And no matter how wise we think we are from our perch in the cheap seats, doing anything is 1000 times (or so) harder than watching, judging and commenting on it.
Like it or not, RC is truly in the crucible and he will make some good moves and bad ones. I like the way he has handled himself – no bitching about his situation and with some concrete areas for improvement. He’s got more stats than anyone on this site combined with actual knowledge of what is going on in the dressing room and has decided to start with improving effort. So be it. And no matter how good an idea it might seem, Martin or anyone else more ‘competent’ is not coming. So until we have the time to truly sample his impact, cutting him just a little slack might be a good thing all around.
I wouldn’t bet a dollar on him having access to more stats than anybody on this site.
by Chris Boyle on Dec 28, 2011 10:58 AM EST up reply actions
Quite frankly? I would.
But that doesn’t mean he uses said stats in a way we would find instructive. It kinda makes sense: a coach must ply his trade in leagues where little or no stats are available and learn to do his things without them. Once in the NHL, especially when you are thrown to the wolves mi-season with a tight leash from the GM (and the GM’s buddy as your “assistant”), it’s not exactly the moment to start experimenting with advanced stats.
Martin coached in a way that, when looked trough micro-stats, made sense. Cunneyworth hasn’t been there for many games and most of said games were on the road. Benching Subban and Eller against Winnipeg was, uh, self-destructive and most probably useless, but we all knew this wouldn’t last (tough we now know why Price wasn’t playing in Chicago).
He has a pretty good (if somewhat weird) roster and has been mentored by Martin. So we do have to cut him some slack; it’s not like he’s hard-matching Desharnais to the opposition’s best or something. Playing the 4th line as much as he did over the last few games wasn’t, IMNSHO, a very good idea but hey, he did adjust last game so…
What I wonder is, so long as the coach uses his roster competently (8 minutes for Blunden, builds reasonable lineups, matches up lines,etc), how much marginal difference can a coach make?
A bad one can mess you up, but what’s the difference between an average coach and a great one?
Good question about the impact of a coach and I don’t really know the answer for a professional team, but my guess is that the difference between average and great is pretty significant.
My sons played relatively high level soccer and at one point one was coached by the current coach of the men’s national soccer team. He joined my son’s team in mid-season and had a quantum and immediate impact on their short term ability to win and their long term development. Half a season with him and they were unrecognizable from their previous coach.
Another key is the players. They have to be open to coaching for it to work – great coaches are able to get attention of the players. Some of that early nonsense with the fourth lines and benchings could have been RC trying to cut through the distractions and get their attention.
One of the reason we know so little about coaching is that we get most of our info from the daily media, who just don’t have much insights about that kind of angle.
Is RC a great coach? We won’t know before a few years and that means it’s only when, as Vigneault and Julien, he went elsewhere that we’ll know for sure.
From conversations with a couple of people at the MIT Sloan conference the majority of the GMs who attended were “in the dark ages” in regards to advanced metrics.
He may have the resources to acquire them, but I doubt he is using them.
by Chris Boyle on Dec 28, 2011 7:14 PM EST via iPhone app up reply actions
I’m curious: What count as advanced metrics? On-ice / Off-ice shot differentials aren’t commonplace but they are fairly straightforward stuff…
I was talking to a guy in regards to shot metrics/locations/etc.
I also heard that the Pens have only recently (last year) charted shots location/quality and they have been very happy with the results.
Every NHL team has the resources to investigate any and everything they want, I just don’t think they are willing to at this point. This will change with time like it did in baseball. All I was saying was I wouldn’t assume that they are using those resources at this point.
They have to rest him at some points.
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by Stephan Cooper on Dec 29, 2011 2:46 PM EST up reply actions
OK, I thought it was that originally but the way Olivier posted it made me think maybe RC was up to healthy scratch tricks.
If you’re going to pay over a million dollars for a backup goaltender you damn well better play him at one point and I don’t think starting Budaj against the Blackhawks was a bad idea. Chicago being a non-conference opponent and the team’s month-long bad form meant that ou could afford to play the backup in a game where you aren’t favoured to win.
Maybe I’m getting getting a bit optimistic about Cunneyworth.but I do like Cammalleri playing off of the Plekanec line. If he can find a way to split Gorges-Subban and still have a tough-minutes pairing things could work out okay.
I wasn’t able to catch the game but getting 2 points is pleasing.
We’ll see how things go against teams with more offensive depth but I do like the first 3 lines in theory. Getting Cammalleri off the Plekanec line seems like a good idea to me. It’s also a deal to see if Desharnais can handle the 3rd-line role while not being as insulated (well, insulated as much as he has been this year). Hopefully he can.
Cammalleri ain’t no Zetterberg but he can hold his own in terms of two-way game. Especially if he’s away from the harshest opponents. I think him and Desharnais will mesh just fine. What’s more interesting to me is how Eller is deployed.
Since Gionta went down, Plekanec has been all alone as a competent heavy lifter. The current setup gives him more two-way help on his line (if AKost can get his head out of his ass and stop the constant turnovers at his blue line) and Eller/Cole/Pacioretty certainly qualify as a secondary hard match line.
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