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Canadiens vs Blues Top Six Minutes – Not Ready For Prime Time Edition

• In the last few days especially, the criticism of some of Michel Therrien’s decisions has been getting louder and louder. He’s been making a few strange decisions, which we’ll get into in a second.
• It’s important to keep things in perspective, though, because it’s the first week of November, and this was Game 16 out of 82. There is still time for us to hope that the coaching staff is realizing that certain things are not working and other things could be better and to adjust.
• You know. That’s the hope.
• So here are some things I would like to know, in light of that. Why was P.K. Subban not on the ice in the dying minute of the game? Why was Marty St. Pierre playing on the power play? Why was Parros playing… playing?
• In his postgame presser, Therrien himself said “we were in a position to get two points tonight, we worked hard…” so why did he not manage his team to make the most of that position?
• The fancy math on this game is not very encouraging. The Blues are one of the elite teams in the league, and the Habs could not keep up, it looks like. So no, this team is not ready for prime time. The personnel is there. The effort level and strategy needs a little work. No, it’s not time for us to grab our torches and pitchforks and demand Therrien be fired. It’s time for the coaching staff as a whole to rethink things. Let’s hope they realize that.
• The problem with the fourth line being this terrible is there’s nowhere to demote them to.
• Let’s do this thing where we look for silver linings now.
Carey Price? Still a wall.
Michael Bournival? Still awesome.
• P.K. Subban? Still the best.
Brendan Gallagher? Still a little ball of Better Than You.
Rene Bourque? Still solid. You can’t really expect too much from him, but he serves his purpose, and he does it well.
• How do you guys think Alex Galchenyuk did playing at centre? I personally would like to see a few more games because it was really hard to tell.
• Heart attack moments: P.K. Subban going to the dressing room after blocking a shot with his hand. P.K. Subban getting boarded. P.K. Subban ever not being on the ice.
• Why must we choose between Alex Pietrangelo and P.K. Subban? Why can’t we be on Team Both? I think Pietrangelo is severely underrated.
• We need to talk about Andrei Markov. I was listening to an interview he gave re: his milestone 700th game between the first and second periods. He was talking about how special it is to play your whole career with one team. I’m on Team Let Markov Retire As A Montreal Canadien.

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