i think this willbe the habs best, most complete game of the early season. 

theodore will prove his worth to the team with a stellar performance, he will not be outdone by a rookie.

the defence had a pretty good game overall against a talented atlanta offense but should be challenged physically by a bigger toronto team.  they need to contain them down low in our zone and if they can do that we should have no problem limiting their scoring chances.

hopefully our second line will pick up their play.  this would give us such an edge, to have 2-3 lines that could be a threat everytime they are on the ice.  koivu, kovalev and peroz should have a great game against the slow leaf team along with the other speedy youngsters on our team.  begin is our ultimate energy player and will be flying around causing problems for the big goofs the leafs have for players all night.

i think we should take this by a 3-1, 4-2 score.  kovalev will get his first, higgins, peroz, and bonk for the habs.

barry33 wrote:

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And no, I have NOT been drinking.

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Maybe you should start!  I got the day off and 9 "pops" left.  Come on over :)

I predict a 5-2 Habs and that Kovy will break out.  I expect Ryder to come back to life on the score sheet.  The Leafs are celar dwellers this year from start to finish, so I'm not worried like I was on Tuesday.  In fact, it's going to be relaxing.

Theo will be good, unless Julien goes with the hot goalie, then Danis will be great.  Either way, Habs face less shots than Ed the Bald Eagle.

And look for Julien to throw a tantrum and be ejected after Youppi! doesn't pull his weight!

http://www.canada.com/sports/hockey/canadiensstory.html?id=aa7807cb-b74f-4c8b-bb79-e72cb30a1f74&page=2

Montreal Canadiens off to flying start despite Jose Theodore's woes

MONTREAL (CP) - Jose Theodore has been ordinary, Richard Zednik is injured and the second line has been flat, and yet the Montreal Canadiens are off to a flying start.

The Canadiens are 4-1 going into a meeting Saturday night against the rival Toronto Maple Leafs. Montreal needed a late goal by Mike Ribeiro to beat the Leafs 5-4 in Toronto a week ago. "I hope it will be a little different," coach Claude Julien said. "The last time, we were playing our third game in five nights, so there was an accumulated fatigue factor.

"This time, that's not the case."

Not for Montreal, which is coming off a 2-0 win in Atlanta on Wednesday.

The Leafs had to play in Atlanta on Friday night, then fly to Montreal to face a team that has been finding many ways to win early in the NHL season.

In Atlanta, rookie Yann Danis got the shutout in his first NHL game, but Theodore is expected to be back in goal Saturday night for the first of four home games over an 11-day span.

Theodore played well in wins in Boston and New York, but not so well in the victory in Toronto or in a 4-2 loss to Ottawa in Montreal's home opener on Tuesday night. He has a so-so 3.00 goals-against average and a tepid .881 save percentage.

"As a goalie, you don't look at the number of goals, you just make sure there are no weak ones," said Theodore. "That's what I'm not happy about.

"Since the beginning of the season, I gave up a couple of bad goals."

Goaltending coach Roland Melanson said Thursday he saw "a hole" in Theodore's butterfly technique, allowing pucks to slip between his blocker and his body, and would try to correct it over the next week.

Theodore, the 2002 Hart and Vezina trophy winner, said there were only normal early-season adjustments to be made.

"There's always things you have to work on," said Theodore. "I've had some good games but I've also let in some bad goals.

"In goaltending, there's a lot of technical stuff. Right now, we're working on a couple of details and once we correct them, we'll find other things to work on. That's the way it is."

So far, the Canadiens haven't needed Theodore to be always at the top of his game. Nor have they missed top sniper Zednik, who left the season-opening game on Oct. 5 with a groin injury and who will likely be out another week to 10 days.

Speedy rookie Alexander Perezhogin, 22, has a pair of goals in Zednik's spot on left wing of the top line with captain Saku Koivu and veteran Alex Kovalev.

"We thought we'd have to be patient with him, but we didn't have to wait long," Julien said of Perezhogin. "He's played very well."

Perezhogin is best known as the player who gave a two-handed slash to the face of an opponent two seasons ago and was suspended for a year by the American Hockey League. So far, he hasn't even taken a minor penalty in the NHL.

"That was uncharacteristic of him," Julien said of the Perezhogin slash. "For me, it's about him knowing we've turned the page on that and that we just want him to use his skills."

Ribeiro, Michael Ryder and Pierre Dagenais, the second line, are each minus-3 so far and haven't created many chances beyond Ribeiro's goal in Toronto.

Ryder has three goals, but only one was scored while playing at even strength with his linemates.

But the third line of Radek Bonk, Jan Bulis and Niklas Sundstrom has been solid and the fourth line of Steve Begin with rookies Christopher Higgins and Tomas Plekanec has excelled. Begin, a checking centre who has moved to the wing, has two goals.

"He's so respected by his teammates for what he does," said Julien. "He picks up our bench every time he blocks a shot or makes a big hit."

There have also been surprisingly strong performances on defence from Andrei Markov and Francis Bouillon.

Markov, who played on Russia's top defence pairing at the world championships in May, leads the team in ice time with an average of 26 minutes seven seconds per game, including on power plays and penalty killing.

The stocky Bouillon, once feared to be too small to play defence in the NHL, seems to be flourishing under a crackdown on obstruction.

"At first I didn't think it would help me, but after five games, I think it's going to help smaller players if they have skill," said Bouillon, who turns 30 on Monday.

The Canadiens are without enforcer Raitis Ivanans, who came out of a fight with Ottawa's Zdeno Chara on Tuesday with a fractured orbital bone in his left eye - the same injury sustained Leafs captain Mats Sundin, who was hit in the eye by a puck.

Sundin is out for six to eight weeks. Ivanans, who was flattened by two rights from the six-foot-nine Chara, is out indefinitely.

© The Canadian Press 2005

Jedah wrote:

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I see the Habs taking this one. The Leafs will be tired from last night, and our Habs are well rested. And look for Jose Theodore to be ontop of his game tonight. I say he lets in at the most two goals, but the likes of Alex Kovalev will make up for it, scoring at least one, and his line getting a few more.

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That's what I thought against Ottawa too, they had the shoot-out game against the Leafs the night before they ruined our home opener.  This will be a hard fought game and whoever wins will be well deserved of the W.

The Habs need a solid 60 minutes from Theodore!

Go Habitants!!!

1-1 after one period, I'll take it.

Theodore gives up way too many rebounds and seems to be going down a little early at times.  Too bad Mtl couldn't have notched a couple more midway through the period when they were dominating the Leafs.

Good game so far, nice hits on Tucker.  Hopefully the Habs can get a couple in period number 2.