JACK TODD, The Gazette
Published: Thursday, January 05, 2006

It's a tough year for the Three Amigos. If it gets any worse, Jose Theodore, Mike Ribeiro and Pierre Dagenais will be fighting each other to see who gets to play the role of Martin Short's horse in the sequel to that distinguished epic.

Theodore, Ribeiro and Dagenais, as you know, are as inseparable as steamies, mustard and relish. They dress alike, they hang out. And right now, they're all hanging together.

Well, let's make that two out of three: when Dagenais was given a seat in the pressbox for Tuesday's embarrassment against the Pittsburgh Crosbies, it was probably a case of guilt by association, because Dagenais has produced about what you would expect from him. Ribeiro, on the other hand, found his way out of the lineup the old-fashioned way: He earned it. Dagenais was sent along to keep him company.

While they watched, Theodore, the former Hart and Vezina Trophy winner, gave up goals on the first, second and sixth shots that he faced.

After his team battled back from a 3-0 deficit to take a 4-3 lead over a Pittsburgh team with nine rookies in the lineup (now the kids should be ready to fold, right?) Theodore gave up three more and the Penguins won it going away.

For the Canadiens, that makes six wins in the last 22 games. They narrowly avoided tying an all-time franchise record for consecutive losses on the road when they won in Tampa over the holidays, then resumed the losing streak with losses in Florida and Carolina.

Only in My New NHL do they have what looks like a winning record, thanks to the absurd practice of awarding points for overtime and shootout losses. Check the standings and it says the Habs are 18-14-6 for 42 points; what it should say is that they are 18-20 for 36 points.

Whatever, after a very strong start to the season they are now tied with the Atlanta Thrashers for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. For the time being, they hold games in hand over the Thrashers and a few points separate them from tonight's opponent, the New Jersey Devils - but if this goes on much longer, Claude Julien's team will be facing a tough uphill climb for a playoff spot after the league takes its Olympic break in February.

In 38 games, they have scored 109 goals and given up 125. That scoring average, in My New NHL, works out to a paltry 2.87 goals per game. In the east, only Florida and Washington have fewer goals.

What happened? How did a team that looked so good through the first few weeks of the season fall so completely apart?

Obviously, it has been a team effort. Against Pittsburgh, even the reunited top line of Saku Koivu, Alexei Kovalev and Richard Zednik was ineffective. There have been defensive breakdowns, rookies Tomas Plekanec and Alexander Perezhogin did not maintain their strong starts - and the Three Amigos have pretty much missed the team bus from the start.

In Ribeiro and Theodore, you're talking the team's leading scorer from the pre-lockout season and the Hart and Vezina-trophy winning goaltender. Ribeiro's numbers - 7 goals, 19 assists, a minus-10 - make his season look better than it is.

The guy has one goal since there were leaves on the trees and on the road over the holidays, he looked like he would rather be just about anywhere except on the ice. Given that the Canadiens were without Koivu through that same stretch, Ribeiro's disappearance was disastrous.

The worst thing about Ribeiro is that he is so very good at looking like he doesn't care. It starts with the Gangsta Crew suits and pretty much carries on from there. (We didn't see Ribeiro Tuesday night, but Dagenais wandered through the pressbox carrying a couple of hotdogs, dressed in a pin-striped, fawn-coloured suit with matching fawn loafers. In Montreal. In January.)

In the buttoned-down world of the Canadiens, Ribeiro goes out of his way to slouch. He plays that B-movie Latin Lothario from the 1920s to the hilt - which as fine as long as he's scoring and the team is winning. When neither is the case, you want him to at least look like he cares.

Theodore's problems are more serious. No one doubts that Theodore is a fiery competitor. He does the gangsta thing too, but Theodore is sufficiently aware of all the eyes that are on him to tone it down. It's on the ice that he is struggling, with a 3.16 goals-against average and an .891 save percentage this year. Over his last five games, it's worse: a 3.84 goals-against

Contrast that with the pre-lockout season, when Theodore had a 2.27 goals-against and a .919 save percentage, or his Vezina Trophy year, when the numbers were 2.11 and .931.

Right now, there are plenty of fans who want to ship the Three Amigos out to Pierre Lacroix for a couple of Rocky Mountain postcards. Fortunately, the name "Bob Gainey" and the word "panic" will never be used in the same sentence. Gainey could be in a burning building and he would take at least three minutes to think it over before uttering the word "fire." If there's a deal out there that will improve his club, he'll make it.

If the Three Amigos start playing like they can, he won't have to.