Hockey is back. And not a moment too soon.
While in a lot of ways it still feels like the preseason—especially with the Habs missing Michael Cammalleri, Roman Hamrlik, and Andrei Markov—last night's game against the Leafs was anything but.
Despite losing 3-2 in regulation, the Canadiens looked good last night. Sure they went 0-for-3 on the power play, but their penalty killing was effective killing off all five Leafs' opportunities.
In addition, the Canadiens looked fast, gritty, and tenacious all night long as they outshot their opponent 28-24, out-hit them 34-27, had fewer giveaways, more takeaways, and won 23 faceoffs to the Leafs' 20.
Not a bad night's work.
The problem, as was the case last season, is that the Canadiens couldn't score. Granted they were missing their most effective goal-scorer and power play quarterback, and yes, this was only the first game of the season, but if the Habs can't find a way to score more goals this could become a repeat of last season.
Ultimately, while the Canadiens controlled the pace of the game most of the night, the win came down to Leafs' goalie, Jean-Sebastien Giguere, making several ...
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Article written by Kamal Panesar
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October 8th, 2010 by Kamal Panesar Leave a reply »
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