When stats lie

If someone hadn't watched Tuesday night's Bell Centre "contest" between the Calgary Flames and the Habs, there are a number of misleading stats that could lead you to believe this 1-0 loss was actually a close game.

First there was the score, and the fact Montreal actually outshot Calgary 20-19 at even strength, or that the Habs were credited with 26 hits to the Flames 21, or that Habs coach Jacques Martin counted nine scoring chances per side.

Yes, all those things point to a close game, but this game was between two teams playing in different leagues. One team has three defencemen who could all be considered all-stars, another has only four NHL-calibre defencemen. That alone shows to what extent the Flames are far and away a better team than the Habs.

Give Montreal credit, they hung around in this game and would have tied it if Scott Gomez were able to get the handle on a puck after deftly beating Miikka Kiprusoff on a clean breakaway in the second. But ultimately, it was a case of the Flames being too good and the Habs, yet again, not being anywhere near dangerous enough in the offensive zone.

“What’s effort? How do you define effort? I can define effort to be a lot of different things," Mike Cammalleri said, when told by a reporter after the game that this loss could not be blamed on a lack of effort. "Are we working hard? Do we want to win? Yes. But at the same time we need to make more of an effort - if you want to use that word - to challenge teams, to make it harder on their defence. I think we need to make more tape to tape passes, we need to have more puck possession, we need to challenge them with more of a threat offensively. It’s hard to play against a team that comes at you like that, and right now we’re making it easier on them.”

Cammalleri appeared like he was getting fed up with responding to losing questions, largely because his team has lost five of the last seven games, scoring only 15 goals and going 2-for-21 over that span.

Jacques Martin, in a desperate attempt to balance out his attack, stuck with keeping Cammalleri with Tomas Plekanec and Maxim Lapierre for as long as he could. When Calgary scored late in the first, a colleague next to me in the press box asked how long it would take before Cammalleri would be back with Gomez and Brian Gionta. I figured sometime in the second period, but Martin waited until midway through the third before putting his top three offensively creative players on one line.

The saddest part of that? The Habs might have won had he done it sooner. But if Andrei Kostitsyn were able to consistently produce chances, and if Guillaume Latendresse could show he had the willingness to go to some dirty areas to help that line out, maybe Martin wouldn't feel the need to take Cammalleri off the top unit.

“It’s something that we have to keep working at, and hopefully somebody will seize the opportunity,” Martin said. “There’s some chemistry between Gomez and Gionta and Cammalleri’s played most of the time with them. We’ve tried different situations trying to find a solution that will give us more depth as far as scoring.”

I've written it before, and I'll do it again, perhaps it's time to see if Gomez can have chemistry with someone else and give Plekanec a chance to play with Cammalleri and Gionta.

On the bright side in this game was the play of the defence, which had a physical challenge presented to them and answered the bell to the best of their ability. Jay Leach played 17 minutes and, as was his stated goal Tuesday morning, he wasn't a factor. That's a good thing. Marc-Andre Bergeron saw loads of even strength ice time, and in spite of himself wasn;t a factor either.

But ultimately, Jaroslav Halak was outstanding, stopping 30 shots and giving his team a chance to win. Perhaps now he knows how Carey Price feels, who in his best games doesn't get the offensive support to win. I would have to imagine Halak earned himself another start in Phoenix on Thursday night.

Finally, Halak also addressed the whole Twitter-based controversy of Saturday night started by his agent, Allan Walsh, who tweeted about Carey Price's horrid won-loss record, setting off a firestorm that began on Twitter and made its way all the way to Hockey Night in Canada and TSN.

“He wrote something he shouldn’t have,” Halak said of all the stupidness. “It’s got nothing to do with me.”

Amen to that, Jaro.

Patience has run out

It doesn't look good for Guillaume Latendresse and Maxim Lapierre as both were benched for the third period of the Habs 3-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday night.

They were on the ice at the end of the second period when Tampa scored a deflating insurance goal after the Habs had consistently pressed for the tying goal for the second half of the middle frame.

Jacques Martin didn't mince words afterwards on the decision to bench the pair, taking several backhanded jabs at the pair who have done nothing but disappoint all season.

"I just thought that when I shortened my bench we had to win some battles and get some production," Martin said. "I went with people who were willing to go to war."

When asked about the play of Ryan White, who joined Andrei Kostitsyn and Tomas Plekanec on the second line in only his second NHL game and did a hell of a job, Martin again took an opportunity to take a not-so-veiled shot at the players he benched in his favour.

"I thought Ryan gave us a pretty good game," Martin said. "With Plekanec going up against the Lecavalier line and with Malone on the left side, I wanted someone with size and strength."

The forward with the most size and strength on the team is Latendresse, and he was lined up directly opposite Malone, who was actually playing right wing.

It will be interesting to see what the fallout from this will be, but no one will be able to say Latendresse hasn't had his opportunities this season. He's played on the power play and gotten time as a top-six forward, yet hasn't performed like one. On one shift Saturday night there was a scramble with a puck loose in front of the Lightning goal. Plekanec was in there digging, as was Lapierre, and the player furthest from the net was Latendresse. In two periods of play he was credited with one hit, the third straight game he's had a single significant bodycheck.

On the bright side, there's White, who wanted to hide it but couldn't contain his excitement at playing such a significant role in the game. There was one shift in the second period where he won the puck on the forecheck, then lost it, almost created another turnover in the offensive zone, got back defensively to cover for a pinching defenceman, dug the puck out of his corner and was the lead man in on the dump and chase. In one shift, White showed more energy and will than Latendresse did the entire game.

"Playing with guys like that is a whole lot of fun, and that made my night a whole lot easier," White said afterwards. "I just want to go out there and get pucks to those two, work hard, get to the front of the net and hopefully we could get some opportunities.

"I didn't even know I was going out there, they just kind of threw me out there for the start of the second," he continued. "I kind of just ran with it. But I know what I have to do, and that's to work hard to help these guys out."

I don't want to pick on one guy, because Lapierre has not been delivering what was expected of him this season either, but with the tools Latendresse has it's a shame he doesn't use them to their top potential. Yes, he's slow, but he has everything else in his toolbox to become a player in this league, much like Ryan Malone is for the Lightning. Except, maybe, the heart. This will show us what he is truly made of.

So that loss drops the Habs record to 8-9-0 through 17 games, basically a third of the way through Andrei Markov's expected absence. Though I've been clear that I think under the circumstances this is a very respectable record, Mike Cammalleri obviously doesn't think so. As well he shouldn't.

"I like this team a whole lot more than our record shows right now," Cammalleri said. "But let's be honest, we're almost at the 20-game mark here, the season's not fresh anymore and we have to start thinking about positioning."

That positioning has the Habs in 10th place after Saturday night's games with 16 points, in the middle of a pack of five teams separated by a single point. If they can hang tough in that positioning for a few more months and weather this storm of injuries, the Habs should be well placed to go on a post-Olympic break surge toward the playoffs. But the key will be to maintain that position, which will be more and more difficult as players like Roman Hamrlik and Jaroslav Spacek continue to log way more minutes than their bodies can handle.

Cammalleri said the way to do that is to get more consistency not only from game to to game, but from period to period.

"You can't play a perfect 60 minutes," he said. "But I'd like the gap between the good and the bad not to be so great as it was tonight between the first and the third."

Running out of chances Part Deux

So just when you thought maybe Carey Price wasn't what he was made out to be, he comes up with a 42-save gem to steal a win in Boston.

Now, maybe it's time for Guillaume Latendresse to do the same thing.

Watching him circle around the net with the puck over and over again Thursday night in Beantown got me thinking whether or not the Golden Boy will ever understand what he needs to do to establish himself as an effective player in this league. Instead of circling the net, why isn't he bulldozing his way to the front of it? Or better yet, why is he even carrying the puck to begin with? That's not the strength of his game, and frankly, I'm starting to wonder what exactly that strength is.

It's supposed to be his physical play, yet for a second game in a row Latendresse was credited with only one hit the entire game. That's nowhere near good enough, not when he gets 20 shifts in a game. His strength is supposed to be his hands in tight quarters around the net. Except he's never there, and his 24 shots on goal through 16 games shows that even when he is, he's not really effective at getting his hands on pucks. Also, I don't think I've ever seen anyone who is worse at tipping pucks in front of the net. More often than not, he winds up blocking the shot rather than re-directing it past the goalie.

Perhaps it's time for Jacques Martin to put him on the fourth line like he did with Andrei Kostitsyn, because ever since he did that, AK46 appears to be finding his game. He's getting physically involved, creating turnovers, getting (a few) more shots on goal and generally making himself a lot more noticeable on the ice.

Latendresse has had a few games playing with Tomas Plekanec and Max Lapierre on what is supposed to be the Habs second line, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Latendresse demoted the next game. He was on that line at practice today, but Brian Gionta got another therapy day, which meant Kostitsyn took his spot on the top line. But if Gionta dresses Saturday night against Tampa, you would have to imagine Kostitsyn would drop down a spot to play with Plekanec.

While the natural selection for a demotion would be Lapierre, I think he's starting to find his game a little, no doubt inspired by his hatred of the Bruins that had him at his agitating best Thursday night. When you think about it, that quality is pretty well suited to the gentler natures of Plekanec and Kostitsyn. That would leave Latendresse to drop down and play with Tom Pyatt and Ryan White, which might make for a pretty decent combo if Latendresse decides it's time to play as physically as he did last year, when he averaged 2.5 hits per game. This year, that number is down to 1.9 per game.

Speaking of Pyatt and White, I was pretty impressed with their games Thursday night, which is bad news for Gregory Stewart and Kyle Chipchura because I think Martin was impressed as well. I'd be shocked if both of them weren't back in the lineup on Saturday.

I thought Mathieu Carle was also much better in his second game, making a number of smart decisions and sound defensive plays. I don't know if today's waiver claim of Jay Leach means Carle should be worried about his spot in the lineup, but I hope not. Because if the Habs are going to dress a mistake-prone defenceman, I'd rather they do so with a 22-year-old prospect than a 30-year-old minor-league journeyman.

While the question of who will be starting in goal is a constant one with the Canadiens, I don't think there is much debate as to who will be front and centre Saturday night. If it's not Price, I'd be stunned. Which means you should probably expect to see Jaroslav Halak.

Running out of chances

Carey Price has been confirmed as tonight's starter in goal for the Habs, and obviously I applaud the move because I feel he gave his team a chance to win Tuesday night despite allowing five goals.

Having said that, Price is going to have to start performing like he did in the first two games of the season pretty soon, because his performance since then has been very mediocre, and that's being kind. In fact, if you take those first two games out, Price's numbers are downright hideous: 0-6-0 record, 4.25 GAA and .851 SP.

Price simply has to perform facing a Boston Bruins team missing its top two centres now that David Krejci has been felled by the swine flu, a team that hasn't scored in two games, one with an anemic power play that has produced only two goals in its last 39 attempts. On top of that, this is a team that made Price look like a misguided fool in last year's playoffs, and he should motivated for this one like no other game. If Price is average once again, or worse, then we may have to start asking some serious questions about what he can offer the Habs this season, and maybe even beyond that despite his young age.

Gregory Stewart and Kyle Chipchura will be asked to watch from the press box to make room for Ryan White and Tom Pyatt. If this move actually has some impact on the game I'll be shocked, because I don't see either of them playing more than 10 minutes tonight.

What bears watching more than that is how Mathieu Carle and Marc-Andre Bergeron are used, because one of the two will have to start logging some significant even strength minutes at some point if Jacqeus Martin wants his regular defencemen to survive this stretch awaiting the return of Ryan O'Byrne and Hal Gill.

Who would have thought in July that the loss of those two guys would be such a huge deal? But with Andrei Markov on the shelf, it's a significant loss.

But remember this, and I will do my best to remind you all from time to time, if the Habs win tonight they'll be back at .500 with an 8-8-0 record. And that is all you could ask of a team missing by far its best player.

The cavalry's coming!

Yes, the answer to the Canadiens funk lies in today's recall of centres Tom Pyatt and Ryan White from Hamilton. Wrong.

This will do nothing to help cure the Canadiens of what ails them, other than to send a message to the regular group of forwards that they need to improve their backchecking to help the team's heavily depleted defence corps. Because if there's one thing the two guys who were called up are known for, it is that.

Martin did not mince words after Tuesday night's loss to the Kovalchukless Atlanta Thrashers that the Habs defensive breakdowns in fact started in the neutral zone, when forwards were allowed to cross the Montreal blueline with far too much ease and speed. That puts the defence on its heels, and the result is what we saw.

I'm not too sure who will sit out in Boston on Thursday to make room for one or both of Pyatt and White (even though Brian Gionta missed practice today, I'd be shocked if he missed the game), but someone I would like to see on the ice at TD Banknorth Garden is Carey Price. This guy is owed something from someone this season, because while I wouldn't argue he's been spectacular (that would be ludicrous), he hasn't been nearly as bad as his 3.64 GAA and.883 save percentage would suggest.

In half of Price's starts this season the Habs have been a defensive trainwreck, and if there's any team in the NHL that should be a welcome sight for this defence right now, it's the Boston Bruins with no goals in their last two and only three goals over their last four. As bad as your Habs have been of late, the Bruins have been far worse all season.

“Before beating Atlanta we had lost five games in a row, but in the three games before that win we limited the other team’s shots, we gave up fewer chances to score, but we had sequences that prevented us from getting a win," Martin said of a stretch where Halak saw most of the action. "You can't control the result of game, but you can control how you play. Same thing with Carey, he can only control the way he plays, continue working to improve and eventually a win will come."

Jaroslav Halak has had the benefit of a lot of cream puff starts this season, and while the last one should have been one for Price, his teammates didn't make it so. If I'm Martin, I come back with him for a whole slew of reasons, to give him a chance to erase the bad taste in his mouth from last year's playoffs and to prove to him that he wasn't to blame for the loss to Atlanta being tops among them.

While the Habs were sweating over their defensive ineptitude at practice today, CKAC was revealing that Bob Gainey had a little chat recently with his former teammate Chris Chelios, who will be 48 in January. Watching Marc-Andre Bergeron attempt to play defence the other night would lead you to believe that Chelios could not be anywhere near that bad, especially when you consider he has five points in as many games and is a plus-7 with the Chicago Wolves of the AHL so far this season.

But there remains another potentially available defenceman playing in Chicago these days, one promising, young power play quarterback who is being grossly overpaid considering the minutes he's getting, and if I were Gainey my focus would remain squarely fixed here. Cam Barker played only 12:28 in his last game, that 3-2 win over the Habs in Chicago where he notched a goal and an assist. He hasn't played 15 minutes since Game 4 of the season nearly a month ago.

The more he watches his own defence play, the more I would imagine Gainey would be willing to live with whatever Barker deficiency leads the 'Hawks to play him so little in even strength and penalty killing situations.

"They are who we thought they were"

No, I'm not referring to the famous rant by former Arizona Cardinals head coach Dennis Green to describe the Atlanta Thrashers, who waltzed into the Bell Centre Tuesday night without their best player and came away with a 5-4 win. I'm using that delicious quote in reference to your Montreal Canadiens.

A lot of you may be upset with how poorly the Habs played in this loss, how they left their goalie Carey Price to his own devices (again), how they couldn't put together two passes for much of the night, how basic defensive assignments were blown and led to easy goals. That's your right, because as fans you should expect your team give a top effort every night both physically and mentally. That game was one long brain fart for the Habs.

But I'm looking at a bigger picture here, and 15 games into the season the Habs are 7-8-0, one game below .500. Why is that significant? Because it more or less represents the quarter-pole of Montreal's own little mini-season, the one the Canadiens are playing without Andrei Markov on board. Without their own best player, their own version of Ilya Kovalchuk.

With all the changes made to this team and with the very few minutes that team has actually had its best player this season, I think it's easy to forget just how important Markov is to Montreal's chances for success. We've seen it in the past, and we're seeing it now.

For the Canadiens to be sitting with seven wins after 15 games is nothing to be proud of, but it is easily explained, at least. Using injuries as an excuse is the lamest of the lame, but this is not just any injury. How far would the Capitals go without Alex Ovechkin for four months? You might laugh at the comparison, but it's not so laughable because it's clear Markov is the most irreplaceable part the Canadiens have.

So, while we wait for his return, we will have to tolerate horrendous efforts like the one Tuesday night. If it weren't for the Thrashers gift-wrapping two goals for the Canadiens it would have looked a lot worse than it did.

Jacques Martin and Perry Pearn were forced to overtax their defence due to the absence of Hal Gill, whose sudden leg injury that looks like it will cost him weeks may show the fans that have begun booing him at the Bell Centre what his value to the team actually is. Because like it or not, in Markov's absence, Gill is a top-four defenceman on this team, and the Habs could not afford to lose anyone else on the blueline right now.

Among the forwards, the usually effective Glen Metropolit line was pretty quiet against Atlanta, meaning the only unit that actually worked was once again the top line of Scott Gomez, Mike Cammalleri and Brian Gionta, combining for three goals on 12 shots. The second unit centred by Tomas Plekanec had its moments, but I feel Maxim Lapierre is not nearly as effective as a winger as he was last year at centre. Guillaume Latendresse had a decent up front, generating a handful of chances, but he finished the game with one hit. One. That can't happen for him on any night, because even if the puck isn't going in, laying the body is something he can and should generate every single game.

I don't blame Martin for keeping the stacked top line together simply becayse it's the only thing working on a consistent basis, but if I might make a suggestion, I would split up Gomez from his wingers and give them to Plekanec. I feel the guy deserves it because he's been Montreal's best centre in terms of consistency and effort. How else do you explain him being tied for the team lead in scoring despite having a revolving door of ineffective wingers playing around him? Don't any of you wonder what he might do with Gionta and Cammalleri playing alongside him? I do. Then I would flank Gomez with Latendresse and Andrei Kostitsyn, who responded to the challenge thrown at him by Martin by showing more of the "intensity and determination" the coach is looking for from him, as evidenced by his four hits on the night. Keep the Metro line intact and throw Lapierre back at centre on the fourth line by moving Kyle Chipchura to the wing.

This is a combination that hasn't really gotten a shot all season and I still feel like the top two lines represent scoring threats under this scenario, assuming Kostitsyn and Latendresse bring it on a regular basis. I also feel Gomez would be a beneficial partner for the youngsters because of his playmaking abilities.

Just a suggestion. What do you think?

Plus, in case any of you don't know what I'm talking about with the headline, here's the reference:

Let's see if it has the same effect

When the Habs took a 7-1 thumping in Vancouver a few weeks back, there was a definite positive effect that came out of that loss.

The defence tightened up, the breakout improved, the offence began to produce.

The result, eventually, was a four-game winning streak, albeit at home against some pretty weak competition. But a four-game win streak is still nothing to sneeze at.

So, what will be the effect of this 6-1 beat down at the hands of the Stanley Cup champs?

Well, there are few areas the Habs can definitely show improvement, and I'm not talking about this game, because frankly, that was a pretty predictable loss.

The Habs have allowed 12 power plays over the past two games and given up four goals. They allowed 14 power plays over the previous four games, allowing one 5-on-3 goal. Sometimes, and this game was a perfect example, taking a penalty can cost your team even if it is killed off, because what it does is either kill your momentum or increase that of the opponent.

I think we saw that when Hal Gill took a pretty boneheaded delay of game penalty right before the end of the first period. It allowed the Pens to start the second on a power play, putting the Habs on their heels, and they never really recovered. Jacques Martin said yesterday that the one area he'd like to see his team improve is special teams, but I would have mentioned discipline as well.

It would be hard for me, or the coach, to call out any individual players for performing poorly after such a collective non-effort, but the group of defencemen in general were over-matched tonight. Of course, when you're facing Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin every second shift, that's to be expected.

The Habs shouldn't hang their heads because that wouldn't be very constructive. Instead, they got another opportunity to see what happens when the system is ignored for a night, because this team really has little margin for error, at least when it's not playing the Islanders.

Now for the big question, which is the starting goalie Friday night in Chicago. Jaroslav Halak wasn't horrible in allowing four goals on 23 shots, but he wasn't outstanding either. As great as Crosby's first of the night was, Halak was actually over there in time and just whiffed on it. Crosby's second goal was just a great play by him that I don't think any goalie on earth would have stopped, and Halak had some bad luck on the third one with Crosby in alone.

So, the natural assumption is that Carey Price gets the start in Chicago, and I can't really argue with it except to say that the Habs play Toronto at home the next night. I don't know if teams actually think this way, or even if they should, but shouldn't Martin be focusing his attention on winning Saturday night's game? If Price plays Friday and shuts out the 'Hawks, can you bring him back against the Leafs a night later? If he starts Halak on Friday and saves Price for the Leafs, does Martin drive a further stake into the heart of his franchise goalie?

Chances are Price gets the call Friday night, but I just don't think it's as much of a slam dunk decision as many may think it is.