Road Trip

If you thought this road trip was bad, just you wait...

"Tonight's game launches an arduous six-game road trip that doesn't end until Jan. 28. From Calgary, the Canadiens continue west, to Vancouver on Saturday, before flying across the continent to meet Carolina and then making their way north to Philadelphia, Ottawa and Toronto."

This collection of opponents includes five division leaders (Vancouver and Calgary are now tied with Colorado). They sport a collective record of 97-28-12 at home. Montreal's record on the road now sits at 7-10-4. Six dastardly opponents in ten days. In the words of Shaggy: Zoinks! New coaches or not, the Habs will do very well to scrape together half a dozen points over this stretch.

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Ah, Andrei Markov.

First, some good news:

"Ovechkin says San Jose's Scott Hannan and Montreal's Andrei Markov are the toughest defenders he's faced."

Now, the bad news:

"Andrei Markov... will miss three weeks with a torn rotator cuff in his left shoulder."

DAMMIT!

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Here's an excellent article by Jack Todd on Pat Quinn and the Claude Julien situation.

"With Bob Gainey, the Canadiens finally have clout in the GM position. Now they have it behind the bench with Gainey and Guy Carbonneau. As good a man as Julien is, as thoroughly prepared as he was for the head coach's job, he never had that kind of clout, through no fault of his own."

It's a good point Todd makes. If Montreal wants to contend with Toronto for the title of Centre of the Known Hockey Universe, if they want to restore some of that lost cachet and fading mystique, it helps to have that 'clout' in the most visible positions.

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The Calgary Sun did a couple of point-counterpoint articles on the "Canada's Team" debate.

Scott Fisher:

"Toronto may have borrowed Canada's Maple Leaf for its logo. But the Leafs are not Canada's Team. That prestigious title belongs to the Bleu, Blanc et Rouge."

Steve MacFarlane:

"Should every other Canadian team but the Habs and Leafs be eliminated from playoff contention, fans of the others would probably support the Habs and still be outnumbered by the number of Toronto supporters."

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In another example of the blog world kicking the crap out of mainstream media coverage, check out the item on Zigmund Palffy's sudden retirement by the inimitable Jes Gőlbez.

I thought Ziggy might reconsider his retirement from international play and go out with a last hurrah for his country in the upcoming Olympics. Not so much after reading that.

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This has been post #100. Time flies when you're having fun.