Now or Never

From Colby Cosh, on the Oilers:

"I still don't think the team has really confronted anything resembling adversity in these playoffs, and I don't for one second trust in their collective psychological ability to rebound from it."

Well, the Habs have been confronted with adversity, in both the playoffs and regular season.

The loss of Kovalev for a knee tune-up coincided nicely with an early season tailspin. The team is 3-10 when Andrei Markov is out of the lineup. We all know what happened when the Jose Theodore foofoorah came to a crescendo. It took the Olympic break for the team to collect themselves, after which they went on a solid run to earn a playoff spot.

After jumping out to a 2-0 lead in this series, the Habs haven't won since Koivu left the ice in game 3. We don't have the luxury of a three week holiday to regroup. It's now or never October, boys.

~~~

Some links:

Handshake time? Kuya's not saying kumbaya.

Here's the Habsblog preview of game 6.

Al Strachan, has been covering the Habs off and on all season.