CANADIENS 2, THRASHERS 6
I had posted an article saying how huge this game was for the Canadiens and how badly they needed to win this one.
Guess Guy Carbonneau didn't take out the Sharpie pen like I said and didn't scrawl out the standings on his board for each player to see where their so-called "team" has sunk.
In the first five minutes of the game, I had some hope, the forecheck was aggressive, we were causing turnovers like crazy from a somewhat inconsistent Thrashers defence.
Chris Higgins fired the puck 4 times on Kari Lehtonen in the first period alone.
Sound good so far? I hope this is the image you keep of the game...the first 5 minutes, and forget the rest.
The "rest" consists of Andrei Markov paying for teammates' lousy backchecking by taking a kind of chronic hooking penalty.
With Markov in the box, the Thrashers took control of the game from there.
Newly acquired Alexei Zhtinik, who's been a nice fit for Bob Hartley, faked a slap shot from the right point and threw the puck to teammate Ilja Kovalchuk, playing the high left point who blasted it towards rookie Jaroslav Halak.
Halak was in position to make a left pad save, however he misread the shot as it was coming towards the blocker side. By consequence, the puck hit off the inside of his left pad, bounced off the right, and trickled into the net to give Ilja Kovalchuk his 36th goal of the season, and the Thrashers a one goal lead.
This goal completely demoralized the Canadiens, as they continued for the next couple minutes playing boring, shoddy defensive and a limited offensive style.
Then it was enough.
Things went from bad to worse as the Canadiens just couldn't clear the puck out of their zone, giving the Thrashers glorious chances on which Halak was superb.
Then as you guessed it, exactly two minutes after the first goal, they would pay for this...the unreliable delinquent, Sergei Samsonov didn't help his cause by picking the puck up, skating through centre ice just before he hit the Canadiens blue line giving the puck to Eric Belanger who fired a pass to the front of the goal where Jonathan Sim was all alone! With no one there to stop him, Sim simply tapped the puck through the legs of the exasperated Jaroslav Halak.
2-0 Thrashers and I had enough.
I turned off the television screen and decided to go play hockey myself, during the outdoor game, one of my buddies picked his cell and called to ask the score.
"Please" I was asking myself, "Please God, let them score a goal, " since God is the only thing that can save Montreal now.
My friend shut his phone off and looked me in the eye, I could see it coming.
"It's 6-0 Thrashers", he said.
Those words were like a dagger to the throat, I started yelling like a mad man.
What else could I do? There was no hope for a comeback, not even a small chance.
What did I care? I forgot about the game and played the wonderful game of hockey which was not so wonderful for 23 individuals now dropping even lower in the standings.
And to make my night even more miserable, the Rangers beat the Islanders 2-1 to move up ahead of us in the Standings.
My dad called me and told me Sergei Samsonov was benched the entire 3rd period.
He finished the night at -3 with 1 shot on goal. What a waste of $3.5 million out of George Gillett's pocket.
And to add insult to injury, Francis Bouillon decided to drop 'em against Keith Tkachuk...
God...please, save this team, obviously nobody on this Earth can.
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