Following Saturday night's 7-4 massacre of the Boston Bruins on home ice, the Montreal Canadiens had plenty to be proud of, but their lack of a quality fighter to defend those star players is evident.
Games against the B's are always intense, leading to a few fights, notably Tom Kostopoulos dropping the mits twice, Andrei Kostitsyn learning a lesson a hard way to the hands of Mark Stuart, and Guillaume Latendresse taking a few swings at the monstrous Zdeno Chara.
Besides Kostitsyn's newfound fondness of dropping the gloves at an unexpected time (just kidding) and Kostopoulos getting slapped with a 1-game suspension for instigating a fight in the final minutes of the games, Latendresse showed Habs managment they need size and they need it now.
Taking on Chara is a big feat, someting your average player wouldn't dare image to attempt in his most twisted dreams, but when the antagonist attempts to concuss Alex Kovalev, who ducked out of the way near the end of the 3rd period along the right wing boads with Chara deliberately trying to make a sandwich out of his head and the glass, and you got a sophomore like Latendresse coming to his defence, it's sending a strong message to Mr Gainey up in his posh pressbox.
GET A GOON!
I'm not a big fan of what I call useless fighters, such as former duds like Aaron Downey and Garth Murray, but rather for the Habs picking up some muscle to defend their star players, in this case Kovalev.
Sure no one really wants to get a piece of Zdeno Chara, but in the end, when a guy like Jeremy Reich, who played a total of 4:10, is sent out onto the ice with a mission to knock down Carey Price, you need to have a goon there to show him who's boss.
GET A GOON!
Pick up Todd Fedoruk, who has just been waived by new co-GM's Brett Hull and Les Jackson in Dallas, to add some punch to the puzzle on what is poised (barring another December 23rd meltdown) to be a fine Canadiens campaign, and perhaps one for the ages.
On a side note, The "Big Bird", Larry Robinson, is getting his number retired tonight by the Habs en route to their centennial 2009 season...congratulations to him!
Until next time with your biased Montreal Canadiens post,
-BBeR
2 fanatics have replied:
It's Jeremy Reich and not Leich...
Damn RDS had me confused.
First Leich, then Reich, then Leich.
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