MONTREAL - Jaroslav Halak was a breath short of calling last night's game the easiest challenge he's had all season. Call it a favour to his old teammates that he didn't refer to it as exactly that.

But when asked to comment on the performance his new teammates (new-ish; he's been there since last season), he was able to recognize how much they facilitated his job last night.

Sure, there was the breakaway save on Tomas Plekanec, on a short-handed rush just a few minutes into the game. There was the one on Mathieu Darche, who scrambled for a loose puck in the third period, a golden opportunity that was robbed by Halak's quick glove-hand reflex.

But in his time as a Montreal netminder, Halak proved his vulnerability was in his rebound-control, and even if he was loose in that department last night, the Canadiens did hardly anything to force the issue.

Halak didn't spend his night avoiding the customary traffic an opponent seeks to create in front of him; he didn't spend it on second efforts; and he certainly didn't spend it worrying about the reception he'd receive from the Bell Centre faithful.

It wasn't the customary 40+ save performance Halak had become notorious for in Montreal, but in typical fashion, he was the lone reason people stood up to cheer in the building last night.


Contrast Between Blues and Canadiens is Bold

When you analyze the hockey the St. Louis Blues are playing for Ken Hitchcock, you can't help but wonder why the Canadiens stopped doing it for Jacques Martin.

When asked what the success of his hockey team was last night, Hitchcock referred to the commitment his players have shown in ensuring that "all five guys are in the picture, in every zone."

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

I prodded further, wanting to know what the essentials were in executing that kind of system.

He responded, "It's all about the forwards. If they don't come back deep enough in the zone; if they don't want to skate; if they can't keep from flying out of the zone too soon, it all falls apart."

But when the players are willing and able, the result is a near mistake-free performance, one in which the team rarely gets caught in an odd-man rush situation, one in which the team doesn't give the puck away as often.

Between Martin and Cunneyworth, Hitchcock's system is the exact same one the Canadiens have tried to incorporate all season. Their failure has been in getting each and every player to consistently commit to it.

And if you read between the lines of Hitchcock's evaluation of his own team's performance, you can easily see why the Canadiens seemed so outmatched last night.

The forwards of the Canadiens may be coming back deep enough, but they aren't stopping there to give their defencemen a quick out. They're flying out of the zone too early, and they're scrambling to make things happen in the neutral zone when the wait-time for a pass has taken them off course. The work they're doing in the offensive zone is disjointed as a result.

It's not all on the forwards. The Canadien blueliners have to be sharp enough to turn around and force the forwards to regroup, but most of them crumbled under the pressure of the St. Louis forecheck, and looking for the easy out that wasn't available often meant playing right into the trap the Blues had established all night.


Missed Assignments

Mike Cammalleri admitted after the game that the Canadiens need to find a way to make things tougher on their opponents.

He didn't offer any analysis on what would've led to that result against the Blues, but I'd have no problem suggesting that not flying by your man in the defensive zone would go a long way towards making it harder for the opponent to score.

Cammalleri and Tomas Kaberle were guilty of that offence on the Blues' second goal, and what was a close game (in terms of score, and not in terms of the way it was played) slipped further out of reach with the establishment of a two-goal deficit.


Price Deserved Better

Carey Price was frustrated about the result of last night's game and its impact on the Canadiens' standing in the Eastern Conference. And though he'd have told you that last night's match-up with Halak was no more important than any other game the team must play this season, it would've been nice to see his teammates give him a fighting chance at a win.

Instead, while the Canadiens watched their opportunity for a win skate right by them, the Blues offered Halak (whether he wanted to define it as such, or not) the easiest night of work he's had all season.