Wilde Horses
- Brendan Gallagher with the same amount of what we are always used to. He buzzsaws his way around the ice, not taking no for an answer.
- I can't put a lot of players here really. They had a lot of guys standing out on an excellent playoff run but in this one to quote Jon Cooper, the Habs were pedestrian. Not awful players but just nothing from anyone that stands out in order to win a game as big as an elimination game in a second round series. Full marks to the Lightning that no one on the Habs was really all that good.
Wilde Goats
- Felt like a night of poor fortune pretty early when Markov had two chances on the same shift to rip a slap shot and his stick blew up in his hands both times. The second stick never did a thing, good or bad, before it did a horrendous thing. Kind of a bad omen.
- It was the worst of times. It was the worst of times for Plekanec in the first period. He had the best chance for the Habs in the first period with the net his for the taking but he shot it right into an essentially beaten Bishop and then on the Lightning goal it was the Plekanec giveaway that set up the perfect Kucherov deflection that Price had no chance on from two feet.
- The first five minutes of the second was just awful for all 18 skaters. They did nothing at all but watch Lightning dance. When you get down 3-0 in a series you cannot afford five bad minutes. That's your final lifeline flashing.
- The power play. Seriously. The power play was just so bad in terms of options that needed to be created around every team's effort to shut down Subban. If the other team concentrates on Subban then surely the next step is to isolate the short man situation that concentrating on Subban creates. Some new minds are needed on the power play. These minds had their chance. They didn't do anything. And to be brutally honest, the Habs are still playing hockey with even a bad power play and not a horrific one. Even a bad power play has the Habs taking a game early in the series and then this series is now tied at 3. That power play was just putting zeroes on the board night after night after night. The power play counts for less than it used to in hockey but you are just not giving yourself a cup chance with 0 for 5, 0 for 4, 0 for 6, 0 for 3 and on and on. When most games end 2-1 or the high scoring ones 3-2, the game changes pretty drastically with just a one for something every once in a while.
- I have to, in the final Call of the Wilde, reiterate my long held call at centre. The strongest players have to be there. The future of Galchenyuk at centre must begin. Win the middle, win the game. The other centres: Plekanec, Eller, and De La Rose. Desharnais needs to move to the wing. The big investment of the Habs is the third overall pick Galchenyuk. He's still a young man and his maturation and development is absolutely essential to the future of the franchise. It is time.
Wilde Cards
- Fans are going to read this in a sour mood but there's a reason that a team has come back from a 3-0 deficit only four times out of 183. It's hard. It's really hard. It's damn bloody hard. I think credit should be given to the effort to get to a game 6 and lose with respectability after a horrendous start for many reasons that I will now list below. Don't take all of that love you felt for them after game 5 and turn it into hate because of a different outcome. They dug a too big hole, but that does not cancel out a great deal of character and heart to get to where they were.
- The reason the Habs lost this series to me is very simple. They scored on two per cent of their shots for the first three games of it. Now there are three reasons for this: they don't have enough talented finishers, Ben Bishop is amazing, or they had horrible puck luck. Pick one. Hell, pick two or three. That's hockey. They only count the goals in the end. An outsider without a stake in the game will put it that simple and not point any particular fingers at any particular player. Sometimes you go nine per cent shooting, and sometimes you go 11. When you're hot, you go 14. When you're cold, you go six. However, when you go two and you need 45 to 50 shots to score a goal, you don't win. The Habs dominated the Corsi for those who look to that measure and they were poor at that for much of the year. What I am trying to say here is don't rewrite the lineup next season. This lineup needs a scorer or two that can finish better and to keep the defence and goalie as strong as it is now. As fans, don't drop down a ton of hurt on the Habs who played a hell of a series but the puck wouldn't find the net. They carried the play a lot of the series. They showed courage. They have great character. They wanted it badly to a man. Sometimes, it just does not work out. People don't like a pragmatic message like that, I know, but you're not going to find harsh massive criticism here from me. They did all that they could and they could have just as easily won but the puck did what a puck does - it finds a way in for one team slightly more than the other team when two teams are even and both are doing a lot of things right.
So now we look forward to next year. The future for this organization is massively bright. The core is young, talented and hungry. They need more two scorers with natural finish. They need Petry back or someone like him. They already have the world's best goalie. They need a power play coach. They'll be back. They'll be better. The future is brighter than it has been and the last two seasons they made it to the third round and the second round. The breakthrough is on the horizon.
