As the Canadiens losing streak reached six games, coach Jacques Martin talked about accentuating the positive and eliminating the negative.
And in a subdued room, Josh Gorges said “our fans deserve better.”
(Photo of Jacques Martin by Pierre Obendrauf of The Gazette)
The Canadiens had 41 shots on goal.
Peter Budaj was solid in his first start of the regular season.
They finally scored on the power play.
But the losing streak hit six, Max Pacioretty got hurt and the drumbeats of discontent grow ever louder in Montreal.
Sean Gordon of the Globe & Mail received an email from a friend, commenting on Erik Cole’s first game as a Canadien, which came on the power-play:
“So let me get this straight: The Canadiens’ only goal comes from a strategy suggested by a young reporter whom Martin rudely dismissed. Yeah, he’s on top of his s–t.”
Dismaying stat: For the first time in 102 years, your Montreal Canadiens have lost their first five home games of the season.
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I usually have something cynical to say about these matters but I don’t think I can add anything to what has already been said.
I’ma strong believer in you have to hit rock bottom before you smarten up ! By next week we should be there !! I don ‘ t profess 1970 hockey by I do expect some push back !! The reason for all the injuries isn’t because they don’t stretch enough!! It’s because “anybody” can run roughshod over them….. Even in the board rooms people respect push back !!!!
If we win against Philly and even split the Boston games, I’ll have renewed faith in the team. They are good enough, but now they have to do it. Win. Things will change, as bleak as they look. Pleeease no Pacioretty fracture. This is honestly becoming a cruel joke.
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The Drive for 25
lets take a look for a minute on the difference in personnel between this team and last years. last year the core on defense were gill subban spacek gorges and hammer.then wiz was added.so we are missing hammer and wiz.okay now the forwards.who are we missing halpern pouliot and white who is injured. with cole and pac the forward lines are more menacing.yes we miss halpern but the weakness is defense ,diaz and webber/emelin cant at this stage substitute for hammer and the wiz.question is will diaz emelin or webber eventually improve to compensate for the loss of those two players.if markov can return things will change cuz looking at the difference in personnel i would say the top three lines hve improved and we just need a tweek on defense and then let them gel and roll
Your post is thoughtful and I have taken that line of thought on occasion. I think the problem is the Habs had lights out goaltending last year and the year before. I can remember games where they didn’t play as well as the opposition and pulled the game out and quite often actually. The other consideration is the teams all over the NHL have improved some too. It only takes a moderate improvement to make the difference. So I think goaltending while it has been okay it hasn’t been sensational as in the past 2 years
I disagree that we couldn’t win based on our current players. They need a coach that knows how to lead and to make them care as a team- they have to rise up to the challenge every night. Some players need to be held accountable for not sticking up for Price; and for Gods sake, bench the forwards who are afraid to create a presence in front of the net. We have no one there. If I saw any player balking at situations, he wouldn’t play anymore. I CAN’T BELIEVE the obvious details this coaching staff misses. How can they be so blind???
problem isn’t the injuries it is our roster. Our Defense is our biggest problem. Yes, we can’t score…but this team really never but up big offensive numbers we can’t keep it out of our net either
We all realize that both Martin and Gauthier need to go. But there’s a problem: we also know that neither one of them should have ever been hired in the first place. Heck, even Gainey probably knew that when the two of them were brought in. But the point here is that they were brought in anyway, even though everyone knew that they were all wrong.
Why?
Very simple: because somewhere along the way someone got the bright idea that anyone who was to be the head coach or general manager of this team MUST speak French as a condition of his employment. Essentially, the Habs are operating as though they are no different than a retail shoe store or fast food restaurant in Quebec.
I’m not saying that a guy is incapable of being a winner because he speaks French or that no one who speaks French is competent enough to coach the Habs. What I am saying is that when language becomes a pre-requisite for these jobs it is, essentially, the only thing that’s ever allowed to matter. The pool of competent NHL coaches and GM’s is shallow enough as it is. Take away all the unilingual anglophones and you are now selecting from a pool of people small enouh to be counted on the fingers of one hand, which is good because doing that essentially ties the other hand behind your back.
Unless or until the Habs grow a pair, stand up to the francophone media jackals and other latent Nordiques fanboys masquerading as pundits and simply tell the public that they are, from now on, only going to hire people based on actual merit and hockey acumen rather than the simple ability to speak French, this team will go nowhere.
And so-called fans who support this French-first policy need to wake up to the fact that this isn’t the 1950′s anymore where there were only six teams and 120 players in the entire league, nearly all of whom were Canadian and with a good number of French Canadians. Today’s NHL is 30 teams, over 700 players from all over the world and the number of French Canadian players is fewer than 50 and not all of them are superstars either. For every Patrice Bergeron or Marty St. Louis there are a half-dozen stiffs who couldn’t score in a whorehouse like Darche. Do these people really expect the Habs to somehow acquire all of the good ones?
Bottom line: the people in charge of running this franchise should not be turning it into an exercise in political science. It is a hockey team that used to have an identity and I’m not talking about a French identity because that was always overstated. For every Richard or Beliveau or Lafleur there was a Harvey, a Moore or a Shutt. No, the identity this team forged over a century of play, the identity which made this team mean what it means to its fans is that of a winner. Real fans should only care about winning because that tradition is what has always set the Habs apart.
If this team isn’t going to be identified with winning anymore, who really cares how many francophones are on the roster or about whether or not the coach can talk to Rejean Tremblay in his mother tongue?
Well put.
- the Panthers forwards outskated us and outworked us in our zone all night. When a Hab got to the puck first, clearing the zone was extremely difficult, the worst I’ve seen in a while. Habs deserved to lose if only for that.
- one of the few bright spots: Eller. He looks too good for this linemates, or even too good for this team. Oy vey!
- let’s not forget Markstrom was quite good against us. Two or three huge saves early on to keep his team in it. Sound familiar?…
- oh and just for the hell of it…the Panthers aren’t a joke of a team anymore. I thought they looked like a good, new-look young team that believes in the coach and shows some hustle. Like I said above, hard work won them this game. Kudos to them.
They went through a worse stretch of games last season.
We win 2 of the next 3 to finish the week and we won’t be out of it yet.
Hands off the suicide buttons.
i heard on tsn 990 tongught toni was mentionning something about a possible return for jaques lemaire ! i hope to god he is right!
Quelle arrete de carey price!
D.O.A._______________________________FlatLine Habs
midgets have been on the team since 1993 …..remember naslund
We have been hoping for a power forward big enough to at least get on the rides at LaRonde..Hasn’t happened.
Our version of a Cigar Store Indian must go,.and so should PG their idea of ‘system’s Stink
TUE DEC 6, 2011. Circle that date on your calendars.
Columbus comes to town?
This is a pretty simple equation.
(A) If the roster is good and the team is losing then the coach must go.
(B) if the roster is weak and the team is losing then the GM must go.
(C) A mix of (A) + (B)
I think it’s (C).
Who is to blame?
It all starts with Bob Gainey. He is the guy that traded for Gomez and signed midget FWDS back in the summer of 2009.
I also blame Boivin for putting a mandatory “French speaking” noose on Gainey when replacing Carbonneau.
Jacques Martin is simply living up to his standard: bonafide loser coach (and GM).
Pierre Gautier is simply another guy that lands a job b/c he can speak French. He too hasn’t won anything in this league.
It is nearly impossible to change your front staff during a season b/c the best already have a job and are unlikely to dump their current post simply to run the front office and bench in Montreal. What you’ll end up with is another Houle/Tremblay scenario, “dumb and dumber” … NO THANKS!
I think both Gautier and Martin are here for the season, it will be a long one. Maybe we’ll nail down the #1 draft and unload a bunch of midgets along the way.
This season is toast.
Interesting fact. The Habs are in 4th place in the NHL in shots for per game and 7th lowest in shots against.
However, they are 20th in goals for and 25th in goals against.
Their offense is actually the best it’s been since JM has been coach, which isn’t saying much. The problem is the Habs defense is the worst it’s been as well. Being 25th in goals against when you’re scoring is 20th is a recipe for the draft lottery.
My opinion, my perception, is that the Habs are overloaded with small forwards and coupled with the Spacek-Diaz-Weber redundancy are paying the price for it in these close losses. The Habs also are unable to come back from deficits. It’s early in the season and the team is already wounded, now becoming demoralized. Add to this all the money tied up in the Markov and Gomez contracts. Now consider that half the salary cap is tied up until 2014.
It’s logistics.
The holes on this team can’t be mended easily, certainly not in a season. Firing Martin would not be a good move as nobody is going to squeeze a Stanley Cup out this team with it’s current roster any ways.
I am apprehensive still I admit. However I will wait and see what transpires. My only hope is that the Habs don’t bet the farm on 20th place.
the issue is.. it’s nice and swell that they played well ‘n all
but they still don’t win.
and when you don’t win you don’t get 2 points
and when you don’t get 2 points you don’t make the playoffs.
so unless this teams pops off 10 wins in a row there is no way we r making the playoffs.
we r getting buried way too deep
just look at NJD last year
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The 2010-11 Stanley Cup was not won, but given
Today on HIO there was a poster who has followed the Habs since the 1940′s …I repeat the moth*&fu@^ing 1940′s ,and he stated he has never seen a worse Habs team! Like ,what does he know anyway’s ,lol?
In 1941/42, it took the team until their 13th game to post their 2nd win of the year. So for now, yeah, they were a little worse.
Whats the over/under on JM lasting until game 13 lol?
I guarantee the Bruins and Julien will take pleasure in and make it a mission to destroy the Habs as they stand in the 2 game series coming up!And that will be the change date!
I guess things could be worse, Jeffrey Loria could’ve bought the team and we’d end up in Washington… and they never get out of the first round…
So tired of this crap… g’night
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“I wish we were WICKED AWESOME like the Broons and their chowdahhead fans and their backwards baseball caps”
I think JM is going to be here until around the 15 game mark. Unless a major shift happens…. he’ll be moved to the front office… maybe in the PR department, lol
Who I would love to come in? Muller and Carbo. Say what you will about Carbo – for a season, at least, he got offense out of Timmins’ picks. And both those guys can do what JM can’t teach – sound defense with offensive flair.
Hey, it could be worse. the 1941/42 Habs took until their 13th game to register their 2nd win of the season.
It took the 1935/36 squad 26 games to register their 2nd home win.
In 1925/26 they lost 12 in a row.
On the positive side, in 1956/57 they had a 7-game winless streak and won the Cup. They also won it in 1967/68, a season in which they suffered through a stretch of just 3 wins in 19 games.
And in (fairly) recent history, the 1985/86 team had a 6-game losing streak, yet won the Cup. And they didn’t play much for that coach, either.
A far cry from 1976/77, when they lost only 1 of their last 33. Or the following year, when they also has a span of 1 loss in 33 games… and only 3 of their last 50.
Soft GM, soft players, soft coach, hard times…
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“I wish we were WICKED AWESOME like the Broons and their chowdahhead fans and their backwards baseball caps”
Hey smiler your a goalie ,what did ya think of the panthers rookie tender? I was impressed !
Best thing about him is the cockiness. Looks like he had a blast playing the Habs tonight but then every goalie other than Pavelec has had fun playing the Habs this year.
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“I wish we were WICKED AWESOME like the Broons and their chowdahhead fans and their backwards baseball caps”
coming to a theatre near you soon. Dumb and Dummer – 3
starring PG and JM.
weird, turns out i’ve been watching that for awhile
smiler2729 – maybe you should learn how to spell – learn a little bit about hockey while you’re at it.
Dummer?
Yeah… um, when you can’t even spell the word, well, umm… oh never mind.
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“I wish we were WICKED AWESOME like the Broons and their chowdahhead fans and their backwards baseball caps”
Hey look over there! AH, you missed it. Don’t worry it was just the point.
Olé, olé, olé oleé
Does anybody honestly want the Habs to tank, or are people being sarcastic? I would hate to spend the year like this. Personally I think we’ll make the playoffs and it will be exciting.
Yeah, and we get to draft Andrew Luck!
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“I wish we were WICKED AWESOME like the Broons and their chowdahhead fans and their backwards baseball caps”
Habs management is too dumb to figure it out!
Who in the world offers a 1 legged D over 5 million a year who hasn’t played in 2 years and may not play the next 3!
41 shots and 1 goal to show for it. Why is it whoever’s in net on the opposition suddenly becomes an “elite” goalie against us? The word is definitely out in the league, rush the goalie, intimidate. Even when the play is away from our crease our goalies get intimidated, did you notice the panther player needlessly nudging Budaj in the head simply because he glided to close to him while our defenseman was setting up a rush from behind the net? It’s ridiculous. Management’s post lock out team philosophy has finally caught up to them. We need grit.
Carey would have responded with the edge of a blocker into the guy’s throat.
I wonder if all of those scouts got their moneys’ worth.
I said when they hired Martin! They should have hired Dineen. High tempo aggressive coach who doesn’t play ropy dope hockey.
They couldn’t score in a soccer net…
2015 the Habs win the Stanley Cup. You heard it here first.
“Keep Calm and Carry On”
Hey Martin, Trump called.. he said you’re FIRED!
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Twitter: Habziefan09
Confucius says: “Baseball has it all wrong, Man with 4 balls cannot walk!”
http://habziefan09.blogspot.com
Then Austin Powers said, “Yeeeaah, baby!” and Borat was all like, “Niiiiiiiice.”
not sure if firing Martin will solve anything. How many good bilingual coaches are available right now? FORGET ABOUT PATRICK ROY!! makes me laugh when people blame the coach. Blame PG (and Gainey) for putting a mediocre team together. What about Carey Price? PK Subban? Gionta? Gomez? Plecks? Gorges? the way the supposed “core players” are playing, they couldn’t crack an AHL roster. Things should improve slightly once certain players start pulling their weight, but reality is that this is not a team that can contend for a cup no matter who is behind the bench.
i honestly feel like this team is just subtly hinting at theres something wrong with the coaching and management just a feeling i cant let go
Get off JM’s back..After all, he did protect the 2-1 deficit perfectly…Sheesh..
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Yes, I’m a Hab fan..Wanna fight about it?
team is too freaking small…open your eyes..cannot sustain any forecheck – cannot dump and chase…struggle to get the puck out of our own end and cannot stop our opponents – even the crappy ones, from easily clearing…if this team does not get excellent goaltending and cash like mad on the PP – we have no chance…its pretty sad..lets be honest – FLA was a much better team tonight – even without the goaler…this team needs a shake up and needs some freakin passion.
you know your hockey. too small and no forecheck because there undersized. face we have had exceptional goaltending now for year. Theo, Price, Halak. without it were doomed but not even a good goalie could save us now. defense is too weak! too bad its hurting us all.
Some positives tonight. Not all is lost.
yep, we still got our first round pick
clever
I agree. A few of these losses, they’ve played pretty well in. I’ve seen the Habs play worse than they did tonight and win plenty of times.
I still don’t miss Gomez.
Desharnais and Eller are better than Gomez
Guys, get off JM’s back..After all, he did protect the 2-1 deficit perfectly…Sheesh..
*edit: I posted this at 11:55PM..Why does it say 11:46pm? lol
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Yes, I’m a Hab fan..Wanna fight about it?
team needs to run four lines, martin is desperate they run out of gas the last 2 games in the third period. you got to run 4 lines period. so much parity in the nhl that anyone could beat anyone. if could turn this around and make the playoffs but its doubtful, too many holes in the line up and too many smurfs. DD is too small or one of too many smurfs.
Florida announcer on Panthers broadcast show Henri Richard & say there is a trophy named after him for most goals scored in a season (or words to that effect)……
Look….ya take the francophone player out of the Montreal Canadiens you take away the passion.No french players ,no big tough testy players ,no big defense men , No big net crashing forwards that can scrap anyone anytime “cept my man Moen!” No coach,no G.M. AND AN OWNER THAT MAKES SH!T BEER! What did you all think was gonna happen,and thank god it finally happened”so much for charts eh!”Now ….lets make change and never let this happen again!
Hey now, lets not hate on the beer. I agree with the rest of your statement, but haiting on molson, thats just low man :p
Steinlager mate …no hangover…still can make money next day,lol
Tony Mariano saying on the Team 990 tonight that if the Habs make a coaching change, it would be Jacques Lemaire coming in.
1) The team would play even more boring hockey as Lemaire is Mr. New Jersey hockey.
2) We would then see the unthinkable, Mario Tremblay back behind the bench. You just know Lemaire would hire him as his AC.
Don’t knock Mario. Patrick Roy was a difficult player to coach and he scapped with many teammates through the years. Mario Tremblay was a team player and won 5 stanley cups. He is a changed man and may do a good job as a coach.
Don’t knock Patrick, he’s the only reason this franchise doesn’t have a cup drought stretching back to 1979.
Give a break,not the only reason! don’t discount the efforts of others like Kirk Muller, Claude Lemieux, Matts Naslund.
Or Steve Smith.
@hardhabits; Touché
“Andrei Kostitsyn is a better hockey player than Max Pacioretty”
- Sean Bonjovi
I’m with you, Matt. How many OT wins in 93 playoffs? Like 10? Without, Roy, that year would have been a first round exit. ’86 he pulled a Dryden. No Patrick and we would be going on what “33″ years without a cup. Is that coincidental or is my math f’d up?
Born and Bred in Enemy Territory (Boston).
As long as Robinson is GM i’m good!
Unfortunately when you play a game like tonight’s that you probably should have won, behind a bunch of stinkers, it doesn’t count for much.
I really think Gauthier is as much at fault as Martin.
We as fans might not have the inside track and might not all be experts but give us some credit, it was painfully obvious after last season that we toughen up as a group.
So with all that in mind Gauthier decides to gamble on the wonky knee of Markov and let a fiesty and also offensively gifted Wisniewski walk. Wisniewski has had a couple surgeries as well but they are clearly behind him.
Then he lets big and solid Hamrlik walk, which would have been OK if he was properly replaced. Emelin might one day be OK, but to rely on him along with Weber, Diaz and an aging Spacek was plain stupid.
Poeople like myself were criticized all summer long for suggesting bringing in a tough guy who could also play the game on the fourth line like Konopka and a tough stay-at-home defenseman like O’Brien. Both were free agents.
Brutal summer by our GM.
Things I feel in my gut I still analyze to ensure that they don’t clash with my sensibilities. Too often here it seems that people think things are the way the wish them to be. I believe things are the way you make them.
It’s weird how seemingly 90% of the fans wanted or at least was happy when we lost hammer. “Big and solid”, geez he really looks good now after everyone crapped on him last year almost as much as spaceman.
It was probably good to let an aging player like Hamrlik go, as long as you took the money he was making and replaced him.
A little girl vomitted on m and my friend during the first period, it set the tone for the rest of the night.
Listening to JM’s audio is just as bad.
Moen for powerforward 2011/12!!
A few games ago I thought to myself, if the Canadiens can beat a depleted Pens lineup, Toronto and Florida, they can easily turn this thing around.
They went 0-2-1..! And Toronto dominated in the last half of the third and overtime and deserved the win.
Pathetic
To me, Gionta is captain, time for him to step up and say something to Martin on behalf of the team. If he has any sense of pride, now is the time. That is the reason why he has the C on the jersey.
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Dooooooooooooooomed!™
Gionta is not even shooting at the net, and he’s a captain that usually scores by shooting in bunches. Maybe JM just won’t hear any of it.
Moen for powerforward 2011/12!!
The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual players in the NHL, but if they don’t play together, they wont be worth a dime.
The NHL has many good coaches. What it takes to win is a bunch of interested players. You have no control over what the other players do. We only have control over what we do.
There’s no substitute for guts, Habs. The will to win is important, but the will to prepare is vital. To succeed…You need to find something to hold on to, something to motivate you, something to inspire you. The Habs don’t have that.
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it. The same goes for the Habs.
The Habs need to play with supreme confidence, or else they’ll lose again, and then losing becomes a habit.
Before they can win a game, they have to not lose it.
It’s a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don’t quit when you’re tired you quit when the gorilla is tired.
“Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing”
Anyone ever heard of an injured player signing a multi-year contract? How do you sign a player who is injured?
Do you think Gauthier is regretting giving that money to Cole instead of The Wiz. Our PP sucks.
You take COle’s money and Campoli’s money and we have the Wiz. A veteran defenceman who is tough and was amazing on the powerplay. Nice decision Goat.
Cole was signed to score 5-on-5, which we sucked at last year.
and he sucks at that this year to.
He was getting less time than Darche. That’s his fault?
Cole has been getting less PP time than Darche, but he has been getting enough 5on5 time to have scored at least 1 even strengh goal this year, but he hasn’t.
Blow it all up NOW! Trade everyone and finally, once and for all, find a hockey ops guy who knows what he’s doing. Bring in a coach who can teach and get rid of JM, who’s the worst stiff in the game. If they lose the next 3, so we get what we want?
I was there. Cole played his butt off, and Eller made me jump out of my seat. PK tried hard, and Budaj was solid.
Not a well-coached team, its clear.
Stevie
Oh boy. This organization is a gong show from its medical staff to its general manager.
I have been a major fan for change over the years but tonight I’ve got to say that Rookie goalie for the Panthers is WOW!!!!!
Budaj played good, solid backup guy I think.
What drove me mental was when a line gained the zone, looking like there was a good chance for a shot on goal, only to turn away for a line change. I was literally saying, WTF, just take the chance that you’ve given yourselves! Gain the zone, change the line. Not a good strategy JM.
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Dooooooooooooooomed!™
This line-change work used to be done by Muller and JM is still learning it.
I was screaming at my TV also! I was like wtf another LINE CHANGE ?????? No creativity out there what so ever .
“coach Jacques Martin talked about accentuating the positive and eliminating the negative.”
So does he mean we should be happy that Cole finally scored, and eleimnating the negative means JM is gonna step down? please tell me thats what he means, cause he is the figurehead of negative.
I tink duh “system” is kaput.
If there are still any optimizes left out there: go back and check the teams who have been last in conference as of oct 24, then see if any have made the playoffs.
Campoli wasn’t even signed until after training camp started either…
Painful as that whole ugly episode was, I do think Tremblay has matured as a coach under the tutelage of Lemaire over the years. I know ‘L’antichambre’ is hardly a barometer of reason, but he often has very sensible (and impassioned!) arguments on the show. While I wouldn’t want him running things, I wouldn’t mind him as an assistant.
well than now is not the time to bring him back, as the Habs are polar opposites of bigger and grittier
Why don’t ya ask him first? I think the man that took out Bobby Orr would be a great G.M.!
I agree
“Andrei Kostitsyn is a better hockey player than Max Pacioretty”
- Sean Bonjovi
I dont think its possible for this group to do worse than the 98-01 group.
Worse than that awesome 28-win season in 200/01? I guess that only time will tell!
Right now it seems like a real possibility!
in the six seasons spanning 1997/97 and 2002/03 they only averaged 27 wins per season. This team has a long way to go before reaching THAT level of suckitude!