Post-Game Talk: Habs choke 5-3.

[BrendanGallagher11]

Price played solid in both games. He made huge saves to keep us in game 2. They totally dominated us in both third periods of game 1 and 2. We need to be better defensively so we don't give up 3459 scoring chances every third period.

Price is no way at all the problem or to be blamed

Go Habs

 

[Whitesnake]

My goodness, think about what you just said. The puck was tracked along the ice and he was in perfect position to make the save and then it shot in the air for no reason at all. Absolutely zero goaltenders in the world make that save.

Price made countless of "Zero goaltenders in the world make that save" type of saves....Price wasn't WEAK last game. But he had some positioning issues. I really hope people can make the difference one day.

 

[rumple03]

Bruins-Habs
Hits 34-31
Takeaways 8-5
Giveaways 9-8
Faceoffs 37-31
Shotblocks 14-17
Penalties 6-3

This game was nothing like game 1, the Habs were not dominated as you can see by the stats above. The key to winning is bolded, make them pay for penalties, and they will get more frustrated and take more penalties.

 

[Habsawce]

Price made countless of "Zero goaltenders in the world make that save" type of saves....Price wasn't WEAK last game. But he had some positioning issues. I really hope people can make the difference one day.

To believe he should have made a save that was going along the ice and hit a rut in the ice and shot up over his shoulder is ridiculous. He was in position and he was in his butterfly to direct the puck into the corner. You will literally never see another goal like that ever again, it was a fluke and no one would have stopped it. It went bar down for goodness ssake.

 

[Apoplectic Habs Fan]

True. It STILL was a bad movement by him.....but he can't do everything. I did at the start of the series that we needed a miraculous Price to win this series. It HAS to mean that I recognize that the rest of the team is WAY more the problem. He was miraculous game 1, we won. He was borderline miraculous for the first 50 minutes...we were leading. Miracles stopped....we lost. Our best 5-5 offensive forwards were Bourque and Eller. It has to say a lot.

I agree with that. I don't blame Price but recognize at the top of his game he makes those saves. We just get accustomed to seeing him bail out the team. It's scary how little margin of error he has. If he doesn't play the perfect game, they lose.

The other scary thing you mention is Eller and Bouque being MTL best 5 on 5 players. It's not surprising both are bigger players. Hate seeing Pacioretty playing like regular season Bourque and Bourque playing like regular season maxpac

 

[Rapala]

The pouters are the ones stating things like might as well throw in the towel, we are done and finished and damn Price let in a softy we are screwed and Boston is gonna win the next 3 and fire this guy.

It's called over reacting, and saying things like we are no longer in their heads? Are you privy to the locker room banter? do you know some Bruins players or coaches? You are just speculating. You won't know any of this for sure until game 3 and 4 at home.

What I know, based on facts and this past season is that no matter how much our fan base overreacts and scrutinizes every player and throws them under the bus bc of one or two bad shifts and one or two bad games, they have proven to be a focused and determined group that bounces back.

Dude,
The only overreaction is on your side.
Boston are a far better team than Montreal.
I'm a Habs fan I want to win.
There are only a few ways we can make that happen.
Stealing a game is a start.
Gifting a game is a setback.
I don't have to be privy to **** to understand the psychology of the game.
Have you ever even laced up a skate?
The only thing i ever said was our current style of play is leaving gaping holes in our defensive structure.
If you watched the games but don't see that I have nothing further to add.

 

[Whitesnake]

To believe he should have made a save that was going along the ice and hit a rut in the ice and shot up over his shoulder is ridiculous. He was in position and he was in his butterfly to direct the puck into the corner. You will literally never see another goal like that ever again, it was a fluke and no one would have stopped it. It went bar down for goodness ssake.

Price lately puts himself in a butterfly mode but is even kinda crouching instead of a butterfly with his torso standing tall leaving more room than your regular butterfly. He also goes on his knees quickly, which for me is an indication of how nervous he is and somehow, it's totally understandable based on what he has in front of him. But he wasn't like that all year long.

 

[Apoplectic Habs Fan]

Bruins-Habs
Hits 34-31
Takeaways 8-5
Giveaways 9-8
Faceoffs 37-31
Shotblocks 14-17
Penalties 6-3

This game was nothing like game 1, the Habs were not dominated as you can see by the stats above. The key to winning is bolded, make them pay for penalties, and they will get more frustrated and take more penalties.

Montreal was completely neutralized. Watch the game instead of statistics. Montreal had plenty of useless perimeter shots, also Boston simply missed the net a lot.

Pretty much Mtl defended and flipped the puck to the neutral zone and then Boston would bring it back in. Montreal had a bunch of one and done rushes and shots

 

[Kobe Armstrong]

Is the next game Tuesday?

 

[Rapala]

Price lately puts himself in a butterfly mode but is even kinda crouching instead of a butterfly with his torso standing tall leaving more room than your regular butterfly. He also goes on his knees quickly, which for me is an indication of how nervous he is and somehow, it's totally understandable based on what he has in front of him. But he wasn't like that all year long.

The crouch is designed to help him see through screens.
He did seem to do it on occasion when there weren't any.
Maybe overworked

 

[rumple03]

Dude,
The only overreaction is on your side.
Boston are a far better team than Montreal.
I'm a Habs fan I want to win.
There are only a few ways we can make that happen.
Stealing a game is a start.
Gifting a game is a setback.
I don't have to be privy to **** to understand the psychology of the game.
Have you ever even laced up a skate?
The only thing i ever said was our current style of play is leaving gaping holes in our defensive structure.
If you watched the games but don't see that I have nothing further to add.

I'm not over reacting, I'm merely pointing things out.

I play goalie actually, so I understand the game very well. I didn't say what you pointed out was wrong or incorrect, I said many of the people making comments that basically say the series is now over bc of that loss are over reacting, and saying things like we are no longer in their heads is pure speculation. As long as we are in Rask's head is what really counts and he gets easily frustrated when he plays against the Habs.

I don't post often on these boards bc of how much everyone overreacts. There are countless threads of almost every player of fans wanting guys traded for pucks and benched bc of a few mistakes and lynched and hung from a tree and those same players are then praised after they get a GWG or go on a hot streak and the over reactors are eating crow. It's like everyone is bi-polar.

And I don't get emotional for any reason posting on a website debating with people I don't know.

 

[Apoplectic Habs Fan]

Price lately puts himself in a butterfly mode but is even kinda crouching instead of a butterfly with his torso standing tall leaving more room than your regular butterfly. He also goes on his knees quickly, which for me is an indication of how nervous he is and somehow, it's totally understandable based on what he has in front of him. But he wasn't like that all year long.

I wonder if he is starting to cheat a bit. Montreals fire drill defense is becoming worse and more frequent.

Whether it's nerves, trying to not fully drop knowing he will have to laterally fly across the net to try and make saves because of this team has no concept of defense.

Montreals defense plays like Edmonton.

 

[Wats]

Winning game 2 would have been amazing. No one would have imagined Habs would have came so close of going 2-0 on the Bruins and winning 6 in a row to start playoffs. How close it was to happening makes it tough to swallow but when you remember the Bruins are the cup favourites, losing games was inevitable. Habs got some breaks to go 5-0 to start and it was matter of time before breaks stop. Habs aren't a super team to go 16-0. I'm not optimistic or anything but when you remember that this is David vs Goliath, you realize it isn't supposed to be easy. Against Lightning, Habs undoubtedly should have won and they did. Against Bruins, they should lose...but they look as if they have a shot as slim as the chances are.

 

[Rapala]

I wonder if he is starting to cheat a bit. Montreals fire drill defense is becoming worse and more frequent.

Whether it's nerves, trying to not fully drop knowing he will have to laterally fly across the net to try and make saves because of this team has no concept of defense.

Montreals defense plays like Edmonton.

That good

 

[Kriss E]

If being a realist is pouting then I guess I'm pouting.
I am disappointed in letting one get away in the WORST possible manner.
There is not one person I know with even an average Hockey IQ that doesn't understand the impact of that loss. We got smoked in every area except the PP and goaltending in game one. Game two saw us take advantage of poor discipline get in their heads and yet find a way to gift wrap them a win.
Guess what we are no longer in their heads.

We are always in Boston's head. Always.
I prefer losing this way than 3-0. We've shown Boston that these are tight games, basically one goal games, whoever gets the bounces comes out on top. I don't think we will go back home and fold it in. Not sure why anybody would think that way. Pittsburgh vs Columbus is a great example of how leads are not safe, each team suffered losses after 2 (3 too?) goal leads, all of the same devastating nature as ours, and both teams kept going. Happened in the West too.
This series isn't finished, and the good thing is that we've won games all season despite being outplayed. We are used to this.

 

[ThaDevilGirl]

Habs need to get JM back to they can play like 2010 and keep Boston on the outside when attacking.

 

[Habsawce]

Habs need to get JM back to they can play like 2010 and keep Boston on the outside when attacking.

All they really need to do is make sure the high guy back in the zone picks up the D entering the zone. That's the only play that has been really dangerous and causing most of the issues in the zone. They use it so often off the rush I'm not sure how they aren't recognizing it but I'm sure they'll address it in practice.

 

[rumple03]

Montreal was completely neutralized. Watch the game instead of statistics. Montreal had plenty of useless perimeter shots, also Boston simply missed the net a lot.

Pretty much Mtl defended and flipped the puck to the neutral zone and then Boston would bring it back in. Montreal had a bunch of one and done rushes and shots

The Habs outplayed the Bruins in stretches in the first half of the last two periods, and resulted in PP opportunities. 2 of which we scored on. You can outwork a team and still not get a lot of shots on net, the Habs use their speed to forecheck which creates PP opportunities bc they get hooked and crosschecked. So they usually end up with a PP before that hustle leads to scoring chances.

The Bruins are a better team in almost all areas, so expecting the Habs to beat them in 5-on-5 and back and forth scoring chances is not likely. They key is Price and PP, and both has to be working.

Speed, fore-check, turnovers, PP.

 

[Apoplectic Habs Fan]

Habs need to get JM back to they can play like 2010 and keep Boston on the outside when attacking.

What?

You don't like Therrien's give up the slot and don't cover the point man or late man defense?

 

[Kriss E]

Montreal didn't "handled" it well. They were defending well. They were not counterattacking. And were not that much in possession of the puck either. More work in the offensive zone, less work to do in your defensive zone. Until they understand that they are not a protecting the lead team, they will not be succesful. Only thing Bruins needed was that 1 goal, they got it, rest is history.

As I just wrote in the previous post, we have regularly been outplayed, outchanced, out possessed in the regular season and seemed to end up on top most of the time. We are used to this.
It will be interesting to see how Therrien mix and matches, the first line needs to get it going.
But Eller's line, which has been our best since the start of the POs had a rather tougher time yesterday. They will bounce back. But we are not going to outplay Boston at ES. That just won't happen. We need to keep being opportunistic.

 

[Habsawce]

Why do Bruins fans on the main board need to be patted on the back so much? It's not enough to win, they need reassurance that they are the best and that everyone needs to kiss their feet. It has made that thread intolerable tbh, shame because I was having some nice conversations with a few people.

 

[ThaDevilGirl]

All they really need to do is make sure the high guy back in the zone picks up the D entering the zone. That's the only play that has been really dangerous and causing most of the issues in the zone. They use it so often off the rush I'm not sure how they aren't recognizing it but I'm sure they'll address it in practice.

Yep. the trailer has been very dangerous for the Bruins.

What?

You don't like Therrien's give up the slot and don't cover the point man or late man defense?

Not a fan, sorry.

 

[rumple03]

We are always in Boston's head. Always.
I prefer losing this way than 3-0. We've shown Boston that these are tight games, basically one goal games, whoever gets the bounces comes out on top. I don't think we will go back home and fold it in. Not sure why anybody would think that way. Pittsburgh vs Columbus is a great example of how leads are not safe, each team suffered losses after 2 (3 too?) goal leads, all of the same devastating nature as ours, and both teams kept going. Happened in the West too.
This series isn't finished, and the good thing is that we've won games all season despite being outplayed. We are used to this.

We were in their heads before the series started, Habs players were complimentary of Boston, saying things like they are a great team, they are big and tough, and they are cup favorites and resilient and Bruins coach and players were talking about how much they hate the Habs and can't stand them, and talking about "what they are known for" etc...

What everyone forgets too is that the first game the Habs didn't even have their legs from the 10 day layoff, which was plain to see, and they still managed to get a win. They blew a 3-1 lead last game but I think they will just put it behind them and move on coming back home to home ice. If the habs opened up at home instead of in Boston and had a loss like that going back to Boston for two games, I'd be more worried.

 

[rumple03]

As I just wrote in the previous post, we have regularly been outplayed, outchanced, out possessed in the regular season and seemed to end up on top most of the time. We are used to this.
It will be interesting to see how Therrien mix and matches, the first line needs to get it going.
But Eller's line, which has been our best since the start of the POs had a rather tougher time yesterday. They will bounce back. But we are not going to outplay Boston at ES. That just won't happen. We need to keep being opportunistic.

Right, the Habs tend to play a rope a dope game, and capitalize on mistakes vs trying to create opportunities themselves, especially in road games. If it works, then I don't care.

 

[Rapala]

What?

You don't like Therrien's give up the slot and don't cover the point man or late man defense?

JM had far more confidence in allowing his players to cover one on one.
He strategy was exactly that don't get beat inside.
When players did get beat the others were able to help because of strong positioning.
We are constantly overloading and getting burned whenever we can't clear the zone or turn over the puck.