Post-Game Talk: The Price of victory. Montreal beats Calgary 3-2

[Milhouse40]

Obviously the year is quite young and the numbers will fall...but to this day, Price NEVER HAD a team giving him so much offensive support than he ever had in the past. I think that the closest he had to what he has now was in 07-08. So there's a difference between stealing a game 1-0 every single time. Or being able to close the game in order to win 3-2, 4-3 or maybe even 5-4.....

If Flames would have won 3-2...Price should not have been blamed? Well....you think that he wouldn't deserve a blame if he would have given up a goal like Smith did? Even with the number of shots he gave? Thing is...it's not about that. It's about the fact that Carey Price being Carey Price, he gave us that game. And he needs to do that more often. Not me miraculous. Just be Carey Price, who was once seen as the best goalie in the planet and the toughest goalie to face dixit the opponents.

Yes, the D's are bad. Thanks to Bergie. Who succeeded with Domi, Tatar, Suzuki.....who still needs to work A LOT on the D's 'cause all those acquisitions will amount to NOTHING.

The offensive support comes with a price and our goalies are paying that price since the starts of the season.

If the Flames have won 3-2 with a weak goal is one thing, but a 3-2 with a standard is another.
There's games Habs should have won and didn't, then there you might be able to blame the goalies but in a game like yesterday where the team didn't deserve the win, i don't even look at the goaltenders if they lose.

There's other things than: Goalie saving game and Goalie losing game.

For me so far, Price cost the Habs 3 points (2 games) and save the 5 points (3 games)
All the rest are teams wins/lost.

 

[PaulD]

Well my friend, stats suggest that since the start of the year, Habs are 8th in High Danger Chances FOR and 12th in High Danger Chances AGAINST. We are actually +10 in that comparison.

Yes, the defense sucks. Yes, Carey Price can't do what he did last night every single game. But he has to do it more regularly. Like he used to. Carey Price is just being blamed for not being Carey Price. That's all.

Well said, and "being Carey Price" is a tall order.

Where for example Drouin can suck and well , thats Drouin being Drouin.

Goes with the territory, past play, and contract size.

Pete Mahovolich used to tell Pierre Larouche to just score around 35 goals. "Score 50 and they will expect it every year" I like Pete.

 

[OldCraig71]

i Can't believe that Lekhonen and Danault both missed a empty net

Lehky needs to work with a shooting coach, can we hire Guy Lafleur to work with him?

 

[Whitesnake]

The offensive support comes with a price and our goalies are paying that price since the starts of the season.

If the Flames have won 3-2 with a weak goal is one thing, but a 3-2 with a standard is another.
There's games Habs should have won and didn't, then there you might be able to blame the goalies but in a game like yesterday where the team didn't deserve the win, i don't even look at the goaltenders if they lose.

There's other things than: Goalie saving game and Goalie losing game.

For me so far, Price cost the Habs 3 points (2 games) and save the 5 points (3 games)
All the rest are teams wins/lost.

Previously, not only we didn't give our goalies offensive support, but we were not much better in our defensive system. Are we really going to now downplay the offensive support that our goalies receives? If paying the price is being able to give 3 goals, it's a small price to pay instead of having to give 0 goals....

AS far as not looking to goalies when you are being dominated....well I would understand if your goalie is Mike Smith. But what differentiates a great goalie to a good goalie is actually his ability to steal games. If you don't look at that, I have no idea how you can separate one from another....This is not a league when you have good goalies and bad goalies. Usually, there are no bad goalies in this league. There are worst goalies than others. But the real difference to me is between good and great. The goalies that comes big in great moments vs the goalie that is as good as his team is.

And again...we are +10 in High Danger Chances FOR vs AGAINST. So no, the offensive goal support does not come with a price. We are 13th in percentage. Not incredibly great. Not incredibly bad either. The worst team in the league in that regard? Anaheim. Still...Gibson is at .927 SV%. And I can go on and on with that....Holtby is struggling immensely, yet they are 2nd worst. Way more HDCA than HDCF. Wings is 29th...yet Howard is at .918 etc. Price has to be better. Closer to last game than to the previous games. And while the D is awful, the team structure and strategy does not hamper the goalies THAT much.....yet.

 

[BLONG7]

We, as a team still seem to be a team, where we need Price to be Price, more than not..........but that can be said for most teams in the league.

Let's hope he can get his confidence back, and reel off a few good starts in a row...the forwards this year, seem to be able to score more, and if Weber can get back soon, the D will not be great, but more stable.

 

[CaptnNemo]

Thnx to Price, we got the 2 points but indeed our D was abysmal in the number of AA+ chances given BUT imo, they seemed to have less obvious turnovers then the past 3-4 games..or maybe it's Price that made it look more easy then it was.

Anyways, I believe that when Weber comes back in, it could possibly have a somewhat mild to big impact on the stability of the D and our PP.

He will open up the play on PP therefore giving the rest of the guys more space to be more creative...If we can keep scoring the way we are, just imagine 1 goal or 2 more in PP per game with Weber back and D pairings being more stable and everyone in their right chairs as for play time and ideal natural positions.

Bring Kk on the first unit with Domi, Drouin, Weber and Mete/Reilly and I honestly believe this could be devastating in the long run.

This week will be a really good test and hopefully they won't come flat out next Saturday vs les Bruns on a back to back from Buffalo Friday night cause I'll be there on Saturday lolll!!

Go habs Go!!!

*Edit - Imagine when Byron and Armia comes back...We could have one of the most menacing 4 balanced lines in the league. I'd say top 10 at least on 5vs5 as we already dominate in that department this year!

 

[Schwang]

Lehky needs to work with a shooting coach, can we hire Guy Lafleur to work with him?

I can’t believe that shot from Leks went in! What a brutal goal.

 

[Habs Icing]

Some games we deserve to win but lose, tonight we deserved to lose, but our goalie saved our asses....at the end of the year, this **** balances out.

Like you said, 2pts is 2pts

I agree our defence was outplayed by Calgary's offense but I don't know if we deserved to lose. Let me explain. If McDavid scores 5 goals and Edmonton wins 5-4 with the rest of the Oilers catching flies for the whole game, does anyone claim that the Oilers should lose? Price is part of the team. The Flames didn't beat him. We won and deserved to win because we outscored them.

Now do I suggest this as a strategy? Of course not.

 

[jaffy27]

I can’t believe that shot from Leks went in! What a brutal goal.

Did it deflect off the defenders stick??

I thought it did cause no way in hell should he score on him from there

 

[jaffy27]

I agree our defence was outplayed by Calgary's offense but I don't know if we deserved to lose. Let me explain. If McDavid scores 5 goals and Edmonton wins 5-4 with the rest of the Oilers catching flies for the whole game, does anyone claim that the Oilers should lose? Price is part of the team. The Flames didn't beat him. We won and deserved to win because we outscored them.

Now do I suggest this as a strategy? Of course not.

You’re right, Price is part of the team....but so is Mcdavid. It’s one player stealing the show but I guess that’s what stars do.

Hey, we got the W.....on to Vancouver!!

 

[InglewoodJack]

That Lehkonen goal reminds me of when you're playing street hockey and you wind up for a shot but scrape a piece of gravel before hitting the ball so your shot just kinda weakly trickles off your stick.

 

[Man Purse]

 

[eklund the clown]

Mike Smith showed Habs fans everywhere what bad goaltending truly looks like

Price was great but lets not get carried away.It was 1 game.When he plays 10 or more games like this one in a row then we can be a little more optimistic.After stinking it up the last couple years you can't just flip a switch and you are back to being one of the best in the NHL.What gives here?

 

[sandysan]

As a fan, I am glad we won. We showed determination and grit fighting back from behind and Price played his money’s worth last night. If it weren’t for his play, we’d been destroyed last night.

This of course highlights my problem with the team. While we won, the victory masks the fact we actually were horrendous mid game and could had lost right there. I mean, we made brain dead plays but the terrible D we have was really exposed yesterday.

That said, 2 points is 2 points. I wouldn’t be planning a cup parade anytime soon, though not sure we can count on a Hughes celebration either.

Back to Price, while I have been critical of his play this season, credit where credit is due, he was great last night. Let’s see if he builds on this because the rest of the team isn’t going to start playing like all star defenders, let alone have a 30%+ PP any time soon.

if the bolded is true, you need to watch more games. Yesterday didn't expose ANYTHING that wasn't already known. Our D is terribad. The only thing that we learned that was somewhat new is that price can, at least infrequently, play so lights out that it can negate the poor play by our entire defensive corps.

The question is, is the expectation that he play like that night in and night out a reasonable one ? Hell if our PP wasn't as bad as our D we wouldn't have to worry that if price doesnt go god mode every game we might have a chance to actually win some games with average to better than average goaltending.

 

[FrankMTL]

Our record on these Canadian West Coast trips has been below average at best, especially against the Oilers/Flames, but it has gotten better. Our record combined in Edmonton/Calgary since the 2008-2009 season is 7-13 and we've been outscored 70-49. However, the last 7 years we've split the series between the two teams but the 3 years prior we lost both games.

We've done much better in Vancouver as we're 6-2-1 in the period.

 

[pepperMonkey]

Good enough for Halak tbh.

Uh...I don't think our D has ever been this consistently bad in front of Halak...

 

[Halakitlikethat]

This game reminded me a lot of 2014/15

 

[tooji]

If this team could ever combine their goal scoring with carey’s elite play they would be a force

 

[Catanddogguitarrr]

Previously, not only we didn't give our goalies offensive support, but we were not much better in our defensive system. Are we really going to now downplay the offensive support that our goalies receives? If paying the price is being able to give 3 goals, it's a small price to pay instead of having to give 0 goals....

AS far as not looking to goalies when you are being dominated....well I would understand if your goalie is Mike Smith. But what differentiates a great goalie to a good goalie is actually his ability to steal games. If you don't look at that, I have no idea how you can separate one from another....This is not a league when you have good goalies and bad goalies. Usually, there are no bad goalies in this league. There are worst goalies than others. But the real difference to me is between good and great. The goalies that comes big in great moments vs the goalie that is as good as his team is.

And again...we are +10 in High Danger Chances FOR vs AGAINST. So no, the offensive goal support does not come with a price. We are 13th in percentage. Not incredibly great. Not incredibly bad either. The worst team in the league in that regard? Anaheim. Still...Gibson is at .927 SV%. And I can go on and on with that....Holtby is struggling immensely, yet they are 2nd worst. Way more HDCA than HDCF. Wings is 29th...yet Howard is at .918 etc. Price has to be better. Closer to last game than to the previous games. And while the D is awful, the team structure and strategy does not hamper the goalies THAT much.....yet.

The new speed of the game that changed, it's gonna be common to see 3 to 4 goals allowed and win. Price will have to limit the goals to 2 or 3 instead of 1. Goalies that were used to limit the goals a low number will have to accept bigger number.

 

[Catanddogguitarrr]

This game reminded me a lot of 2014/15

I hope Price is back on tracts. I hope it was just a small bad episode.

 

[Le Tricolore]

2 points. Take it and run, don't have to go back to Alberta for a year.

You mean you don't think the Flames or Oilers will be in the finals?

 

[malton]

High danger scoring chances are all lumped into one category. A shot from the slot counts the same as a 3 on 0. So to site that as a reason why Price is playing poorly is asinine. The amount of ridiculously bad scoring chances this team gives up is insane. There isn't a goalie in the world carrying this defense anywhere.

 

[Saundies]

People over the years: Our team needs to be better! We can't just rely on Price to steal us every game!

Same people today: Price has to play like he did tonight every single game! Until he does that, he's not back!

Price had a .956 save percentage tonight. No starting goalie ever has finished the season with that %, so expecting this type of performance every game is just not realistic. This game should have and could have finished 6-3, 7-3, Flames but didn't. He's deserved a lot of the criticism he's gotten recently, but putting up that kind of performance being under the kind of scrutiny he's under right now should be commended. It's just one game, but it was a great game.

Our D tonight were horrible again, and they have been for a while. It's weird how, coming into this season, I expected our offense to be the anchor of this team but it's been the complete opposite. Weird for a team that spends so much money on the back-end to play such bad team defense. We need Weber back in a bad way, even if the only tangible benefits right away are that he's playing 20+ minutes a game and someone like Benn/Schlemko isn't. I'm surprised the zamboni even did their side of the ice tonight with the amount we were hemmed in our own zone.

 

[Perrah]

High danger scoring chances are all lumped into one category. A shot from the slot counts the same as a 3 on 0. So to site that as a reason why Price is playing poorly is asinine. The amount of ridiculously bad scoring chances this team gives up is insane. There isn't a goalie in the world carrying this defense anywhere.

Lol good luck with this debate. People just like to base things on simple stats without context. People assume since stats have progressed to the point of even breaking down HDSCA and such that it is something to take at face value. Still isnt, how you can watch this team and be like they are xth in HDSCA and think they are doing something good in the defensive zone is ridiculous.

 

[Yoor]

Let's hope it's not a cameo appearance, like Fonzie guest-starring on Laverne & Shirley.

Best post. Possibly ever. Thanks for the laugh Lshap!