Cornwall ON – One game at a time; one goal at a time. Whatever it takes to win. I love sports cliches. Last night the Montreal Canadiens defied the pundits and know it alls and took the first game of their series in Washington 3-2 in Overtime.
It was won in typical Halak and Montreal fashion. The team was in many ways out played and of course out shot; this time 47-38. What they did though was shut down the NHL’s best player in Alexander Ovechkin. Mr. Ovechkin had ZERO shots recorded and his lack of touch was so noticed that those wacky TSN announcers suggested that he was playing hurt.
Jaroslav Spacek was the other hero of the night as he made play after play to stymie Washington. I feel bad for Jose Theodore who played well, but someone in the Habs dressing room remembered the Book on the former Montreal goaltender and both my favorite Hab Michael Cammallieri and Tomas “I don’t play like a little girl anymore” Plekanec went top shelf.
It was a very pretty win in that Mr. Plekanec was on the hot seat for his remarks about the Caps goalie prior to the game.
Matthew Darche also seemed to remember that you can only score if you shoot making the most of his ten minutes of play by poking 5 at Theodore.
In game one Montreal’s stars came out on top of Washington’s. It should be interesting to see how the Caps react to tape of the game. I remember when I worked for the Habs and we beat the Stanley Cup Rangers the first two games of our series. They adapted and we lost in six.
For today though all those Team990 listeners will have something good to talk about and Tony Marinaro will be able to tell everyone how right he was about Mr. Halak.
Vancouver took their first game against Los Angeles in Overtime as well. It was the Sedin twins to the rescue while Boston and Buffalo fought a rough and tough defensive match with Buffalo coming out on top 2-1 thanks to former Hab Craig Rivet going top shelf on Tuuko Rask.
