Habs Fall to Avalanche in Barn Burning Shoot Out 6-5 on Steve Duchesne goal! Kessel notches 2 in Leafs Win – NHL SCORES Saturday October 15, 2011

CFN –  Watching most of tonight’s rumble in Montreal between the Avalanche and Habs  some patterns are pretty clear.    This is rapidly becoming Carey Price’s team and the Young Guns are going to decide on the outcome of the 2011/2012 season.

David Desharnais and Max Pacioretty are a great combo combining for 4 points in the 6-5 shoot out.   That of course leaves Travis Moen with messers Gionta and Gomez which doesn’t bode well.

I’d think that with Cammy out for two or three weeks it’d be a huge opportunity for Andrei Kostitsyn, but so far no real magic.     What I think Montreal is learning is that it’s a lot less pressure on the depleted D corps when the puck is in the offensive zone and not the Habs!

Montreal out shot Colorado 43 to 30 which is always a good thing.  If Montreal can put 35-40 shots up tonight good things can only happen.   Max Pacioretty taking 8 shots is always a good thing.

What I also saw is that Montreal really needs to finish more of their checks and start to hit people more often.  I also saw them losing too many one on one physical  contacts.   It’s hard to judge this team’s play with so many of its key players out.   But I can’t imagine having Cammy and Markov back will address the toughness issue.

Montreal needs to draw more penalties and incur less which is harder to do with smaller forwards if you’re playing catch up.   The team needs some face off help too as they really were horrible tonight with all the centre’s in negative territory.

In other NHL scores: The Islanders doubled the Rangers on John Tavares Hat Trick; LA edged Philly 3-2; the Sens lost again, this time to Washington 2-1; Buffalo 3 Pittsburgh 2; Phil Kessel’s 2 goals gave Toronto another win, this time over Calgary 3-2; Winnipeg lost again 4-1 to Phoenix; we’ll update the others games as they finish.