Giving up 48 shots in your home rink during a Play-Off drive is not the sign of a good team.
There were some beacons of light. The Habs were hitting more which was good and Halak gave another good performance other than one fluke goal, but again you can’t score if you don’t have the puck and if when you do you don’t shoot enough.
The Devil’s were also allowed to park a forward in front of Halak with way too much ease during their power plays.
If the Habs do not change their game plan very soon it will be a very short season. They need to carry the puck more; especially out of their own zone. Teams catch onto the long pass pretty quickly especially with video scouting.
When I worked for the Habs back in 95-96 I scouted the Rangers for the first round of the play-offs. Graves would take 65% of his shots from one spot and two of their older defencemen were constantly pinching.
With info like that and good coaching the Habs stole the two first games from the Rangers.
Watching the video though I could see the Rangers adapting and the Habs lost in six. It was very frustrating; but not as frustrating as poor Bob Gainey is feeling as there is only so much he can do with this team.
Bruins 2 Isles 1; Philly 4-2 over the Rangers; Detroit beats St.Louis 5-2; Sens 4-3 over the Penguins; Atlanta 4 Buffalo 3; Olli Jokenin’s Hat Trick wasn’t enough as the Leafs burnt the Flames 8-6; Washington capped Carolina 5-4; Tampa Bay 4 Florida 3; Dallas 3-2 over Minnesota; Colorado beat Edmonton 3-2; Nashville shuts out Phoenix 2-0; and SJ gets a win in the shootout 2-1 over LA.
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