It All Comes Out in the Wash

What a way to forget about a bad game huh? Exactly what we and the team needed last night, with the Habs skating to a 5-1 victory over the newly hapless New Jersey Devils. The Devils!!!!

Pocketing 3 out of a possible 4 points over the last two games... hard to find anything wrong with that. Even Scott Gomez scored.

Our Montreal Canadiens seem to be quite resilient after a loss this year... which not only bodes well for the season, but for the playoffs as well (not losing 2 in a row in the playoffs is usually a very good thing).

It was great for the team to play a game right after the disappointing OT loss on Wednesday so they could skate it out and get back to their winning ways. It was also great that Martin Brodeur was in the stands for this one -- something that paid off within 11 seconds of the opening puck drop, when Brian Gionta jammed home the 1st goal of the game behind a seemingly surprised -- and un-ready -- Johan Hedberg.

A little over a minute later, Lars Eller showed some speed and swept in to tuck in a wraparound, and that was the end of Hedberg's night (after less than 2 minutes of play).

But let's not get too carried away with this one. Very happy to see Pyatt, Eller, Pouliot and Gomez score, but let's be honest. This New Jersey team is simply not very good, and they played even worse than that. They were listless last night, and one can only assume that Kovalchuk must be thinking "What have I done?"

Well what he's done is weigh down the Devils with salary cap issues for years, while bringing his negative energy to the team. But the real loser is Lou Lamoriello, who for possibly the first time in his successful hockey career, made a bad move. The "Sam Pollack" of his generation, he's now stuck with Kovalchuk. And Kovalchuk could have been in L.A. with the sunshine, the girls and probably, more goals! He has 4 goals on the year! Something smells very bad in Newark (well there's always a bad smell there, but you know what I mean).

Speaking of a bad smell, Dany Heatley and his San Jose Sharks come to Montreal on Saturday for a rare matinee outing. I've never liked Heatley and was glad to see the Ottawa fans tear into him last night. Well done Dany.

Hopefully the 60 minute version of the Habs shows up tomorrow and not the Minute Rice version. Puck drop is at 2pm.