No Slow Starts Allowed!!

Should we be concerned after a 1-2 start by the Habs?

Should we be worried the team let their fans down with such a weak performance to open up the season against a playoff bubble team at best -- the Calgary Flames -- who were winless before last night's 4-1 whooping against the Habs??? Mad and disappointed maybe. But worried? No.

The Habs have seen regulars go down already and a lineup that appeared quite good in August has yet to be iced due to injury: Markov, White, Cammellari, Spacek, Campoli. That's enough!!!

Lars Eller made his debut last night and looked like he wanted a spot on the top two lines.

And why not? Because once again this year, Scott Gomez and Brian Gionta are off to lame-duck starts. No points in 3 games. Toss in Erik Cole -- who by all accounts is being misused by Coach Martin -- who is also pointless, and so goes the Habs' fortunes.

Does Gionta really need to play with Plekanec to get his game going like what happened last year? As one statistician pointed out, he had more penalties than shots on goal last night.

What does this say about Gomez? What happened to his bounce back year? 3 games in, it's a bust!

You can talk all you want about how Kostitsyn needs to produce or how good P.K. Subban is going to be (he's off to a rough start too) or that Max Pacioretty is going to be that power-forward we haven't seen since John LeClair wore the bleu-blanc-rouge, but if the veterans don't lead this team, we're in trouble.

Our powerplay is essentially 0-fer this year with the sole goal coming from Yannick Weber in Winnipeg. Plekanec is obviously not the answer on the point -- back to the drawing board Jacques.

But we also need to be concerned with Erik Cole because he hasn't been much of a presence so far. True, Martin has been criticized early for not using him enough but the guy's a veteran who needs to contribute whenever and wherever he plays. He's also used to playing with the best players (Staal on Carolina) so he may have some mental adjusting to do.

Adjust away Erik -- but make it quick -- otherwise it'll just force Martin into more line tinkering.

I think I can speak for many Habs fans that we'd like to see the lines stay together for a bit in order to create some consistency and chemistry. This is a challenge when your best players don't perform and others go down to injury. So I'll give Martin a mulligan for now.

I'm confident the team will get it together. But let's get going -- at least lose in style and with some fight. That gives the fans something.

And that's who I am, a fan. Just not a concerned fan... yet.