Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Canadiens-Blues: Flat Performance in St. Louis Ends Habs Streak at Five

The Montreal Canadiens and St. Louis Blues faced off yesterday inside a game that featured 4 players playing against their former teams. On the Habs side, you had Lars Eller, once a leading prospect in an exceedingly deep Blues advancement program and on the other finish of the ice you have the man he was trade for, Jaroslav Halak. Halak faced off against his former goaltending partner in Carey Price while former Habs forward Matt D'Agostini rounded things in a Blues uniform. Regardless of all the storylines, it was far from as being a spectacular game.

The Blues, who literally evening before in Columbus, looked quick, focused and on their game even though Montreal struggled to find cohesion, looking distracted and disorganized. The result was a game that was largely dominated by St. Louis having a handful of powerful sequences from Montreal. The Canadiens got on the board very first when Jeff Halpern deflected his 11th from the season past Halak off an Alexandre Picard pass. However the Blues took manage of the overall game after that with David Backes tying it at 1 6:29 later.

Halak was solid for the Blues but wasn't truly tested,and the teammates ultimately did an excellent job of limiting the Canadiens shots facing outward. Carey Value, who continues to be the MVP for Montreal, was the only cause this game wasn't more than early, generating a number of spectacular saves to maintain it a 1 aim game. Regardless of Price's best efforts the Blues would give a second period marker from Andy McDonald and two a lot more within the final two minutes of the game?aone into an empty net?ato clinch the victory. Former Habs Halak and D'Agostini got the victory with D'Agostini, who played an excellent game, scoring the insurance marker on his 14th of the season.

Like a broken record that keeps skipping back to exactly the same component of the song, Cost used to be once more the difference maker last night. And whilst his team didn't come out of the game having a victory Price's strong play gave them an opportunity to win in spite of their lethargy. About 12 minutes along with the Blues on the energy play and applying a lot of pressure within the Canadiens zone, Cost made a spectacular left-to-right save on a one-timer in the high-slot. While Value is large and plays a remarkably sound positional game, it's constantly incredible to determine how speedily he makes his lateral displacements, particularly taking into consideration his 6'3", 219 lbs frame.

With St. Louis blitzing the Habs zone for very long stretches of the game, Montreal's defenders were scrambling and value seemed like the only player who knew what was going on. It's for the duration of games like this that we start to determine why Price's name is starting to come up in much more and more MVP conversations. The Habs go as Cost goes, and he the moment once more kept them hanging around once they were clearly struggling maintain.

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