Round 2, Game 3: Canadiens can't solve Flyers, Biron

Everyone please go to this website:donnels@phillynews.com and read the garbage spewed by this ignorant piece of crap. Please send him an email telling him what you think of that biased crap!

Will Hatcher be getting at least one game suspension or not?.....what about that Philly player who skated by Halak and purposely bumped him in the face to get him off his game? Didn't the league just change a rule where a player can't intentionally "annoy" the goaltender? He should get some kind of discipline as well otherwise he's bound to do it again.

All i have to say is Flyers are fluking their way to win games, Despite being outshot 14-34 last game they still got 3 in... We dominate the games and they still win.. Last 2 games was total domination from us I dont know how we didnt put those games away.. Next game is going to decide our fate, if we win game 4 we will win the series if we lose. Its golf time for us, because i dont know if we can come back from a 3 1 defecit against a team taht feeds on easy flukie goals. Whats wrong with Price? I dont know this is the first time ive seen him shaky for 3 games in a row, I think he really got shaken up from those bad games and might not come back until we either win or start dominating. Its do or die next game, I trust Carbo and his descisions, we still not in a 3 1 hole so there is still hope for us to bounce back and win this series against the dirty team.

Last time Carbo went with his starter over Halak in a do-or-die game like this one - the last game of last season - we ended up publicly regretting it. I don't pretend to know what he should do, but I wonder if that regret will factor into his decision tomorrow night at all? 1. www.flickeringpictures.com - not a hockey site, but still kinda neat 2. Josh Gorges on Montreal's attack: "They're comin', they're comin' and they keep comin'. Just line after line, wave after wave..."

Price needs to sit for a game or 2 to regain some focus. Does anyone know where Alex Kovalev is? I don't know who that guy is wearing sweater #27, whomever he is he sure coughs the puck up alot but it compliments his floating pretty well. I bet anybody a dollar that that Halek steals game 4. Any takers?

habs are totally capable of beating the flyers. The problem is, the habs are beating themselves. I notice our D men, keep backpedaling, giving the flyer forwards easy access into our zone, and then they let the flyers move into the slot. Can't do that. Our D men need to stand at the blueline, not give up the blueline, and take out the player. With decent goaltending, we'll beat the flyers. I say put in Halak. He's a good goalie, nothing wrong with him. And if he had played the 1st 3 games, we would be up 3-0 in this series. Also, habs need to score first, and start the game strong, not sleepwalking, and skate the puck into the flyer zone. stop the dump ins. Our speed will allow us to get behind the flyer defence. C'mon habs put in that extra effort needed to win!

BTW If I may add something....Habs Prof, good posts !!!!its nice to read something constructive and well written!

Some of you guys are just as soft as our play lastnight. We need to get to the net, get in front of the goalie and score ugly goals. We will win this series but it will have to take a bit more effort and our guys need to stick their noses out there.

you get in front of him so he can't see the shot....it's calling screening the goalie

I hope so, we sure could use the help ....

how do you beat a hot goalie? we out shoot philly by a big margin but biron was stopping everything.we played hard but came up short.i would most deff go with halak in the next game.price looks burnt. go habs goooo!!

First off...painful game to watch again last night. Hopefully the Habs take some positives from it and keep up the pressure in Philly's zone. The hockey gods are definitely on Philly's side thus far through the series. Posts, crossbars, crazy bounces all going the Flyers way. As for the habs performace, they are not playing horrible but they really need to try and limit the number of turnovers in their own zone and stop panicking inside their own blue line. The defence/wingers have been big contributors to most of the goals against in the series thus far by not gettin the puck out. They have improved a bit since the Boston series but it still isn't good enough. The last key point is the powerplay. It's funny how different the playoffs are from the regular season. The habs dump ins have been horrible on the PP and the pursuit even worse. The 5 minutes pp in the 3rd was testament to how bad and good the habs pp can be at the same time. They couldn't gain the zone for the first 2 minutes and once they did the Flyers couldn't touch them. Hopefully Carbo and the rest of the coaches can figure out quickly how to get the habs back to playing their possesion game. If they can, the boys should be alright. Oh and start Price in game 4. If he's shaky again, give him the yank but he has at least earned another shot.

WD, I'm with ya on the good feeling about the series..BUT the AK brothers need a serious injection of GUTS for that to happen...Plus they need to find a way to free up Kovy a bit more, as soon as the puck goes near him he has 2 guys hacking and wacking him. Getting Brisebois back would also help, he makes that first great pass out of their end...

I dont think we should worry about Halak crumbling if he plays. He has nothing to lose, he will carry a lot less pressure and he's older. Last night he didnt face many shots but made a timely save against Thorensen that allowed the habs to have a chance. The only thing wrong with Halak is his last name, Vokoun had the same problem.

lol... was just watching the 3rd period of last night's game. i almost had a heart attack during that last minute or so when we pulled Halak. the chances were there. another positive, the Flyers had 0 shots on goal during that 2 minute PP with about 3 minutes to play. i'm not typically a glass-half-full kind of guy, but i feel pretty good about this series. that all could change after Wednesday night mind you, but let's see what Les Boys can bring to Game 4. a solid goaltending performance, some more hard work, and capitalizing on just a few opportunities and this series will go back to Montreal all tied up.

There is nothing worse than losing to a team that you know you can beat. We finished 1st overall because we are a great team. We persevered over Boston because in the end they didn't have the goods to beat us. So to come to this point and lose against the flyers would be a disappointment, because again we are a better team. If we were to lose the east to the Pens... so be it, they've stocked up on a lot of weapons...if we were to lose against Detroit or Dallas in the finals, so be it...we can live with that. We can go gracefully with our heads up and high hopes for next season. Our team having taken a giant step towards success in our banner centennial year. But to lose against these creeps would be a total disaster, utterly devastating along the lines of the Tremblay years...the flash in the pan analysis would follow and mare our great season...Because the defeat would be one of cowardice. Cheesesteaks have brought their only 2 elements into this series, Goaltending and Gooning. BIRON has been the difference without a doubt, he has been the most valuable player on both teams and the reason for the 2-1 lead...and for good reason, he is French, Quebecois, a Nordique in blood, the Fleur-de-lis is tattoed across his heart, he has the highest level of passion and hatred driving him to defeat Les Canadiens...and when that force is against you, and its housed in the goalie....you have a high mountain to climb. GOONING is a reality, it is oppressive, it is painful, it is unforgettable and over time it will defeat you...The Cheesestakes are the Master Gooners. But they are not cut from the same cloth as a Thornton/Morrow, but of the dirty kid on the block, the one who slashes your tires or scratches your paint in the night, the kid who'll hack at your ankle behind the play, the punk who will cry foul and squirm on the ground at the smallest infraction, but wouldn't think twice before delivering a career ending DIRTY hit. If Avery is a Goon then he is 90%talk 10% goon action, well the cheesestakes are the opposite, 90%action, 10% talk. How has this effected us? have you seen SKost lately?...I've never seen a player shy away from going into the corners, he was falling on the ice just to avoid contact last night, but he did lite it up late in the third and that'll probably keep him in the lineup. I don't want to get into the negatives on players so I'll stick to the positives...at random: I thought 84 was an improvement, he delivered some good hits and worked hard in the corners, he is also conscious of getting off a shot when he can, Obryne played well, his physical play is needed, and having him sit near the end was ok because we need Streits offence. Kovy played well and did enough for us to win by setting up Higgs, koivu and basically being strong on the puck and quarterbacking the PP, Begin/Kostop/Smoke/Lap were all excellent, strong/physical...especially when that ba$tard slewfooted Price and all hell broke loose with Begin jumping into the air and taking HATCHET down.... you know there were a lot of great moments last night...if a few didn't squeak by Price, the game would have been ours. We will win the next one.

To borrow a Mike Bossey quote (from 1984 about Steve Penney) Martin Biron is a 'luck sack.' He is a career backup and greatly over achieving. His luck will run out. Also, sober second thought tells me the goals on Price Monday night weren't entirely his fault..screens, tips by own 'D,' etc. This is not the time to panic and change goalies. Let's all relax. Habs in 6.

Price needs to get his shyt together...we all know he can do it..the only problem with starting halak is that its playoffs now and we havent seen in him wat weve seen in price its hard for the team to take the risk now to trust him... as for the rest of the team...if they want a dirty game give it to them...take them down like they do to us...fight fire with fire enoughs enough

I'm not a dreamer, sure it would be nice to win a Cup this season (a la Lightning/Hurricanes) but those two were flash in the pans so I'd rather this team, at least, become playoff savvy and these playoffs are lessons for this young Habs team which hopefully pay off in the long run with many deep playoff runs in the next decade with maybe a couple of Cups. Last night was typical of a young team trying to figure out the NHL playoffs. Is it over? No. But these are Habs that struggled to get past a Bruins team in the first round they dominate in the regular season. There's no reason to expect a cakewalk against the Flyers, another team we dominate this season. And if Montreal does advance, beating Pittsburgh or the Rangers is probably improbable and there's most likely the Red Wings who are a winning machine so let's come down to Earth a little with our expectations here and just enjoy being in the playoffs! Go Habs!

let's have faith people - if hte habs win game 4 it's all even with 2 home games. clearly the habs are a more gifted team - BUT it's the playoff so we need more heart. saku has been the best guy on the ice and for the lats haters he earned a start in game 4 last night - his hard work created the first goal. although pleks scored the first goal by crashing the net if he would do that more often he'd score more often. i'd like the habs to be up 2-0 in a few games now!!! i'll leave the goaltending decisions to GC but IMO halak didn't earn a start in game 4 but price did not either. starting halak will send a strong message to all the troops.

When you outshoot a team and lose one game it's bad luck, 2 games? It's becoming a problem. I am one of Carey's biggest fans and was all about the Huet trade, but besides him being screened on a few occasions he has let some soft ones in guys. We need our guys to play with desperation from the Get go and I haven't been seeing a whole lot of that, I seen some timid plays last night. We need to go to the net and get in front of some shots, get our noses dirty because if we do make it to the finals playing this way, the West team that also makes it will smash us. Philly is playing their best hockey and is barely beating us, so let's not worry too much here, let our goalie see the puck, stop trying to make fancy plays and get the puck on net. Let's go boys!!!

LET HALAK PLAY...PRICE IS BIEN TIERED LA... HALAK IT LIKE THAT HABS IF YOU ARE READING THIS STEP UP YOUR GAME...OR GO HOME.... BUT HONESTLY DON'T BE SHY TO WIN A GAME OR PUT THE PUCK IN THE NET

Rocket Richard. You say this: "I can't disagree with you more. Please do not forget this: The Flyers had a overall 14 shots on net yesterday. A Playoff team who has 14 shots on net DO NOT DESERVE TO WIN." An off game by Price is understandable but its been more bad than good in the playoffs, so why the blind faith in Price? A lot of people in Ottawa kept waiting for the real senators to show up as well. And more importantly, you do not know that Halak can't do it, nor do I, but he does deserve a chance. Last year the only reason the habs had a shot to make the playoffs was because of Halak, and for the last game against Toronto, what did the habs do?, they put in Huet who was returning from injury and lost...Price isnt better than Halak, maybe in 2-3 years yes, but not at the present, they are fairly equal.

wd40: the only way that will happen is if we start to take advantage of the PP. the flyers are showing us that they will take lots of penalties! hopefully the PP unit that shows up in the remaining games is the one that showed up during the middle part of last night's major...

i still believe we're going to win this series.

The reason the Canadiens lost has nothing to do with luck and everything to do with the players such as Chris Higgins, Carey Price, the Kostitsins and most importantly Kovavlev are not baring down. They did not play with a sense of urgency that is a must in the playoffs. In the interview during the first intermission Higgins claimed it was bad ice. I thought both teams played on the same ice. You need to play the game like there is no tomorrow. When you only get one shot on net in a 2 man advantage that is not desperate. But incredibly they didn't change any part of their game and made no adjustments until the Hatcher penalty in the 3rd. Hope they do some soul searching in Philly which is a good place to search for soul. Last night Philly won and they deserved their win. We were lucky it wasn't worse.

NEW FLASH: Courtesy of team990, Flyers Mike Knubble will be back fom injury and ready to play in Game 4 Yours Truly, Rocket Richard " YOU MUST HATE TO LOSE " http://leonsinvestmentservices.info

IMO Lats had a half decent game last night for Lats but the Smols line slipped a bit while Maxim's line improved a tad so it was a wash but more balanced. So Plan "B" gave a little spark but not enough to start the kindling.

Some posters are saying that the only reason we are losing this series is because we are unlucky. The only thing I can say right now is that we all better stop saying that the Flyers are 'lucky' and that the Habs aren't catching any breaks. I realize we have hit a lot of posts and that Biron is playing over his head but that is all part of playoff hockey. We are losing this series for other reasons besides bad luck. To me that's just an excuse that is subconsciously perparing us for defeat. In essence, there is only one more game left to turn things around. I would hate to think that are best card to play in that game is based on lady luck. Edit - P.S. Rocket RIchard - I just read your post below mine. My message was not dircted at you but was rather a general statement. The Original 24.4 Cups

OK Habs fans, The Rocket has has some time to digest Game 3 of the Habs - Flyers game. First of all, I will not knock Carey Price for his goaltending yesterday. I felt this BEFORE the series started, I know Price must be tired. He has carried this team thus far and could carry them through the Cup final. I like what Elliot Price from the team990 said this morning, "we should'nt put Price down, we need to lift his spirits up." Nevertheless, I would still put Price in nets for Game 4. Second, What would of happened if the Habs scored the two goals in the first period (the off of the cross bar and the one off the post). Do you think the Flyers would of scored the 3 goals in the second? They might of had 1 shot in the 3rd period. Habs definely would of won this game because the momentum would of been with them from that first period on. Third, the Flyers should just about now be very scared. This team should'nt be leading this series. We wine and complain how habs need to play a full 60 minutes to win, well the Flyers played for 20 minutes yesterday and won. They simply got lucky on this game folks. I believe the Habs will bounce back on this series. They have outplayed the Flyers more so than the Bruins. I can't see the Habs losing game 4 let alone the series like they this. They are playing one of their best hockey of the playoffs. Watch for a hungrier Habs team to show up on Wednesday. The way I now see this series, we may have another Game 7 showdown and expect the habs to show up again for this one. Yours Truly, Rocket Richard " YOU MUST HATE TO LOSE " http://leonsinvestmentservices.info

Ok, simply put : 1. Flyers are really lucky (n number of posts during the 3 games!) 2. Biron is playing like a playoff goalie 3. Price is killing us 4. We need to score on the friggin PP! 5. We need better transition play 6. Our D needs to go O on the Flyers - it will screw up there blue line strategy 6.1 What's up with Marky? 7. Streit is not the same PP pivot he has been 8. Komi not hitting as hard as he should 9. Why did Carbo break the Bégin-Smoke-Kostopolous line? That should have remained 10. We are dominating the Flyers on most of the plays - except goaltending. 10.1 Philly found the strategy to score : screened shots. There. If we can stop hitting posts and put it in, we'll be allright! Go Habs Go!

I was more concerned with Boston. In Boston we were outplayed several and stole wins. So far against Philly we have deserved all three games. Price will shine again, but I don't like the two checking lines. Koivu, Ryder, Streit Max, s. Kost, Higgins. Leave Kovalev with Plecks and Kost. Kovalev was saying all year that he "finally has consistent line mates" and now the most important time of the year comes and we are chanigng the lines on our star. Leave Kovalev's line alone...and give Koivu a goal scorer. Higgins only scores 1 in 20 chances.

MPC, youre right but I cant say Im surprised seeing some of our forwards fold up like tents, our forwards just arent hard-nosed enough. I felt it was something that should've been addressed at the trade deadline but what do I know. The team was going for much of the same with Hossa, I thought Chris Simon couldve been a good cheap pickup...But I think the future looks bright, I think the habs' style will be the norm in the NHL in a short time. But for now, might is still right.

If we play they way we have been ( with a little better goaltending ) we will win the next game. I really dont care who plays in net the next game. If we start scoring on our chances we will take this series. The flyers looked a little worried when we scored those 2 powerplay goals another minute or so and we would have tied the game...we have all the momentum going into the next game.

Like why did this organization feel a need to christen and publicize Price as the number one goalie once Huet left? Can someone answer me that? Maybe cause they felt that it wasnt so obvious who the best goalie was to some people right now? Like Carbonneau or myself.

Nightmare, Ive said it for a long time (in real life), but (on HIO) by long time I mean not just recently with Price's bad outtings. I been more around the last few days, I was here before and generally got ignored, got laughed at and ridiculed for mentioning Halak etc. I think earlier in the year now that you mention it, I had to reregister or something...Im not saying Price isnt the goalie of the future or that he wont be good or anything like that. I support the team, but the team this year is making some bad decisions seemingly out of obstination rather than good hockey sense.

I am worried! Looks to me we will loose Game 4 and if we do that's it. We are in a tight corner, aren't we? Would hate to see the postseason end like this- so quickly and unexpectedly. Hope some of you who are more optimist can pull it through. Habs do not loose Game 4!

I don't know why there hasn't been any discussion about benching pleks... he hasn't shown me anything throughout the entire post-season except how to play like you're afraid to take a hit...

Regular posters will know that I havent waivered at all, Ive maintained the same position with the goaltending situation for a long time now in that Halak is getting a bum deal for no apparent reason. No doubt Price will bounce back in game 4 (should he get the start, wednesdays as been his best day of the week all year long) but then what after that? 2 more subpar games? Price is shaky and makes very bad decisions.

WHEN price wins game 4, i wonder what all you haters will say then. First hes great, then hes terrible, then hes great again, and now hes terrible i'll admit i criticize but atleast i don't waver. Quit the flip floppin and start believen in the kid the drive for 25 the year of destiny In price i trust