Feb 7, 2016
No thumbs up for Canadiens, Senators yet
TSN's Dave Hodge holds off on giving thumbs up to the Montreal Canadiens and Ottawa Senators after victories over teams with less than impressive efforts on Saturday. However, Calgary Flames goaltender Jonas Hiller gets a thumbs up for his near-shutout against the Vancouver Canucks.
By Dave Hodge
If you don’t mind, “thumbs up” to the Montreal Canadiens will have to wait.
They get two points for yesterday’s 5-1 victory over the Edmonton Oilers, but let’s hold off on glowing praise.
The Habs beat one of the NHL’s last-place teams. Mind you, they’d been losing to the others. But this time, apart from one spectacular rush late in the game by Connor McDavid, the Oilers showed none of the spark that coincided with the top draft pick’s return two games earlier.
The Canadiens aren’t going to continue to get goals from Tom Gilbert. Tomas Plekanec isn’t in the habit of producing four-point games, especially because the Canadiens aren’t in the habit of scoring four times. Ben Scrivens isn’t Carey Price.
The Ole Ole Song hadn’t been heard in a while — since the Pina Colada Song was a hit, it seemed — and it wasn’t the full-throated version that made you think the Habs’ faithful was really celebrating.
They were exhaling with enough volume to acknowledge the win, that’s all.
The Canadiens will play again in the afternoon when Carolina visits the Bell Centre. The Hurricanes happen to be two points ahead of the Habs in the standings, if you need further proof of the severity of Montreal’s descent.
The game won’t rival the Super Bowl, but it will be every bit as important as yesterday’s for Montreal. A second straight win gives hope. A loss cancels the first one.
It’s only fair that if Montreal doesn’t get a “thumbs up”, Ottawa doesn’t, either.
In the interest of brevity, please re-read the start of the preceding segment, substitute “Senators” for “Canadiens”, and where it refers to the Edmonton Oilers, pin the blame for a bad performance on the Toronto Maple Leafs.
I guess we shouldn’t be surprised, given the also-ran status of the NHL teams in Canada, that a day featuring three all-Canadian matchups might fall well short of stirring hockey.
Ah, but there was one last, late-night hope for something decent when the Calgary Flames took on the Canucks in Vancouver.
Don’t ask fans of the fading Canucks to agree, but Calgary goalie Jonas Hiller earned a “thumbs up” with 34 saves and a near-shutout, Vancouver’s lone goal in a 4-1 loss coming with less than two minutes to play.
While all of this was going on in Canada, the Winnipeg Jets celebrated a 4-2 road win over the Colorado Avalanche, an actual playoff team.
Canada’s best chance to have one of those, slim as it might seem, continues to lie with Montreal or Ottawa, both five points away from a post-season berth. And both on one-game winning streaks.