Ever have one of those dreams where you're being chased by some unseen yet utterly terrifying malevolent force, but you just can't seem to stay on your feet?  All you need to do to escape a fate worse than death such as being digested in the belly of a beast over a thousand years or condemned to an eternity as Don Cherry's proctologist, is to run away.  That's it.  Just run, an act as natural as breathing (an act more natural for some than others...I'm looking at you Tucker).  But every time you try to get up, you either trip over your own feet or over balance and *splat* fall flat on your face while the snarling and crashing noises behind you get louder and louder and louder...

Ever have a dream like that?  I have.  Man, I hate when that happens.  Last night's game was a lot like one of those.

Let us now lurch and stumble across the jump, shall we?

The Highs:

None shall pass!: Ordinarily I prefer to single out individuals for my laudatory honours ('cause it just means so damn much to them, I know), but today I choose to bestow my highest praise upon our many headed hydra known as PK.  Watching Fish, A-Train and Carkner block twelve (TWELVE!) point-blank shots during a first period Habs 5-on-3 was probably the most exciting thing to happen all night (that's not a happy thing, by-the-by).  Oh, and in case you haven't noticed, that goalie is pretty good too.

Sorry Youppi.  He has a new master now: I think I'm starting to figure Kovy out.  It's not that he picks and chooses which games in which he'll play hard.  It's more of a shift-to-shift thing.  Utterly invisible to almost everyone (including the audience), he'll suddenly pop up and do something beautiful to make us all gasp and say "Holy crap!  Where the hell did he come from?"  He's the world's most sublime jack-in-the-box.  Of course, the line between sublime and infuriating is exceedingly fine, but for now, it's pretty sweet to watch.

Just so we're clear, he said "retire" in Montreal, not "play".  There is a difference: Much is made of the "classy" fans in Montreal as compared and contrasted to the drunken, myopic thugs further west in Yorktown-Upon-The-Gardner.  It's utter bullshit, of course as any fanbase will have roughly the same ratio of assholes (well, except for the Rangers, but that has more to do with the water than anything else), but their rather gracious reaction to Kovy's goal and post-game skate-around should be applauded.  Somewhere, Mike Komisarek asks "What about me??"  Then he goes back to the penalty box.

The Lows:

Who, us?  Power play?  No thanks, we're good: How hard can it be?  I'm not even talking about setting up the powerplay properly, or cycling down low with the extra guy, or any of the more technically advanced minutia of a man advantage.  No, I'm talking about getting the hell out of your own way.  Actually moving your body so as to make a completed pass a remote possibility.  Covering a point so the last ditch flail from a desperate forward in the corner doesn't go sailing two hundred feet to your own goal line.  In other words, I'm talking about things that everybody learns in Peewee House League.  So...yeah.  How hard can it be?

Walk softly and...how does the rest of that go again?: I take many notes during a game ("Harper pandering for Quebec vote" "Montreal beer girls are spectacular!").  Scanning last night's scribblings I come across the following: "25 hits somebody = 1st one?"  The fact that this entry comes under the heading of "3rd period" tells you everything you need to know about this game.

Pithy Observations of Questionable Importance:

If it just goes away, I promise to never speak of this again: I don't think this can be overstated.  Guy Carbonneau in a broadcast booth is the worst thing to happen to television in the history of everything.  Ever.  Worse than Andy Sipowitz's bare ass.  Worse than every inbred trailer trash infested episode of Springer.  Hell, even worse than After M*A*S*H.  I'm talking abysmally awful in the most execrable meaning of the word.  If he wasn't restating the obvious in a barely audible monotone, we were subjected to long, rambling diatribes as to how much the Sens suck, and always have.  And that's before the broken English.

Between Carbonneau's sanity shattering soliloquies and Bob Cole being constantly five seconds and three misidentified players behind the play, it's a wonder Gary Galley didn't launch himself out of the booth just to make it stop.  Lord knows I would have.

The Creamy Middle:

Blech.  And a lucky blech at that.  Had Pascal not stood on his head early, had the PK not been batshit crazy solid, had the Habs spent even just a little bit more time playing and a little less shooting themselves in the foot, I'm filling this space with enraged yammerings targeting everyone and everything wearing a Sens jersey (YA HEARD ME, SPARTY!).  Instead, we'll take the two points, thank our gracious hosts and slink out of town like thieves.  Oddly enough, I'm okay with that.

Up Next:

A four day break before Thursday night and a date with the Nashville Preadators.  Good news all around.  It gives me a chance to do some long over-do housekeeping around these parts (them links is gettin' mighty dusty!) as well as roll out some cool new toys bestowed upon us by our Bloguin overlords.  As for the Sens...how about that power play, eh?  Nothin' a whole shit load of little practice can't fix. (7:30pm, SportsNet East for the local coverage).

Behind Enemy Lines:

A lonely, if articulate voice in the wilderness, Dirk Hoag and On the Forecheck is your #1 source for Nashville Predators news and analysis (I'm not making that up.  Says so right in the top banner).  When they move the team to Quebec, I hope you'll go with them, Dirk.  You're going to LOVE Carnival.

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