Habs Clinch By Beating The Sens 7-5

The Montreal Canadiens defeated the Ottawa Senators by the score of 7-5 tonight, and by doing so have assured themselves of making the play-offs, and the Habs also padded the division lead by two points making their lead on Ottawa now 7 points.

The scoring for the Habs went like this, Andrei Kostitsyn, from Tomas Plekanec, and Roman Hamrlik, secondly from Chris Higgins, assisted by Maxime Lapierre, the third goal was from Andrei Kostitsyn, from Mark Streit, the fourth from Francis Bouillon, from Brian Smolinski, the fifth from Andrei Markov, assisted by Michael Ryder, and Alex Kovalev, the sixth from Mikhail Grabovski, from Sergei Kostitsyn, and lastly from Tom Kostopoulos, assisted by Andrei Markov. Carey Price stopped 31 of 36 shots.

The Sens scoring is Antoine Vermette, from Randy Robitaille, and Martin Lapointe, secondly from Dany Heatley, from Daniel Alfredsson, and Luke Richardson, next was Martin Lapointe, from Shean Donovan, and Randy Robitaille, then Dany Heatley from Mike Commodore, and Daniel Alfredsson, and lastly from Cory Stillman, assisted from Daniel Alfredsson.

The Habs came out busting, not letting the Sens do anything at all for two periods, closing the neutral zone, hitting the Sens, and making an aggressive fore-check. They made the Sens wonder what team they were playing, they blazed by them on all accounts. The third period however was a different story, with a mix of bad calls from the refs yet again, and a total lack of organization from the Habs, not to mention a couple of goals that Price should not have let in, it was a total collapse in the third, once again started by the questionable calls from the refs.

The Canadiens have now cliched a play-off birth, and they are 7 points ahead of the Sens for the division lead, and three points ahead of the Pittsburgh Penguins for the conference lead. The Habs next play the Buffalo Sabres on Friday, the Sabres can do the Habs a favour by beating the Sens twice this week, and giving us the division championship. The Habs can now breath a little easier with the assurance of making the play-offs, they now have 96 points, and need to win two more games to get 100 points.

Carey Price had a difficult third period, but in the end he has to be a professional, and let it slide off his shoulders as they won anyway. It’s unclear at this point if the Habs will give Jaroslav Halak another start before the play-offs, and if that start will be on Friday against the Sabres to then come back with Price on Saturday against the Toronto Maple Leafs. The fans let out a sigh of relief after tonight’s game, their team is now officially in the play-offs, where they will sit is still to be determined.

Nice going boys, keep it up, but play all 60 minutes instead of only 40.