Habs Lose A Stinker!!

The Montreal Canadiens lost 6-4 to the San Jose Sharks on Monday, the Habs came back four times, but the referees seemingly did not want them to win.

The goal scorers for the Habs were, Tomas Plekanec with two goals, Ryan O’Byrne, and Maxime Lapierre. The scorers for the Shars were, Joe Thornton with two goals, Patrick Marleau, Jody Shelley, Jonathan Cheechoo, and Brian Campbell. The game itself was entertaining, but the refs thought it better to be noticed and called penalties for both teams which were suspect at best, the refs also refused to call good penalties, for instance, the Sharks running over Carey Price over and over again, when Guy Carbonneau tried to talk to the refs about that he was waived off.

Carey Price looked weak on a couple of goals, but to his defence, for some goals, Price had just been run over. The Shelley goal Price should have stopped, and the Campbell goal should have been stopped as well. What’s amusing is with all the missed penalty calls and all of the time the Habs were on the penalty-kill, they still managed to score 4 even-strength goals. The Habs power -play was an abysmal zero for seven, but they still managed to score 4 goals on one of the best defensive teams in the league.

The Canadiens showed that even with all forces against them that they can still score without the power-play. Unfortunately Carey Price didn’t help the situation by allowing 6 goals, but he is still very young and in the learning process, but he has to learn quickly as the Habs can ill afford to lose too many games at this part of the season. The Habs defence looked bad last night as well, basically even-though Price allowed 6 goals, it was a team loss as the whole team played bad defensively.

What are the referees thinking? I guess they should take shifts and all go on vacation for a week before the play-offs start, there is so much inconsistency among refs that players are afraid to do anything now. One game you would be surprised to hear a whistle, the next all you hear is whistles. Maybe the owners should recommend that the league subject all refs to call the games evenly, meaning they should not have it at their discretion as this seems to vary too much depending on who the ref is, besides not calling a play-off game as a penalty the refs to be subject to suspensions for not performing their duties properly. Players who do something wrong are suspended, why not refs?

Canadiens fans should still be happy as they are still ahead in their division and second only because the Pittsburgh Penguins won one more game in the Eastern Conference. The Habs have two scorers in the top 30 of the league, they have two players with 25+ goals and four players with twenty+ goals, and they showed once again that they don’t need the power-play to score goals.

The next game is Thursday against the Phoenix Coyotes, the Habs are allowed to have a bad game, but they also have to get more points as I do not believe 81 points will be enough. Let’s hope the Habs buckle up and get back on track, and perhaps the referees will do their job properly next game!