Montreal 2 Ottawa 3 (Scotiabank Place )
In the opening game of Hockey Day in Canada, the Canadiens got off to another slow start. By midway through the game, Ottawa had taken a 2-0 lead. The Habs power-play scored an important goal before the end of the second period, to keep the game close.
But that’s where the game story becomes secondary to concerns for the Canadiens’ season.
With about 7:16 left in the third period, Tomas Plekanec dumped the puck across the Ottawa blueline. As Mike Cammalleri chased it down, Anton Volchenkov batted the puck out of the zone with a backhand and continued into Cammalleri with a solid hit.
Was it interference? Probably, but that seemed irrelevant as Canadiens’ fans watched Cammalleri fall backward against the boards, his knee buckling underneath him, in a way that the knee was not designed to bend. Cammalleri grimaced in pain and could put no weight on his right leg as he was helped off the ice by Sergei Kostitsyn and athletic therapist Graham Rynbend.
After the game, Coach Jacques Martin would only say that it was a lower body injury and that Cammalleri would receive an MRI on Monday. Cammalleri left Scotiabank Place on crutches with his right leg immobilized in an inflatable cast. Hockey Night in Canada’s Scott Morrison reported that Cammalleri had sustained “suspected MCL [medial collateral ligament] damage.”
It is meaningless at this point to speculate on the severity of Cammalleri’s injury but it is hard to ignore his contribution to the team this season. Cammalleri has 26 goals this season with only four scored on the power-play. For a team that struggles scoring when even strength, his loss for an extended period of team is devastating.
After tonight’s game, the Canadiens have now gone 217 minutes and 16 seconds without a 5-on-5 goal. The Habs scored two goals on the power-play by Benoit Pouliot and Brian Gionta. The Habs could not generate any sustained offensive pressure while at even strength.
Coach Martin saw it differently. “I think both teams were pretty even five-on-five as far as chances,” said Martin. “I think for 60 minutes we had a pretty good performance even after missing certain players.”
While Martin felt that the Canadiens battled hard, he said it was Mike Fisher’s line that made the difference in the game.
Fisher scored the game winner in over-time in a rare three-on-three matchup when he went around Andrei Markov and deked Jaroslav Halak. Marc-Andre Bergeron casually glided back and could offer no support.
“I don’t even know how it went in. I made the first save, maybe somebody…” said Halak, not finishing his sentence. It’s clear that Halak was fooled as there was no one else in the vicinity of the play.
Tomas Plekanec had two assists and was the Canadiens best forward. Sergei Kostitsyn, Brian Gionta and Benoit Pouliot played well also. Glen Metropolit continued his stay in coach Martin’s doghouse. He had less than ten minutes of icetime, and the fewest shifts by Habs’ players.
Ryan O’Byrne played well with over 20 minutes of icetime paired with Markov. In one of his several solid hits, O’Byrne leveled Milan Michalek. Markov has not looked the same in his own zone for several games.
Yannick Weber deserves credit for a solid 14 minutes of play sprinkled with a few mistakes. While he was on the ice for the first Ottawa goal, it was his defensive partner Hal Gill who was slow to cover the goal scorer, Alex Kovalev after Weber had done a nice job containing him. Weber made a great defensive play in the third period by preventing a Senators’ break, which transitioned to a good scoring chance for the Habs.
The Senators won their ninth straight game with the Canadiens picking up one point for the overtime loss.
“It’s disappointing, for sure,” Pouliot said. “You can’t fall behind by one or two at the start of every game and expect to come back all the time, that’s tough. We showed some character and we come back to tie it 2-2 at the end of the period. The power play did well and it’s just too bad that we couldn’t get a second point.”
The Canadiens’ next game is at home on Tuesday night against the Vancouver Canucks.
Rocket’s three stars
1. Mike Fisher
2. Tomas Plekanec
3. Alex Kovalev
Material from wire services was used in this report.
(photo credits: AP; Wayne Cuddington, Ottawa Citizen)
I'll give the Habs credit for showing some heart and determination for coming back, but really, what is this team going to do without Cammalleri? We won't know anything until tomorrow, but I think it's fairly obvious that we've seen the last of him until March.
So where does this leave the Habs? They've been quite fortunate over the past couple nights as many of the teams they are battling with for playoff spots have also lost games. You can view it as a reprieve or as the Canadiens wasting opportunities to save their own skin.
Once we are aware of the extent of Cammalleri's injury, Arpon Basu and I have set the over/under of "opportunity for other guys to step up" cliche at 15. He's got the over. The larger point is that the Canadiens are already so bad 5-on-5 that it's blind faith to hope that someone actually will step up. As I mentioned: http://twitter.com/kyleroussel/status/8425728634 If anyone was capable of stepping up, it probably would have happened already. Hickey said the same in his recap this morning. (Hickey actually stuck to hockey this morning and left the goaltending issue alone, which is nice to see.) Sure, Andrei Kostitsyn will be back after the Olympics, but that would just bring us back to where we are now – which is bad. None of the youngsters have worked out on the top line, and despite looking good, Sergei still hasn't registered a point on the top line after 3 games. As Hickey also pointed out, Pacioretty, D'Agostini and Kostitsyn have combined for 0 points during their time on the 1st line. We can throw all the "yeah buts" we want in to the mix, but 0 points gets you nowhere, or demoted to Hamilton. Granted, Sergei has looked by far the best of the 3, and I think he'll get on the scoresheet soon, but geez…talk about regression and/or terrible coaching strategies.
The young guys are hardly the only ones that need to look in the mirror. Gill was in quicksand on the 1st goal, and he left Kovalev, of all people alone for an easy tap-in goal. Then when he remembered to defend the front of his net, he took a high sticking minor on which the Sens scored their second goal. And finally, the duo of Markov and Bergeron were woefully out to lunch on the overtime winner. Well, Markov was out to lunch, and Bergeron was just plain lazy/useless. You're right though, and it's been clear as day, Markov has not been reliable defensively of late. I wonder if he's hurt again, or trying to do too much offensively.
Alas, things could be worse. We could be the Oilers. After suffering through an awful season, Sheldon Souray provided the team with a list of teams he would be traded to, only to fracture his wrist last night in a "vendetta" fight with Iginla.
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