Rocket:

Was the play of the Canadiens evidence of a game plan tonight? Perhaps!

The strategy seemed to be borrowed from the NFL. With Jaroslav Halak coming off two horrible performances, the Canadiens went into lockdown mode, employing a ‘prevent defense’. Even with help from his mates, Halak struggled for the first two periods. On the Rangers first goal, Halak turned awkwardly to make the initial save and couldn’t control the puck. Drury scored on the rebound. In the 2nd period, Halak was caught very deep in his crease (again) and couldn’t stop Callahan’s shot on the glove side. He continued to give up big rebounds.

But Jaro picked his game up in the third. He played his best period in quite some time when the Rangers outshot the Canadiens 18-8.

At the other end, Henrik Lundqvist has a rough outing. Early in the first, he gave away the puck behind the net right to Max Pacioretty who made a perfect pass to Alex Kovalev for the game’s first goal. Late in the same period, Lundqvist was surprised by a shot from center ice by Roman Hamrlik. He game up a huge rebound. Gui Latentresse partially fanned on a rolling puck but the floater beat Lundqvist high.

While the Habs were committed to defense, they made the most of their opportunities to score. For the second game in a row, Robert Lang withe the two Kostitsyns was the best line for the Canadiens. Lang had his second career hat trick. Andrei Kostitsyn was a wrecking ball with 4 hits and an assist. It is bizarre that the line got so little ice time; only about 10 minutes of 5 on 5 play.

The Plekanec line was rather good too. Alex Kovalev had a goal with Pacioretty and Plekanec getting an assist. Max Lapierre played well defensively, logging a huge amount of icetime. Laps had a miserable time at the faceoff dot winning only 23%.

Coming into the game, the Canadiens were ranked 27th on the power-play with the Rangers ranked 1st in penalty killing. Surprise! Surprise! The Habs scored 2 power-play goals (and a short handed goal). Amazingly, the Rangers got their first power-play with just under 4 minutes left in the game. Kudos for some disciplined play by the Canadiens tonight (assisted by a missed call or two).

The defensive corps overall had a good game and were helped by forwards coming back. Andrei Markov was great at both ends of the ice and on the power-play. Roman Hamrlik had 3 assists and 4 hits. Francis Bouillon also had 4 hits.

Lastly, it is time for Patrice Brisebois to retire or be sent to the Cincinnati Cyclones. Brise’s play has regressed from awful to horrific! He contributes little and his passes were all over the ice tonight including a McGuire-described “egregious giveaway”. (Before you run for the Oxford, that means shockingly bad!) Bring on Yannick Weber, Ryan O’Byrne, PK Subban, or anyone! I venture to wager that even Charles Prevost Linton is an upgrade over Brisebois.

Very few hard hits tonight (other than by Andrei Kostitsyn and Francis Bouillon), few penalties and few whistles but still an entertaining game. It was a good defensive road effort by the Habs to protect their shaky goaltender. Robert Lang is turning out to be a very astute ‘Plan B’ for Bob Gainey.

Pre-game:

Best quote of the pre-game interviews was by Alex Kovalev: “MSG ice is like skating in a potato field.”

Price, Tanguay, Higgins, Dandenault, Koivu, Laraque out with injuries. Weber is a healthy scratch.

Rocket’s 3 stars:

1. Robert Lang
2. Andrei Markov
3. Chris Drury

(photo credit: Mike Stobe/Getty Images)