They’ve been mediocre at best lately, but they’ve still been winning just about every night.
We’ll take that, I guess.
Tonight they not only won again, but they were also quite excellent, at least in my tired, old eyes, as the Habs proved too much for the great big L.A. Kings and their familiar goaltender, Peter Budai.
Another two points banked, to be withdrawn during desperate times.
A convincing 4-1 over the Californians, and the Montreal Canadiens roll along, even though we get mad at them.
We get mad at them and they’ve won their first nine games at home, four of five games in November, and sit 12-1-1 overall.
We’re a tough bunch. Hard to please. Harsh critics. Possibly a bit silly about the whole state of affairs. But we need that Cup contender. It’s only natural.
The Kings did try and make a game of it in the third period, beginning with an Anze Kopitar shot that Carey Price miraculously gloved, and what left the captain shaking his head. But it’s not the first time Price has left a shooter shaking his head, and it won’t be the last.
With Brendan Gallagher serving four minutes in the box for high sticking, the Kings narrowed things to 3-1, and we were mad at Gallagher.
But after Montreal’s penalty killers held on after Andrei Markov was sent to the sinbin for high sticking (which we were mad at him about), Alex Galchenyuk found the empty net and we were happy about that.
We were happy, except for hearing the news that Leonard Cohen had died during the evening.
Probably every time I’ve ever heard a Leonard Cohen song, I’ve wished I could put words together like that.
Random Notes:
The Canadiens were outshot 24-23, which is way better than having 40 shots sent their way, which has been the pattern lately.
Scoring for Montreal were Paul Byron, Daniel Carr, Phillip Danault (who was great on this night centering Max and Andrew Shaw), and Galchenyuk with his empty netter.
Chucky leads the team with 6 goals and 8 assists.
Next up – The Detroit Red Wings hit town.