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For your benefit I waited a little while before starting to write this review. I will attempt to keep this blog a family friendly place by keeping the explicative’s out. What we all played witness to on Thursday night probably has the rocket turning over in his grave. Our Montreal canadiens are a team built on heart.

    You see, I became a fan of this team during the lean years, when there wasn't much to cheer about because bad management decisions meant that the on-ice product just wasn't up to snuff, but at least they tried. I wasn't born a habs fan, I became one and sure I might have been affected by the fact that my whole family are habs fans, but I didn't have to be, I knew that they weren't great but I didn't care because I loved the resilience, I loved that “us against the world“mentality and I felt that it was the approach I wanted to take in life. Now to see them succumb without so much as a whimper to a team who has nothing to play for feels like the cruellest of betrayals.

Enough about my sappy story. I will do what all good habs fans would do -or maybe just the masochistic ones- try to figure out what's plaguing them. I’ve narrowed it down to two possible things (although I might be completely wrong and it turns out to be something else entirely)

 1) Jacques Martin is not the right man for the job. Sure he exudes the confidence of a soothsayer, and matter how pressing the question is, once he goes into his speech on special teams, goaltending, and “the system” I always feel a little bit better. But I have yet to really see him light a fire under a player and pump the team up, sure he`ll demote a guy every now and then, and even an occasional nailing to the bench (see Sergei K. In Carolina) but he can't seem to get through to the team. Let's lay our cards on the table, our habs are an average group at best and because of that, half of the coaches job is to get them to play with more heart than the other guys. If you can't out-play them; out hustle them. He doesn't seem to be able to do that.

2) No captain. Maybe it’s because nobody has really stepped up. Gionta, Markov, and Cammalleri -the frontrunners for the captaincy in my opinion- have all gone down injured for long stretches throughout the season and therefore haven't really been able to jump into the driver’s seat. Usually if the coach can't get the boys pumped, the captain should, but we don't have one.


     I might be right or wrong, but whatever the problem is someone better get to the bottom of it soon, or we`ll miss the dance. Habs vs. Leafs tonight, I won’t even bother going into the stats – just win.

 



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    Big time habs fan sharing my thoughts on the most storied franchise in all of pro, spors (I love being able to say that!)

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