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Despite losing both games at home, the Habs
didn’t fold and won a hard fought Game 5 to extend their season.  The
Bulldogs also extended their season, winning Game 6 in OT to move on to the
second round of the Calder Cup playoffs.  With Montreal set to play Game 6
on Monday, the Series Synopsis looks at 3 keys to victory, while the Final
Thought looks at the coaching situation moving forward.  This, plus the
power rankings, in the Recap.

 Power
Rankings

The PPR’s are on a cumulative basis with
some bias towards the current week.  The prev. column represents the last
ranking for the player; players not on last week’s list will be slotted back
where they were when returning from injury/benching/recall (italicized numbers). 
Thus, multiple players may have the same previous ranking.  These power
rankings are carried forward from the regular season, no new ones will be started.


Rk

Player

Prev.

Comments

1

Brian Gionta

2 Finds a way to hit the
scoresheet almost every game somehow.
2 Tomas Plekanec 1 Decent, but
needs to pick up the offensive production for Game 6.

3
Jaroslav Halak 3 Struggled in Game 3 but
certainly made up for in with the Game 5 win.
4 Mike Cammalleri 5 The best
offensive threat this week though being -4 in Game 3 stings.

5
Scott Gomez 4 Nice that he’s passionate, but
needs to use that edge to produce.
6 Carey Price 4 You can’t
blame him for the Game 4 loss but he needed to be better.

7
Josh Gorges 9 Really stepped up his game
when Martin shortened his bench.
8 Andrei Markov 7 Getting
better as the series goes on; hopefully we haven’t seen his best.
9 Andrei Kostitsyn 6 Didn’t score but at least
competed defensively, especially on Friday.

10
Dominic Moore 10 Stat of the
series so far: He leads the Habs in hits with 11 (2.2/game).
11 Hal Gill 12 He’s blocked enough that you
could make the case he deserves a SV%.

12
Benoit Pouliot 8 When the
coach says to drive the net, drive the net already!
13 Travis Moen 15 Was quiet until Game 5 where
he played his best game in quite a while.

14
Ryan O’Byrne 14 Did
everything asked of him – hit, block shots, and clear the crease.
15 Jaroslav Spacek 13 As odd as it is to say given
his play this year, the Habs could use him.

16
Glen Metropolit 15 Struggled
his first game back but at least set up a key goal in Game 4.
17 Roman Hamrlik 14 At 15 minutes a game, I think
he can help the team in Game 6 and beyond.
18 Marc-Andre Bergeron 11 He handles
the puck as if it were a live grenade, just shoot already!
19 Tom Pyatt 17 He hustles and doesn’t make
many mistakes, hard to complain with that.
20 Maxim Lapierre 16 The Habs
need to try and gain a physical edge, he can provide that.
21 Sergei Kostitsyn 18 If he plays with an edge, good
things happen; rarely has an edge though.
22 Mathieu Darche 19 Showed why
no one expected him to be in the NHL at all this year.

Dropped from the rankings: N/A; the fact
that three players returned to the rankings means that players may have dropped
despite having a good week.

 The Dog
Pound

Hamilton wasn’t able to carry over the momentum
from a Game 2 blowout but did play well enough to take the series in 6, setting
a season high in shots on goal in Game 6.

 Results:

April 19
1
2 3
Tot

PP

SOG
Hamilton 0 2 0 2 1/8 36
Manitoba 2 2 3 7 4/8 24

Attendance:  7,546
3 Stars:
  1) Desbiens – MTB  2) Schroeder – MTB  3) McGinnis
– MTB

April 21
1
2 3 OT1 OT2
Tot

PP

SOG
Hamilton 1 2 1 0 1 5 1/4 45
Manitoba 0 4 0 0 0 4 1/4 42

Attendance:  7,501
3 Stars:
  1) Stevenson – HAM  2) Bliznak – MTB  3) Palushaj – HAM

April 23
1
2 3
Tot

PP

SOG
Hamilton 0 0 2 2 1/4 30
Manitoba 1 1 3 5 1/3 22

Attendance:  6,927
3 Stars:
  1) Schneider – MTB  2) Olvecky – MTB  3) Sexton –
MTB

April 25
1
2 3 OT
Tot

PP

SOG
Manitoba 1 1 0 0 2 0/3 27
Hamilton 1 1 0 1 3 2/7 49

Attendance:  2,791
3 Stars:
  1) Stevenson – HAM  2) Olvecky – MTB  3) Subban – HAM

Stats:

When a team is down, they go to their big time
scorers to lead the way which is exactly what David Desharnais did this week. 
I should also note that AHL signee Grant Stevenson scored the series winner in
OT.

SKATERS

# Player GP G A +/- SH PIMS
4 Michael Vernace 4 0 0 -3 5 2
5 Alex Henry 4 0 0 +2 1 0
6 Chad Anderson 4 0 1 -1 10 0
7 Yannick Weber 1 0 0 -1 3 0
10 J.T. Wyman 4 0 0 -3 8 2
12 Andrew Conboy 4 1 0 +1 4 14
14 Olivier Fortier 1 0 0 E 2 0
15 Mike Glumac 4 2 1 -4 18 4
18 Dany Masse 3 0 1 -1 1 0
19 Brock Trotter 4 1 1 E 18 2
20 Ryan Russell 4 0 1 -1 4 0
25 Ryan White 4 2 0 -2 11 19
26 Grant Stevenson 4 1 3 -1 13 0
28 Aaron Palushaj 4 0 2 E 7 6
32 Frederic St. Denis 4 0 0 -1 8 4
42 Hunter Bishop 3 0 0 -2 0 4
44 Shawn Belle 4 0 1 +1 4 10
51 David Desharnais 4 2 3 -1 16 2
61 Andre Benoit 4 1 3 -4 8 4
76 P.K. Subban 4 2 3 -4 19 4

GOALIES

# Player Record SV% GAA
30 Cedrick Desjardins 2-2-0 .857 3.54
35 Robert Mayer 0-0-0 .813 4.83

Leaders:

Goals: Mike Glumac (4)
Assists: Andre Benoit/P.K. Subban (6)
Points: P.K. Subban (9)
+/-: Shawn Belle (+4)
PIMS: Ryan White (23)
Shots: P.K. Subban/Brock Trotter (25)

Round 2:

Schedule and opponent to be
determined (winner of Abbotsford/Rochester).

Series
Synopsis

Like last week, a series of quick notes on the
series with an eye on some stats as well:

3 Keys for Game 6:
1) Early energy – The crowd will be behind the Habs to start, use that to
your advantage and give them something more to cheer about.

2) Change the PP – We all know the strategy on the powerplay, send it to the
point and bomb away.  Guess what, the Caps have figured it out.  If
they’re overplaying the point with their 2 forwards at the point, force the play
down low and create a mini 3-on-2.  It’s enough of a change to throw the
Caps for a loop.

3) Don’t play with fire – Washington has averaged just under 5 PP’s per game
this series (24 PP’s in 5 games) and had the best powerplay during the season. 
Eventually, they’ll figure out how to score on this; don’t give them as many
opportunities and this gets negated somewhat.

– Right now, the top faceoff man (minimum 10 faceoffs) for the Habs is Mike
Cammalleri (57.1%).  Perhaps they need to consider using him over Plekanec
(38.0%) in some instances?

– Only 7 players have scored in the series for the Habs so far.  I said
this last week and it still holds true now, secondary scoring (and defence
scoring) will be critical to Game 6/7 success.

Final
Thought

Through 5 postseason games, I think GM Pierre
Gauthier has got a pretty good sense of what he needs to accomplish this
offseason.  I’m not sold that one of those things involves changing the
coach though like many suggest.  Sure, Guy Boucher looks like he’ll be a
good coach down the road but if someone else wants to give him a shot first, so
be it.  Every new NHL coach has a learning curve; is it so bad if he goes
through those growing pains elsewhere, away from the spotlight in Montreal? 

Personally, I think there’s some benefits to keeping Martin around regardless of
what happens with Boucher.  For one, there’d be some sense of stability,
something the Habs haven’t had a lot of lately.  Also, the team now knows
what he demands in terms of conditioning – they weren’t in "his" shape at the
start of the year but they are now.  They’d be starting much further along
the learning curve next training camp which inherently should lead to some
better success early on in the year.  It’s also easier to move a few
players for those to fit the system rather than to change the system and hope
the players can adapt.  I’ll leave the money aspect out of it aside from
mentioning that I’m not sure when the last time was that the Habs were paying 3
head coaches at the same time, if it’s ever happened before.

One thing’s for sure, any teams interested in Guy Boucher will have to wait a
little while longer as the Bulldogs will be playing for a few more weeks yet. 
Hopefully we’ll be able to say the same about the Habs soon enough.

If you have a question regarding
this article,
please feel free to drop me a line at
[email protected]
.