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It wasn’t a week that was as good as the last
but the Habs still picked up five of a possible six points and now find
themselves as the hottest team in the East.  Things weren’t as good for the
Bulldogs as they lost two of three important divisional games.  Montreal’s
recent streak has come at the same time as Alexei Emelin’s return to the lineup,
my Final Thought looks at what he brings beyond the hitting.

Cheers
and Jeers

Cheers to…

1) Consistent goaltending.  The duo of
Carey Price and Peter Budaj allowed two or fewer goals in a game in 11 of 14
November contests (and three in three this past week).  In a league where it’s generally believed that you need
three goals to win, those two have been huge for the Habs.

2) Max Pacioretty, who in recent weeks has
returned to the goal scoring form that had been eluding him for the better part
of the season.  He is looking to attack far more frequently than he was
when he came back from injury and it’s little coincidence that his scoring touch
came back at the same time.

3) The road powerplay, which ranks first in the
league at just under 30%.  When you’re the road team, you always want to
quiet the crowd.  Scoring on an average of three in ten has resulted in
that happening on a regular basis.

Jeers to…

1) Alex Galchenyuk; it appears the sophomore
slump may have caught up with him for a bit after all.  In recent games the
two-way effort hasn’t been as consistent as it needs to be and he seems to be
pressing at the offensive end.  This all coincides with Brendan Gallagher
moving to the Pacioretty-Desharnais line but given their success as a unit, the
‘EGG’ line isn’t going to be reunited so it will be up to Galchenyuk to find
some chemistry with whoever’s on that opposite wing.

2) The higher usage of Travis Moen.  I get
that once in a while or late in a game you may want to flip him and Daniel
Briere for defensive reasons but this should not be an every-period occurrence. 
One was your big free agent acquisition who is expected to produce, the other is
a bottom six checker.  It’s shouldn’t be the latter playing more but in
this case, Moen is playing more than Briere in recent games.

3) The home powerplay, which is a full 10%
lower at home than it is on the road, a rather large gap.  With three home
games coming up this week, getting that percentage up would go a long way
towards keeping this current hot streak going.

StatPack:

SKATERS


#

Player

GP
G A +/- PIM SH TOI
6 Douglas Murray 2 0 0 E 5 2 25:28
8 Brandon Prust 3 0 0 +1 0 4 42:20
11 Brendan Gallagher 3 1 0 E 2 10 46:37
14 Tomas Plekanec 3 2 1 +2 2 8 61:56
15 George Parros 1 0 0 E 5 0 3:25
17 Rene Bourque 1 0 0 -1 0 5 11:25
21 Brian Gionta 3 0 3 +2 2 8 58:20
26 Josh Gorges 3 0 0 -1 0 3 66:28
27 Alex Galchenyuk 3 1 0 -1 6 3 35:16
32 Travis Moen 3 0 0 -1 2 4 41:18
48 Daniel Briere 3 1 1 +2 0 4 38:44
49 Michael Bournival 2 0 0 -2 0 8 16:07
51 David Desharnais 3 1 2 E 0 4 49:53
53 Ryan White 2 0 0 -2 2 2 20:46
55 Francis Bouillon 1 0 0 -1 0 2 15:23
61 Raphael Diaz 3 0 0 E 0 3 49:20
67 Max Pacioretty 3 2 1 -1 0 16 52:24
74 Alexei Emelin 3 0 1 -1 2 5 56:47
76 P.K. Subban 3 1 2 +2 4 9 75:24
79 Andrei Markov 3 0 3 +3 2 5 81:52
81 Lars Eller 3 0 2 +1 0 2 48:53

GOALIES


#

Player

Record

SV%

GAA
30 Peter Budaj 0-0-1 .923 1.85
31 Carey Price 2-0-0 .951 1.44

SHOOTOUT
– SKATERS

# Player G/ATT
14 Tomas Plekanec 0/1
27 Alex Galchenyuk 0/1
51 David Desharnais 1/1
81 Lars Eller 1/1

SHOOTOUT
– GOALIES

# Player SVS/ATT
30 Peter Budaj 1/4

Scoring
Leaders:

Goals: Gallagher/Pacioretty/Plekanec (9)
Assists: P.K. Subban (19)
Points: P.K. Subban (23)
+/-: Andrei Markov (+13)
PIMS: George Parros (37)
Shots: P.K. Subban (87)

Schedule:

December
2:
New Jersey vs Montreal
December 4: Montreal vs New Jersey
December 5: Boston vs Montreal
December 7: Buffalo vs Montreal

The Dog
Pound

Things came back to Earth for the Bulldogs
after a surprisingly perfect week.  They won just one of three important
divisional games but still find themselves sitting in 7th in the conference.

News and
Notes:

– On the injury front, two players returned
(Darren Dietz and Patrick Holland) while two others went down (Justin Courtnall
and Steve Quailer).  Stefan Fournier and Sven Andrighetto also remain on
the shelf.

– Ben Duffy was sent to Wheeling, presumably to
get some more consistent playing time.  Jordan Owens, who attended training
camp with Hamilton, signed a 25-game PTO.  He has averaged a point per game
with ECHL South Carolina this season.

– A pair of Swedish players left the team. 
Erik Nystrom got released to sign with Zagreb of the KHL while Magnus Nygren
recovered from his concussion and at his request was re-assigned to Farjestad. 
He remains eligible to be recalled to Montreal if need be and presumably could
finish the season back in Hamilton once his SHL campaign is over.

– Martin St. Pierre is in a bit of a slump
offensively in terms of goal scoring.  He has just one goal in his last
twelve games; he also only has two shots on goal in his past six contests.

– Lines from the most recent game:

Forwards:

Holland – St. Pierre – Thomas
Blunden – Dumont – Nattinen
Tarnasky – Macenauer – Leblanc
Owens – MacAulay

Defence:

Tinordi – Pateryn
Beaulieu – Ellis
McIver – Dietz
Schiestel

Results:

November 27:

Rochester 6, Hamilton 3

November 29:

Toronto 3, Hamilton 1

November 30:

Hamilton 4, Lake Erie 1

StatPack:

SKATERS


#

Player

GP

G

A

+/-

SH

PIMS
2 Greg Pateryn 3 0 0 +2 10 6
5 Jarred Tinordi 3 0 0 +2 5 12
7 Darren Dietz 2 0 1 -2 2 2
8 Nathan Beaulieu 3 0 1 E 6 4
9 Justin Courtnall 2 0 0 -1 1 0
11 Nathan McIver 3 0 0 -2 1 5
12 Maxime Macenauer 3 0 0 -1 4 4
13 Steve Quailer 2 0 1 +3 2 4
14 Michael Blunden 3 1 1 E 8 4
20 Louis Leblanc 3 0 0 -1 5 0
22 Drew Schiestel 2 0 1 +1 2 2
23 Joonas Nattinen 3 1 0 +1 1 0
26 Jordan Owens 2 0 0 -1 7 2
37 Patrick Holland 1 2 0 +2 2 0
40 Gabriel Dumont 3 1 0 +1 6 2
42 Ben Duffy 1 0 0 -2 0 0
44 Morgan Ellis 3 1 0 +2 6 2
55 Stephen MacAulay 3 0 0 -1 2 0
74 Nick Tarnasky 3 0 0 -2 1 2
92 Christian Thomas 3 1 4 +2 8 2
93 Martin St. Pierre 3 1 4 +1 1 0

GOALIES


#

Player

Record

SV%

GAA
29 Robert Mayer 0-1-0 .897 3.08
34 Dustin Tokarski 1-1-0 .893 3.04

Scoring
Leaders:

Goals: Andrighetto/Tarnasky (7)
Assists: Martin St. Pierre (15)
Points: Martin St. Pierre (19)
+/-: Greg Pateryn (+9)
PIMS: Justin Courtnall (40)
Shots: Leblanc/Nygren (47)

Schedule:

December
6:
Hamilton vs Lake Erie
December 7: Hamilton vs Toronto
December 8: Lake Erie vs Hamilton

Final
Thought

I have to admit, I wasn’t as excited as many
were when Alexei Emelin returned to the lineup.  As much as his physical
style of play is helpful, he alone wasn’t going to drastically chance the Habs’
fortunes in that regard.  Accordingly, I didn’t think he’d have as much of
a positive impact as some hoped and expected.  I’m happy to say that I was
wrong about that, although not for the reason you think.

Yes, Emelin has been his usual hitting self but
I don’t think him averaging 3.5 hits per game is the main reason for Montreal’s
good stretch as of late.  To me, his biggest contribution to the lineup is
that it has moved several other blueliners into roles that are more advantageous
to the team.  Josh Gorges no longer has to be the sole shutdown guy, Emelin
can ease the burden off of him somewhat.  Raphael Diaz may not be a high
end #4 defenceman but thrust him into a #5 role and all of a sudden he’s above
average; not many teams have a better #5 than him. 

Having five players on the back end that are
capable of playing 20 minutes a night is also a nice luxury to have, one that a
lot of teams don’t.  For starters, it allows the team to be more
restrictive with the minutes for Francis Bouillon and Douglas Murray; I don’t
think there will be many saying that’s a bad thing.  It also allows them to
give the Markov-Subban pairing more powerplay time since there are now two
competent pairings behind them instead of one plus a combination of who’s
healthy at that time.  Instead of having to pull them early so that they’ll
be ready for the first even strength shift when the powerplay ends, they can be
pushed to a higher percentage of the powerplay.

With everyone in their ideal roles now, the
blueline situation doesn’t look as bad as it did just a few weeks ago. 
That’s where Emelin’s biggest contribution to the team has been…although
having another tough defenceman back there has been a nice change as well.