Plenty of free advice for Habs coaches
“If there’s anything wrong with hockey today,” the Canadiens coach was saying, “it’s that we’re breeding too many self-appointed coaches, too many critics. It seems to be getting worse every season. …
“I’ve never encountered so much second-guessing,” he continued. “That goes for the press, radio and television reporters as well as the fans. Nobody seems to want to talk about the good plays we make, the good games we win. All you hear and read about are our mistakes.
“It looks to me as if everybody wants to be a hockey coach these days.”
No, these are not the words of Habs bench boss Michel Therrien, even if he’s thinking them.
The sentences above were spoken 50 years ago this week by Canadiens coach Toe Blake during a radio call-in show, reported in a March 18, 1965 Montreal Gazette column by Vern DeGeer.
Still, it’s hilarious how in a halfcentury, some things have not changed in the Habs’ far-flung, fickle, fanatical and fatalistic fan base.
The Canadiens bandwagon was loaded up again Saturday night as it rumbled down to the Sunshine State for Monday-Tuesday back-to-backs against the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers, the Habs’ winning streak at one.
There remain problems to be solved, of course. The offensively economical Habs didn’t exactly light up the scoreboard on Long Island, needing short-handed and empty-net goals to beat the Islanders 3-1 on the strength of another all-world, 35-save performance by goaltender Carey Price.
(Is this imminent award-winner a cool customer? Don’t miss the viral video of Price caught by an NBC camera with 5:47 left in regulation, his team up 2-0. Price skates to his bench during the game’s final TV timeout and sees a kid under a Habs cap trying to shoot a selfie with the goalie in the background, so he leans in tight and grins for the youngster’s photo of a lifetime. What a hoot.)
But after having lost five of their past six games, following a four-game winning streak, this victory against the terrific if gently slipping Islanders was a salve for the scarred soul of Canadiens fans.
Which will last until the next two-goal deficit — or should the Lightning close the Atlantic Division gap on Monday, the Habs two points up on Tampa with a game in hand heading into that tilt.
Price, meanwhile, continues to roll merrily along.
His victory Saturday was his 38th of the year, equalling his career high established in 201011. But his previous best came during his ridiculous 72-game season, and victories 35 through 38 came in four of his last five games.
On Saturday, Price’s 38th came in his 56th game of 2014-15.
With 12 games left in the schedule, the 27-year-old is four wins shy of equalling the franchise record of 42 by a goalie; it is shared by the late Jacques Plante, who won 42 while playing 70 games in both 1955-56 and 196162, and Ken Dryden, who played 62 in 1975-76.
Strong, too, was the work of Lars Eller, who had the emptynetter with 25 seconds to play, an assist on Max Pacioretty’s shorthanded goal 3:13 into the second period, six shots on net and was plus-2.
So we’re down to a dozen games to play, the Canadiens virtually a breath from unleashing their sales and marketing departments for the 2015 playoff ticket campaign.