ICON LIGHTS CH FIRE But Habs seek answers after opening-night flop
NO TEAM DOES CEREMONY better than the Habs — too bad they disappointed
JEAN BÉLIVEAU HOLDS TORCH during ceremony on Saturday at the Bell Centre, where the Canadiens couldn’t match the pregame pomp and fell 2-1 to the Maple Leafs in their first game since the NHL lockout. The new-look Habs, minus holdout defenceman P.K. Subban, will look for more offence when they host Alex Kovalev and the Florida Panthers on Tuesday. Stories,
“I thought the fight was great, two tough guys going at it.
That got me amped.”
CANADIENS GOALIE CAREY PRICE
On a snowy Saturday in Montreal, it’s perhaps fitting that a very brief flurry in a Bell Centre goal crease played a role in the Canadiens losing their season opener.
But there was much more to the Habs’ 2-1 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs that doomed the home team’s chances, a raucous postlockout crowd deflated by what at times seemed like a very expensive game of shinny.
Tomas Plekanec was dinged two minutes for unsportsmanlike conduct seven minutes into the second period, having pulled the old park-rink stunt of snowing Toronto goalie Ben Scrivens with a blizzard kicked up from his sharply dug skates.
The Habs centreman had half-served his sentence when Tyler Bozak banged home a rebound to put the Leafs up 2-0, a goal that ultimately would be the winner.
Plekanec would later speak of carrying good speed to the net with no ill will, saying he merely wanted to stop near the goal in a bid to force a faceoff.
“My fault,” he admitted, in sync with coach Michel Therrien’s “no excuses” mantra that has been tested early.
“No excuses,” that is, “We’re sorry,” might have been a better slogan for these 60 mostly slushy minutes.
There was no way this game could match the anticipation that greeted it, a hurry-up six-day training camp not nearly enough to scrape the rust off players returning from a four-month lockout.
That’s not to say there wasn’t considerable emotion, at least until the puck started bouncing.
The Canadiens again showed that there’s no team that does ceremony better. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the marketing and production staff have such a glorious history from which to cull their material.
An olé singsong — alas, the only one of the night — opened the pregame ceremony scoreboard video, the Canadiens’ 334th consecutive sellout crowd joining in. That preceded the club’s famous torch being held aloft and carried from the top row of the arena down to ice level by former captains Yvan Cournoyer, Henri Richard, Vincent Damphousse, Serge Savard and, finally, Jean Béliveau.
Seeing Béliveau was a goosebumps moment, the 81-year-old Canadiens icon at a game for the first time since he suffered a stroke late last February. He and his wife, Élise, took their regular seats three rows behind the Habs bench, leaving after one period.
In hindsight, not a bad decision. Even the TV highlights wouldn’t have kept Le Gros Bill up late, as there were very few.
At times, this game seemed like something played on a pond in need of shovelling; those who attended Thursday’s open-house scrimmage can gloat that at least they got in for free.
Happily, there were no insincere welcome-back slogans painted at the blue lines, and team owner Geoff Molson offered an olive branch to all in attendance with a free arena combo meal and, for adults, a free beer.
And there was only one pretty thin chant from the thin-air seats 13 minutes from game’s end for defenceman P.K. Subban, who was at home in Toronto while his contract talks go nowhere fast.
Therrien had spoken in the days leading to his own 500th game behind an NHL bench that he stresses work ethic, commitment and discipline.
But the Canadiens had little chance to play as they’re built — rolling all four lines — when they took two penalties in the game’s first 3:02, Ryan White’s goaltender interference call at 46 seconds nullifying what appeared to be newcomer Brandon Prust’s first goal with Montreal.
Four minutes later, Prust duked his way into fans’ hearts by pounding out a decision over Maple Leafs tough Mike Brown.
“I thought the fight was great, two tough guys going at it. That got me amped,” said Canadiens goalie Carey Price, who’d perhaps like back Toronto’s first goal but otherwise gave his teammates a chance with 24 often challenging saves.
“Overall, it felt pretty decent,” he said of his effort.
Price expects the Plekanec call won’t be the last of its kind this season, but he laughed at the idea that a spray of ice shavings is enough to rattle a big-league goalie.
“If you’re that mentally weak,” he said, “you shouldn’t be in the NHL.”
And Price said he won’t take the number of anyone who tries to blind him with snow.
“That’s not my job, No. 8 will take care of it,” he said, nodding toward Prust’s stall.
Price shrugged off the city’s crisis concern of a day earlier when he took a therapy day Friday, having gently tweaked his groin during Thursday’s scrimmage. At no point, he said, was there any question that he’d not be in goal Saturday. Was the issue overblown? “It always is,” Price said. “It doesn’t matter what’s talked about, what matters is when you get out on the ice. You’ve got to listen to your body.”
(Price’s larger concern came when teammate Lars Eller drilled him in the head with a Saturday morning shot, denting the cage on his hours-old mask. No harm done, unless you count the dirty look Eller probably got.)
The short camp, Price said, “was tough. The workload was a lot the last week, but at the same time it’s what you need. We didn’t have any type of skates like that over the course of the lockout. You need them to get back into the swing of things.”
In scoring his third-period goal, Brian Gionta delivered on a promise to his 7-year-old son, Adam, who had scored in his minor-hockey game the night before on his father’s 34th birthday.
“He asked if Daddy could get him one tonight, so it will be nice to give him a little hug,” Gionta said.
The captain had taken the pregame torch from Béliveau at the Canadiens bench, the flame then handed from player to player during introductions.
“That’s why you come to this place to play — the history, guys like (Béliveau), a legend of the game who’s been around forever,” Gionta said. “I’m just very fortunate and very humbled to be able to be that close and be able to see him on a daily basis.”
There was nothing alarming about the loss, said Gionta, who mostly pegged it on a lack of support of the puck-carrier, early slow-moving feet and penalties.
“Our timing was a bit off, but it looks that way when you’re not supporting the puck,” he said. “In the third period we were able to turn the momentum a little bit. If we’d done that earlier in the game, we might have had a chance.
“And when you’re playing down a man, not getting a good rhythm, not rolling your four lines that we’re built for, that takes your momentum away and you’re taxing guys you maybe need later on.
“We showed some character in the third, buckling down and getting a little grittier. It’s not the start we wanted, but there’s always something to be learned from it.”
Some food for thought for all on the drive home, latenight snow on his windshield the last thing Tomas Plekanec needed to see.