Wins becoming inconvenient for Canadiens’ plans
TAMPA, FLA. – Pride was the word being thrown around a lot as the Canadiens met the tampabay lightning on Tuesday night.
The Bolts, which looked like dedicated sellers a week ago when they traded Steve Downie, Dominic Moore and Pavel Kubina, surprised a lot of people at the trading deadline when they picked up defencemen Brian Lee, Mike Commodore and Keith Aulie.
The official word is that the team is positioning itself for next season, but this is a club that needed some immediate help on the blue line. It also is a team that still harbours some hope of a playoff berth this season.
Head coach Guy Boucher trotted out the “we’ll take it one day at a time” cliché when asked about the Lightning’s prospects, but he also noted the team is six points back of eighth-place Winnipeg with three games in hand.
He also complained about a flu bug that was running through the team, but he also talked about a favourable schedule that sees the Lightning play 11 of its final 18 games at home. That includes seven consecutive home games from March 10 to March 24.
By the time the night was over, the Lightning was chasing the Washington Capitals and was five points out.
The Canadiens are four points farther back and have two games in hand, but nobody is talking about a miracle run.
In fact, with the Canadiens in last place in the Eastern Conference and poised to secure their highest draft pick since Carey Price went fifth overall in 2005, you get the idea that wins would be an inconvenience for this team.
Head coach Randy Cunneyworth, who is on borrowed time as he waits for the Canadiens to find a coach who can communicate in French, said his task at this point is to get the Canadiens playing the right way.
“It doesn’t matter if we win every game and we’re not go- ing to win every game, but we have to be playing the right way,” Cunneyworth said.
With the Canadiens looking beyond this season and the departure of Andrei Kostitsyn, it was a surprise to see the team return 2009 first-round draft pick Louis Leblanc to Hamilton, but the move was apparently done so Leblanc would be eligible for the AHL playoffs.
General manager Pierre Gauthier said it was important to give Leblanc an opportunity to get more ice time, but they could have accommodated that need at the NHL level where the youngster has looked comfortable.
Giving Leblanc more ice time makes more sense than Cunneyworth’s insistence on dressing seven defencemen and then trying to find ice time for the odd man on defence and what amounts to two extra forwards.
When Leblanc went down, the Canadiens called up Blake Geoffrion from Hamilton and dressed tough Brad Staubitz.
Geoffrion, who became a fourth generation Canadien, played with Tomas Plekanec and Ryan White.
Staubitz made his Canadiens debut and had a chance to display his tough-guy credentials. He got involved from the bench when Ryan Malone started punching Alexei Emelin, who hasn’t fought since Alexander Svitov rearranged his face in a 2009 scrap in Russia. Staubitz also got involved in a meaningless third-period fight with Pierre-cedric Labrie.