Montreal is a solid team, but no better than that. They are not close to the Pens from last season. We are not as bad as last season. Now with that all said, we need to play much better than we have the past 6 weeks or so to win the series. No one can tell me we cannot win this series, Montreal simply isn't good enough to say that (there was almost no shot we would beat the Pens last season). But no one can tell me we don't need to play much better than we have in a while to win it. We have the talent no doubt. But do we have the structure and discipline? Not sure at this point. That's why I'll stay with Montreal in 6.
They have some solid players. You can certainly say that Pacioretty is the most talented forward in the series. That said no they certainly don't have the offensive fire power the Pens did last season and continue to have.
Yeah, no comparison between the Pens of last season and the Habs of this season. But I have to say I actually like this Montreal team. I really like what they did at the trade DL (wish we added one of the gritty forwards they did). They have real good size on their 4th line. They have Pac as you mentioned. They have Weber on D (he is much better for that team than Subban's flash was). And they have Price in goal. I think they'll go to the ECF, and once you get that far anything can happen, especially considering how tough the loaded Met bracket is. You have to figure that 2nd round matchup of the Pens and Caps will be a battle as always. Meanwhile Ottawa will host the Bruins or Leafs in the other Atlantic series. The Leafs need 3 of 4 points against the Pens and BJ's (both at home) to jump ahead of the Bruins and stay in the Atlantic. I don't see any of those teams beating the Rangers/Habs in round 2.
I have almost no issue with us starting our B team the past few games. However I think it's unfair to Hank because he's getting killed out there. It's probably doing more harm then good to him. But it's a catch 22 because he needs more game action to get ready for the playoffs, but the team AV is putting out in front of him is ATROCIOUS so he's facing a TON of shots and goaltending is a mental game so Hank is getting frustrated and is mentally getting beat up with all these chances against him and goals allowed. It's just a crummy situation all around right now in regards to him. We needed him to get game action but we've given him a worse defensive team then we usually are (and that's saying something lol). I'm just hoping that we see the Hank that played against the Caps the other night that looked really sharp, as opposed to the Hank we've seen allow a lot of soft goals and hasn't been in great position for quite a bit of the season.
I don't think the last few losses will have any effect. He just needs to use the next few days to have some solid practices and get some rest. Work with Allaire on fine tuning any issues.
