Stamkos Has 4 Points Against Habs, Keeps Pressure On Crosby In Goals Race

I don't know WHAT is wrong with the Montreal Canadaiens these days, but they generally have been sucking bigtime. The Habs lost 4-1 to the Tampa Bay Lightning with Steven Stamkos leading the way with 2 goals and 2 assists to hand the Canadiens their 3rd straight loss.



This loss moves the Canadiens to a 2-8-0 record in their last ten games and firmly mires them far down in the playoff picture in 8th spot, the same spot they held at the end of the 2009-10 season when they barely squeaked into the playoffs. Montreal sits in 2nd in the Northeast Division 3 points back of the Boston Bruins and the Bruins have 2 games in hand on the Habs.

One sore point for Canadiens fans is the lack of offence being produced by center Scott Gomez who has a mere 5 goals and 13 assists for 18 points in 38 games this season. Not much bang for the buck with Gomez' $8,000,000 a year price tag. And his contract is through the 2013-14 season, although his salary will drop to $5.5 million by then. That is way too much to be paying a player who has had 20 plus goals only once in his career (33 goals in 2005-06 with the Devils) and who rarely makes it into the 60-70 points per season area.

But back to Stamkos. Comparing Gomez at 8 million a year and Stamkos's cheap, cheap, cheap salary of $875,000 must make the Habs mouth water. Stamkos will be due for a major salary hike after next season when his current contract ends.


The two quick goals he scored in the 3rd period keeps Stamkos right on Sidney Crosby's tail in the race for the Maurice Richard Trophy that they shared last season with 51 goals a piece. Do you think that both Crosby and Stamkos are going to easily top that 51 goal mark? Yes, I think so, baring any injury they may be looking at a 60 goal season, but towards the end of the season as defences tighten up with teams keeping an eye on the playoffs it will become increasingly tough to maintain their goal scoring pace.

There's been a lot of interest in how Crosby has been scoring this season with his 25 game point streak, but Stamkos is also having a banner year. Crosby is still 9 points up on 2nd place Stamkos, but Stamkos is slowly closing the gap which was 14 points about a week ago and Stamkos is starting to put some distance between himself and teammate Martin St Louis who sits in 3rd spot with 50 points. St Louis is tracking for only his 2nd ever 100 points season in his 12th NHL season. Tampa Bay may finally be angling for the playoffs for the first time since 2006-07. The Lightning are tied with the Washington Capitals for the lead in the Southeast Division and sporting a 7-1-2 record in their last ten games are heading in the opposite direction of the Montreal Canadiens.

The problem with the Habs is that they cannot score for the life of them. Their team goals against is a perfectly respectable 90 against in 38 games, but that is starting to balloon after starting off the season so well. With goaltender Carey Price looking like he had recovered some of his form from a couple of seasons ago, Montreal was on top of the Northeast, but the wheels have fallen off the "Carey Price For Allstar Game" campaign. Since December 10th, Price has lost 7 of 10 starts with only two of those games keeping the opposition to 2 or under goals and his G.A.A. for his last 10 starts is up to 3.1 which will not win you many games when your team averages 2 goals a game.

Habs Trade Lapierre To Anaheim

On the score sheet, the Habs look like last season's Bruins who had great defence but could not put the puck in the net. It looks like Montreal is starting to make some changes as Maxim Lapierre has just been shipped off to Anaheim for defenceman Brett Festerling (and a 5th round pick in 2012). Festerling will help out on D, but not in the offensive end where the Canadiens are having their most trouble. Festerling has spent most of the season with the Syracuse Crunch of the AHL.

Bruins - Thrashers Play Some Old Time Hockey

In case you missed it, the final score was 4-1 for the Boston Bruins over the Atlanta Thrashers, but what everyone wants to see is the brawl late in the 3rd period that resulted in 6 fighting majors along with 5 game misconduct penalties (and a match penalty assessed to Bruins tough guy Milan Lucic).



With the score 4-1 in Boston's favor, Lucic picked up a pass and came steaming in to the Thrashers zone to be met by the two fists of Atlanta defencemen Freddy Meyer in his upper chest with a little bit of a chin massage thrown in for good measure. Lucic looked around for the referee to make a call and then Andrew Ference went after Meyer.

After the game Lucic said that Meyer had done the same thing to him before. "I'm not going to let a guy who never fights do that to me" he stated. Because he was given the match penalty, presumably for the one punch that dropped Meyer to the ice, Lucic is automatically suspended while he waits for a ruling from the Commissioner's office. With Christmas right up in our faces, it is unlikely that there will be word of any further punishment if any until Sunday or Monday at the earliest.

Thornton actually had quite the game, scoring twice and almost getting a hat trick right at the end of the game. You have to shake your head about Marc Savard getting involved in the battle and squaring off with Bryan Little. The announcer was almost wetting himself as Little "pounded" at Savard but mostly didn't connect. Not liking seeing Savard who has a history of concussions taking the chance of an errent blow to the head - better to leave the fisticuffs to Thornton and Lucic.

Big Dustin Byfuglien got the only goal for Atlanta - which would be his league-leading 13th which is the highest for NHL defencemen so far this year and his 37th point (also the most for all defencemen). Here's the full highlights:



The teams will be meeting up again December 30th in Atlanta, but will there be more fireworks? Usually there isn't but you never know. I just know I'll be tuning in to THAT game.