Heartbreaking shootout loss for my Habs against Washington on Saturday... Why Mara, why would you take a high sticking penalty with 15 seconds to go when you're up by one goal and facing ALEXANDER OVECHKIN. Whyyyyyyyy?
That being said, 6 points in our last give games, against very good teams (Washington twice, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Columbus). Definitely more than I was expecting. And though I may bitch about the Mara penalty, I am extremely happy with how the team is playing right now. We're consistently missing 8-9 players, including some of our best. Markov is obviously gone, but we lost Spacek for a few games, and along with Gill's long injury, that leaves quite the depleted defence. On offence, we've lost Gionta, who IMO may not be the most talented of our players but sure as hell is the most spirited and contributes a lot to the team even when he's not scoring goals (and he does score goals fairly often, which is nice). Gomez is gone. Andrei Kostitsyn got injured just as he was starting to get into a points groove. And then a few other forwards are out too.
So the fact that players like Hamrlik, Metropolit, Mara and Moen are really stepping up is good to see, especially on nights when it seems like half our team is filled with AHL players who I'd never heard of until two weeks ago. Of course, top credit goes to Cammie and Pleks for consistently producing and being at the top of their game. And Spacek, when he's not injured, has done some nice defensive work and is able to score a goal or two every now and then, which is nice.
So, I'm definitely not saying we're making it to the playoffs. But if we can continue at this pace, keep on trying hard and get most of our A players back by January, we definitely have a shot. If we can get 6 out of ten points these days with each defenceman playing 28 minutes and AHL forwards and defencemen all around, it does give me hope for the future, when Gionta and Markov and Gomez and all the rest return.
And in other news... ALS WON THE GREY CUP!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Damn, what a game.