Round 2
Game 2
Montreal 1 Tampa Bay 3
pre-game
yes! Julien took Dagenais out of the lineup!! fuck yeah.
also, Bulis will be on the top line with Koive and Kovalev. i guess Zednik is gonna be playing with Ribeiro and Ryder, which was a great line this past season. people forget that Zednik was switched to the second line this season. i would've left him on the top line but this could make the second line tougher to beat.
1st Period
2-1, Tampa
well, after what looked like another blowout by Tampa, the Canadiens finally scored a goal, thanks to captain Saku Koivu, at the end of the period. i think we're playing just a little bit better than on friday but the Lightning are still doing almost what they want with the plays. Theodore, on the other hand, is stopping pucks left and right. i can think of two stops that should've been immediate goals. Theo stopped them cold. i think they were stunned too. good for us. here's hoping for a better second period. we're also hitting a lot more. that was obvious. we're taking bodies against the boards, trying to stop them from skating forward. i hope we keep that going through the game. it should slow Tampa down and maybe discourage them. oh, almost forgot the mention the biggest factor we could put in the game -- taking Lecavalier out. he has a temper and we started seeing some of it right at the beginning of the game. we can get under his skin.
2nd Period
3-1, Tampa
now we've got a game! fuck yeah. those are the Montreal Canadiens we know and love! feel the heat? i think we're surpising them. lol. whoa, boy. Lecavalier scores with 2.4 seconds left to go in the period. goddamn. and how disheartening is it to see Souray give the puck away once again, so deep he can't even backcheck. aw well. i hope this just spurs on the Canadiens 'cause up to that point they were owning the Lightning.
3rd period
well, okay. so Tampa was able to contain us and keep us from crossing the red line. at least the period wasn't a disaster. too bad, though, we couldn't go ahead with the pressure we'd been putting on during the second period. we got some action with the six-men advantage in the last minute. two games down. not really worried yet, for some reason. lol. not only because we've been through this once, but it felt like we are kinda playing this time. that second period felt great. hopefully the players'll get a boost from that. Tampa wins the first two on home ice. no big deal. we can win our two games too and if that goes on, we have a game 7 back in Tampa in a week. see, things aren't as bad as people might wanna make it seem. hopefully (again) the coaches can look at that second period and see what we were doing right and get that across to the players again. we can win. we know how to win. it's just a matter of not losing sight of the plays.
hmm. one thing i just realized -- the next game Montreal will be on fire. our fans are amazing! and the players haven't heard the Montreal crowd for the past three games! holy shit, tuesday and thursday are gonna be hellacious. home crowd in Montreal during the playoffs -- a definite seventh man on the ice. the players are gonna get a huge boos out of that.
Tampa Bay leads series 2-0.
Posted by Anonymous | 11:40 AM
