The 10-Game Stretch

The Habs are taking fliritng with disaster to a whole new level.

The Canadiens have 10 games remaining on their regular season schedule, and they will have to do very well in that span to be able to add more games to a post-season calendar.

Montreal currently sit on 81 points, just a single point ahead of the 9th seeded Florida Panthers. Thankfully, the Sabres have been almost as bad as Montreal, which has kept them in 10th place with 76 points. Buffalo are currently on a 4-game losing skid, while our Habs have dropped 5 in a row.

And who said the Senators were out of it? They certainly didn't believe it.

The Sens have arguably been the hottest team in the league lately, and are riding 5-games winning streak. Since bringing in Cory Clouston behind the bench, the Sens have been reborn and look like a team again. No longer are they in the Tavares sweepstakes - they are in the playoff hunt. They have 74 points and sit in 11th, 7 points back of the Habs in 8th.

Montreal will have a favorable week ahead of them, facing 3 teams at home who are out of the playoffs as of right now. Tomorrow the Habs entertain the Thrashers, Thursday they welcome Vinny Lecavalier and the Lightning back to town, and then, on Saturday, it's a date with the Sabres, who will surely ride Patrick Lalime on that night as Lalime loves to play the Habs and put on a great performance the last time they met in Buffalo as the Sabres won 5-1.

The Habs certainly could come out of the week with 6 out of 6 possible points...however, games aren't played on paper, and at this point in time, that's EXTREMELY unfortunate.

The Habs have been playing some bad hockey lately, and all of this amidst so many off-ice issues, including the news breaking today of the Gillett family considering options to sell the franchise.

The Habs also demoted Max Pacioretty back to the farm club in Hamilton today, making room for the return of Sergei Kostitsyn. Sergei will play on a line with brother Andrei and Tomas Plekanec centering the two.

The Habs need to go into every game at this point thinking it's a make-it or break-it night ahead of them. Squandering ANY points to any of these teams (perhaps excluding Buffalo) will be a huge failure.