Habs Continue Dominance over Isles

MONTREAL (AP) - Alex Kovalev knew the Canadiens would have a good afternoon if they made it hard for Islanders goalie Rick DiPietro to follow the puck.

That strategy worked in the second period Saturday, when Kovalev had a goal and an assist and Montreal scored three times in a 4-1 win over New York.

"We know how good he is when he sees a shot," Kovalev said. "It's harder for the goalie when there's traffic in front of the net. That's what we tried to do against him."

Mark Streit scored a power-play goal 7:32 into the middle period to give Montreal a 2-1 lead. Kovalev, who assisted on Tomas Plekanec's short-handed goal 37 seconds into the second, gave the Canadiens their third goal of the period with his team-leading 23rd on a screened shot past DiPietro at 12:35.

Cristobal Huet stopped 29 shots in his 11th straight start for Montreal, which has won six of eight (6-1-1).

"I think we try to stay with our game plan, play smart and outwork the other team," Huet said.
Streit got his second point of the game with an assist on a late goal by Mathieu Dandenault, who was a healthy scratch for the Canadiens' last four games.

Blake Comeau scored his third goal 5:01 into the second for New York, which lost its fourth in a row.

DiPietro made 28 saves after missing Thursday's 3-1 loss to Los Angeles because of the flu.
Streit finished off a passing play with Christopher Higgins and Saku Koivu by putting Koivu's cross-ice pass beyond DiPietro into the left side for his eighth goal.

Kovalev made it a two-goal margin when he put a low wrist shot from the right side past defenseman Andy Sutton and between DiPietro's pads.

Plekanec scored his short-handed goal as Montreal was killing the last of three straight minor penalties.

Kovalev intercepted Islanders captain Bill Guerin's pass along the blue line and raced down the ice to the Islanders' zone, where he left a drop pass for Plekanec. Kovalev held off Islanders defenseman Marc-Andre Bergeron while Plekanec swung left to put a shot past DiPietro for his 17th goal.

"They're a great transition team and they feed on mistakes," DiPietro said. "I don't think you can try to run-and-gun with a team like the Canadiens. They're a quick, fast team and that's the kind of game they like to play."

Successive infractions by Michael Ryder, Plekanec and Mike Komisarek late in the first left the on-ice officials unable to keep track of the game clock in the final minutes of the opening period.
Ryder was given a roughing penalty at 16:40 when he jumped on Comeau in the left corner after the Islanders forward checked Higgins from behind headfirst into the boards. Comeau got a boarding minor on the play.

After Plekanec was sent off for tripping at 17:37 to give New York a 4-on-3 advantage, Islanders head coach Ted Nolan used his timeout after Komisarek was sent off for hooking at 18:44.
When play resumed, the scoreboard clock showed 1:05 remaining in the period - instead of 1:16.
The lost time was added on before the second period and the teams faced off at center ice to play the final 11.1 seconds of the first before switching ends.

"It was weird," Guerin said. "I've seen it happen where it was a second or two. It happens. If we were looking for excuses I'd have to find a better one than that."

Notes: Koivu played his 700th regular-season game. ... Canadiens D Andrei Markov set up Kovalev's goal to extend his assists streak to five games. Markov was struck in the face by a puck backhanded along the boards by Ryder in the third period. He received a cheer from the sellout crowd of 21,273 when he got up and went to the bench before returning to collect his second assist of the game on Dandenault's goal with 2:39 remaining.

Associated Press

Habs Open Matinee Weekend vs. Islanders

The Canadiens are looking to continue their recently impressive home play as they get set to welcome the New York Islanders to the Bell Centre Saturday afternoon. The game goes at 2 p.m., and is the 1st of a back-to-back set which sees Montreal hosting the Rangers Sunday in another matinee matchup.

Montreal (27-15-9) has gone 4-1-1 on home ice since the calendar switched over to 2008. The Habs will look to bolster their modest home ice record in an attempt to get it to resemble their sparkling road record, which ranks 1st in the Eastern Conference. Their match against the Isles is the first of a 4-game homestand.

Their last two home games have been phenominal, and have arguably been the top 1 and 2 performances that they have put on on home ice this season. They trounced the Bruins by a season-high final score of 8-2 back on January 22nd, and then (after defeating New Jersey in come-from-behind fashion at he Prudential Center) they defeated Washington in superb fashion, shutting them out 4-0 in a game that can arguably considered as Kovalev's best in a Habs uniform.

The Canadiens lead the season series with the Isles 2-0, having won both games on Long Island and limiting the Isles to just 1 goal a game in 3-1 and 4-1 road victories. Crisotbal Huet was between the pipes for both of those contests, and all indications suggest he will man the crease tomorrow afternoon.

The Islanders are looking to end a 3 game losing streak tomorrow. Their most recent loss came last night as the Kings came into town and stole 2 points away from the Islanders, who were without Rick DiPietro due to flu-like symptoms. DiPietro is 0-3-1 in his last 4 games.

Bill Guerin and Mike Comrie, the offensive leaders on the team, have gone ice cold lately. Guerin (the Isles' leading goalscorer) is pointless in 5, whereas Comrie (leader in points) has but one helper in his last 6 outings. When they aren't scoring, it seems no one else is, as is proof in their recent games.

The game will air live on CBC and RDS, and, another reminder: puck drop is set for 2:08 p.m.

Plekanec Scores 2, Cracks 40; Habs Win 3-1

Plekanec (center) has a two-goal outing at Nassau Coliseum. Photo from The Canadian Press, courtesy Tsn.ca.

Where Chris Higgins failed to continue his success against his hometown team, Plekanec filled in in fine form.

Tomas Plekanec got it done for the Habs tonight, registering his 39th and 40th points of the season with goals, opening the scoring at even strength and then adding to it with a shorthanded tally as the Habs cruised to a 3-1 victory over the Islanders on Long Island.

Plaky's first goal came shortly passed midway through the 1st period, when Isles forward Andy Hilbert failed to collect an outlet pass from Bruno Gervais. Plekanec picked up the loose puck, faked-and-then-released a slapshot to beat DiPietro glove-high. Plekanec then added his 16th of the year, shorthanded. After Huet robbed Miroslav Satan on the doorstep, Kovalev beat Mike Comrie to the loose puck, eliminated Comrie with a bodycheck, and flipped the puck forward, managing to get it passed Chris Campoli to create a 2-on-1 for Plekanec with Markov. Plaky held and released a wrister, beating DiPietro low-glove this time around to notch his 40th point of the season, 7 shy of his career high of 47 posted just last season.

The Isles heated up midway through the second, generating a solid 5 minutes of attacking hockey. The save of the game occured in this span, as Mike Comrie picked up a loose puck at the Habs' blue line, and, due to a poorly timed line-change, Mike had himself a clean-cut breakaway. Streaking in from the right wing, Comrie cut inside and through the crease in an attempt to go wide on Huet, but Cristobal read the play perfectly and followed through with Comrie, eventually stopping the shot with his right pad.

But the Isles would not be shut-out on this night. Midway through the 3rd, Cristobal Huet played a dump-in from behind his net which was then intercepted along the boards by captain Bill Guerin. Guerin wasted little to no time at all getting that puck on goal, forcing Huet to get down to try and freeze it. Unfortunately, the puck was jarred loose, and a crease-crashing Richard Park was able to chop at it and get it to float in. The Habs were able to hold off all remaining attacks, and with under a minute left and goaltender Rick DiPietro on the bench in favor of an extra attacker, Chris Campoli turned the puck over to Alex Kovalev in Montreal's zone. Kovalev had a streaking Plekanec up ice, near New York's blueline, waiting for a pass to earn the chance to pot the empty-netter for the hat-trick, but Kovalev decided he would take the puck zone-to-zone, and he easily skated around a desperately-diving Campoli to bury his 20th of the season.

Huet had 17 saves in the win. The Habs outshot the Islanders 21-18 in a low-shooting, low-scoring affair. Montreal went 0-for-2 on the PP, but did have the short-handed Plekanec marker.

The Canadiens improve to 2-1 on this 4 game road-swing, with the final stop coming Thursday in Atlanta.

The Thrashers cashed in on a Marian Hossa hat-trick tonight to land a rare & decisive 5-1 win in Detroit.

Looking for the W on L.I.

The Habs will have to completely flip last Saturday's effort inside-out to have a chance against the Islanders on Long Island tonight.

Montreal (22-14-8) are 1-1 through two of their four straight games on the road, and both 1's represent polar differences (apart from the fact that one means a Win and one means a Loss).

The Habs victory last Thursday in Boston represented a hockey team that was driven and determined to dominate in every aspect of the game, including shooting, scoring, passing and hitting. Playing that way is what gets good teams not only through the regular season, but it gets good teams through the post-season gauntlet as well. However, any team can perform the way the Habs did last Thursday...but any GREAT team knows how to carry over such a performance on a nightly basis, defining the word "Consistency", and the Habs were most certainly not consistent in their transferred efforts from Thursday's win to Saturday's loss in New York (to be more accurate in my vocabulary use, the Habs were INCONSISTENT.)

Rest assured, this isn't English class, but I feel it had to be stressed that what we saw on Saturday must never be seen again if we hope to make it to the post-season.

If history is any reference, the Habs should definitely impress us once again. They were able to hammer the Islanders 4-1 in a game where the Isles outshot Huet and co. 45-33. And, as always, Chris Higgins found success in that game back on November 21st, notching his first road goal of the season. Chris has 7 goals in 8 games versus his hometown team, with 4 of them coming on the road at Nassau Coliseum, and we would definitely love to see continued domination over the Isles from Higgins as he is looking to score goals more regularly, with just 2 in his last 13 games.

Also native to Long Island; Mike Komisarek. The man who can do no wrong lately, Mike is developing into one of the premier defensive defensemen in the league. He leads the league in blocked shots, and ranks 3rd overall in hits with 147 dished out (behind 1st place Dustin Brown; 206, and, tonight's opponent, Trent Hunter; 150). The 25 year old has broken out this season, responding as well as possible to all the added responsibilities bestowed upon him. Playing alongside 1st time All-Star Andrei Markov, Mike knows his role is to shut down the streaking forwards in opponent colours, and man the line when Markov gets offensive. Mike's punishing play has drawn interest from the staff, the fans, and the rest of the league.

Sources indicate that Patrice Brisebois will be scratched tonight as a result of an injury. He took a puck off the inside of his left foot and will undergo X-rays tonight. It is expected that Mark Streit will take his place on the blue line, and Tom Kostopolous will dress and figure in on the fourth line.

Puck drop is scheduled for 7:08 P.M.