Monday Mornings with Mitchy

In a season that has been unpredictable, the predictable has happened.

They have been on a collision course all season and now the Bruins and Canadiens will meet in round two of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The regular season meetings haven't produced the animosity that we've seen in years past but a playoff series will definite ignite the best in everyone. Both teams are relatively healthy, both teams are coming off easy first round series and both teams desperately want to get at each others throats.

The positives: 
- The Habs beat the Bruins 3/4 this season, including twice in Boston.
- Montreal is getting balanced scoring from all four lines, every forward who dressed in the first round scored with the exceptions of Brandon Prust and Micheal Bournival.
- The Canadiens best players weren't their best in round one. Expect more from: Carey Price, PK Subban, Max Pacioretty and Thomas Vanek
- Tuukka Rask is mentally soft when it comes to playing against Montreal.

The concerns: 
- Boston has the physical edge.
- Bruins have home ice advantage
- Bruins have the better PP(3rd)
- If the game was played on paper, Boston is the better team.

Anyways, here's to just being excited that the circus is coming to town. And even with the other great match-ups that the second round will have to offer and the tremendous hockey that we've seen so far this playoff, it will be Boston against Montreal that will draw the most attention from hockey fans everywhere.
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Upsets are never easy to pick. And I was wrong.

I thought the Ducks would be in tough against the Stars. And surprising to some, Dallas actually pushed the series to six games. But you have to impressed with the way Anaheim was able to overcome a two-goal third period deficit on the road in game six.

Maybe, they truly did learn a lesson in their loss a year ago to the Red Wings.

That said, I don't know what Bruce Boudreau is going to do with his goaltending. No confidence in Jonas Hiller and Frederik Anderson simply isn't good enough. Put in the kid, it's time for John Gibson to sink or swim.

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It amazes me how so many ignorant people have the mental capacities to become wealthy.

Caught on tape making a slew of racist comments, Clippers owner Donald Sterling is an utter embarrassment to the NBA.

Saying things so ridiculous that one would think they were listening to a new Dave Chappelle satire sketch, these are the real life views of one of the powerful voices in the NBA.

Good luck signing free agents.

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The Slick Awards:

American Idiot: Donald Sterling
Veins of Ice: Jonathan Toews
Deserving of more credit: Corey Crawford
Media Master: Darryl Sutter
Must watch: Nathan Mackinnon

Monday Mornings with Mitchy

Sometimes the season concludes with a storybook ending.

On the night that captain of the Canadiens Brian Gionta was presented with the Jacques Beauchamps Trophy awarded to the "Unsung Hero" hero of the team, Gionta played hero.

A penalty shot in overtime, beating Cam Talbot of the Rangers with a backhand move to win the final regular season game of 2013-2014.

"We can't finish a regular season on a better note than Brian did," said Canadiens' coach Michel Therrien. "Same for his teammates and the fans as well."

Having voted on the award, I was quite content with the outcome. Media members are given a ballot with three selections and Gionta was my first. The other two players I voted for were Alexei Emelin and Francis Bouillon (who also showed his worth for the award in the game, dropping the mitts with Derek Dorsett who went knee-on-knee with David Desharnais)

Final break down for trophy: 

Brian Gionta: 66 

Brendan Gallagher: 64 

Tomas Plekanec: 51 

Josh Gorges: 45 

David Desharnais: 33 

Nobody is going to suggest that Gionta should come back next season at the same cap number. But 18-goals is nothing to snicker at and the Canadiens should undoubtedly bring back their captain. There's no weakness to his game and he still remains a rock-steady player. If  he's willing to take a small pay cut to move forward as this team continues to grow, Gionta will be back next season. 

It's character guys like Gionta that are the difference between finishing the season like this, or like the Leafs did. 

And when the moment is big and you haven't really noticed the Canadiens captain, he'll step up and deliver. 

Expect at least one more storybook ending from this guy. 

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The hires of Brendan Shanahan by the Leafs and Trevor Linden of the Canucks leaves me dumbfounded. I realize that nobody in the mainstream media will throw either under the bus. But please, just tell me what qualifies these guys to be good front office personnel. 

It's one think to jump into a city like Tampa Bay and make good hockey decisions. It's another to be the head figure of a Canadian franchise where expectations are sky-high and the margin for error is razor thin. 

Maybe the Leafs make a few acquisitions on defense, change the coach and add a couple character guys. And maybe that's enough to get them into the playoffs. The Canucks meanwhile are in no man's land and are going to be bad for a very long time. 

But eventually, hires are going to work out as well as Wayne Gretzky as the head coach of the Phoenix Coyotes. Oh yeah... didn't the Leafs want to bring in The Great One at one point? 

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Who's not looking forward to the playoffs. Especially the first round. It looks like it's shaping up to be a tremendous post season, where almost every series seems like a pickem'. 

I'm most excited however for the LA Kings vs. the San Jose Sharks. But unfortunately for San Jose, they might empty the tank and have nothing left once the seven games are over. 

SLICK AWARDS

Unsung Hero: Brian Gionta

Doomed to fail: Brendan Shanahan,Trevor Linden

Jack Adams: Patrick Roy, Mike Babcock, Jon Cooper

On the hot seat: Randy Carlyle, Barry Trotz, Adam Oates, Paul Maclean, Kirk Muller, 

Monday Morning with Mitchy

"You're too small."

“You’ll never make it.”

“We just want someone bigger and stronger.”

Those are probably the nicest things anyone has ever said to David Desharnais.

How many times do you figure he’s been called a midget, gnome, dwarf, little person, shrimp, umpa lumpa or troll? 

I’ll venture an educated guess, many. 

Desharnais is above and beyond the Canadiens best candidate for the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy. 

Never drafted to the NHL, despite posting back-to-back season of more than 100 points in the QMJHL. 

One season in the ECHL with 78 points in 60 games. And an impressive stint in the American Hockey League. 

But when he performs well at the NHL level, there’s always a reason and it’s never his good play.

The naysayers will say, he benefited from playing with Max Pacioretty and Erik Cole when he posted 60 points in his first full NHL season.

The same would apply for his career year, this season, except substitute Thomas Vanek for Cole. 

So when he performs, everyone else given the credit. 

And when he doesn’t perform, bring out the pitchforks. 

After a horrid start to the season, everyone was questioning GM Marc Bergervin’s decision to resign Desharnais. Things got so bad that Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre demanded via twitter that Desharnais be given “a one-way ticket to Hamilton.” But certainly, his wingers weren’t to blame, right…?

Even with the name calling, the doubters, the hatred and vitriol he faces… all he does is persevere. That’s something that should be celebrated and it is in true spirit of the Masterton Trophy. 

The fan base believes the team is too small and that it has been for a long time. And they aren’t wrong. But sometimes, you have to sit back and enjoy the talents that you have because bigger isn’t always better. 

He’s not too small.

He has made it 

Bigger and stronger isn’t always better. 

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The Toronto Maple Leafs are the laughing stock of the NHL. 

The epic game 7 collapse to Boston last spring. 

This time, an epic 8-game March losing streak taking them from a home ice advantage team in the first round, to not making it to the dance all together. 

And maybe the most frustrating thing to Leaf fans should be that what plagues the team couldn’t be more evident, yet management chooses to ignore it. 

Dion Phaneuf isn’t a number one, Carl Gunnarsson isn’t a number two, Cody Franson and Jake Gardiner can’t play in their own end, Tim Gleason can’t skate and Paul Ranger shouldn’t be in the NHL. 

Their defense is awful. 

Until they fix that glaring issue, they’ll continue to be heavily outshot, have to rely on their goaltender to steal games and will go through stretches of games where nothing seems to be going right. 


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The Slick Awards: 

Size doesn’t matter: David Desharnais, Theo Fleury, Marty St Louis, Martin Gerbe, Brian Gionta, Cam Atkinson. 

Monday Mornings with Mitchy

Play ball!

But, it just wasn’t the same.

Baseball fans waited 10 years for the return of baseball in Montreal. Finally, over 96,000 tickets were sold to watch exhibition ball between the Mets and Blue Jays.

Impressive.

Walking up for Pie IX, in a sea of people decked out in Montreal Expos gear, the nostalgia that I was hoping to experience wasn’t quite there.

The field looked the same, the stadium was as crap-tastic as ever and baseball was being played… but it wasn’t ‘nos amour.’

But that’s ok, I should have expected it. This was an event and hopefully it gets the dialogue rolling.

Regular season baseball began Sunday night, at Petco Park in San Diego and a single game record at the field was recorded… 45,567. Our numbers, speak for themselves.

Hopefully, this was the first step to returning baseball here, so that it CAN be the same.

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But that was Friday, Saturday WAS the same.

My childhood relieved, my heroes in the flesh.

There they were, the 94’ Expos, in the jersey’s that I watched play in as the best team in baseball.

I almost didn’t go to the gala. But the opportunity was a one-time thing. Never again will we see that collection of players, together in the same place.

Thanks Cro.

Among special shoutouts to the players on that team:

Darren Fletcher, who lived no more than 10 houses away from me in the West Island. And what do you do when you have a professional athlete on your street at 9-years-old? Well obviously, you knock on the door and ask for tickets!

And there were always tickets, at Will Call when I asked.

Even the one time I knocked on the door and Darren’s wife answered.

“Darren’s sleeping,” said his wife.

“Huh!?! It’s 3 o’clock in the afternoon…”  I thought to myself.

The look of confusion on my face, must have spoken for itself.

“He was on a trip to the West Coast, and he’s trying to sleep off the jet lag,” she tried to explain…

Still, I didn’t get it.

“Don’t worry, they’ll be tickets waiting at Will Call.”

Smiles.
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And to Pedro Martinez who wasn’t there this weekend, thanks for showing me how to grip a curve ball, slider and splitter.

“Baseball day” in the West Island, in 1994. Sometime in June, on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, the Expos sent players to Beacon Hill Park, in Beaconsfield to give some instructions and of course sign autographs.

You would expect to see backups and relievers, which would have been just fine.

But the stars showed up that day.

Larry Walker and Pedro cooped up in the back of a van came out and genuinely seemed happy to be there.

Fascinated by the art of pitching while being undersized, I wondered, how the heck did Pedro do it.

The velocity on his fastball, the break on his curve and the change up that kept hitters completely off balance. He wasn’t muscle-bound and kind of looked like a regular dude.

When my group of 15 kids got to his station, I was in awe as he wrapped his ridiculously long fingers right around the baseball. Looking on in amazement, I was trying to memorize all the different grips.

All you have to do is hold the ball a certain way, and you can pitch like Pedro?!

I realize a little later, that it wasn’t quite the case.

Before Pedro left, he had one last tidbit of advice for us.

“Don’t try throwing the curve ball until you’re at least 13-years-old, you’re going to hurt your elbow and it’s not good until your arm is more developed!”

As the little van drove away, every kid in the park was trying to throw the new pitch they just learnt.

The Slick Awards

Thank You:

Felipe Alou, Pedro Martinez, Darren Fletcher, Larry Walker, Cliff Floyd, Sean Berry, Wil Cordero, Marquis Grissom, Moises Alou, Ken Hill, John Wetteland, Rondell White,Tim Scott, Denis Boucher, Gil Heredia, Lou Frazier, Tim Spehr, Joe Kerrigan, Pierre Arsenault, Joey Eischen, Claude Raymond.

Monday Mornings with Mitchy

It’s that time of year, time for excuses.

The weekend was good for the Montreal Canadiens, bad for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Something we’ve seen over the last two weeks that’s evident, the Habs have character.

To overcome a three-goal deficit against Ottawa, beat Colorado in Patrick Roy’s return to the Bell Centre, and dispose of the Leafs in a rivalry game on the road has been impressive.

Not only that, Montreal has been delivering games that are very high on the entertainment metre.

GM Marc Bergevin’s favorite word might be character. We hear it come draft time (and will hear it again this summer) and we’ve heard it during free agency. And this roster has a ton of it already. You win as a team and with character and there’s no reason to be believe that this team can’t make a run in the playoffs. Even the two teams that are clearly “better” than Montreal, Boston and Pittsburgh have lost both home and away games against the Canadiens. Against quality opposition, Montreal has actually faired pretty well.

Leaf land meanwhile, is the land of excuses.

And everyone is in desperate search for a scapegoat.

Travel, media, goaltending… you name it, they’ll use it as an excuse. 

This comes from the top. As a coach it is your job is to know how to get the most out of ALL your players. That’s what gives you the best chance to win. You need to know the personalities on your team and what they will react positively and negatively to. Randy Carlyle has not gotten the most out of this group.

The two examples that couldn’t be more clear-cut, James Reimer and Nazem Kadri. I’d throw Jake Gardiner into the mix, but during their five-game losing streak, his game has been strong. Those players are “whipping” boys for Carlyle and clearly their games have suffered as a result.

The coach created the story of bad goaltending. If Carlyle uses a more diplomatic answer when being asked about Reimer’s game following their loss in Detroit, it doesn’t put a spotlight on a backup goaltender that already has confidence issues.

Just look at the way Tyler Bozak handles the question:

“I think he’s playing good for us, we haven’t helped him out one bit. It’s easy to pick on the goalie when things are going bad, but it’s a team game. We haven’t been playing well enough to win, it isn’t him at all.”

Simple enough, right??

How about the same messaging from the coaching staff.

“I’m not making any comments on goaltenders thanks to you guys,” said coach Carlyle.

Right, the media created the story.

But if everyone in Toronto believes that goaltending is the reason they’re losing, then the finger doesn’t get pointed at the coaching staff. But in two years, the coaching staff hasn’t been able to get their team to implore any type of defensive zone coverage.

That said, Jonathan Bernier will return and I think they’ll make the playoffs.

 The Slick Awards:
I can’t manage personalities: Randy Carlyle
I made an appearance: Rene Bourque
I have no confidence: James Reimer
I ‘m a hockey player: Rich Clune (check out Carter Hutton's twitter account for more)

Habs spoil it for Roy

Patrick Roy's return to the Bell Centre was exactly as expected... eventful.

Montreal scored six goals in regulation for the first time since January 2nd, beating Roy's Avalanche 6-3.

The disappointment in Colorado's locker room following the game was evident. And although it was hard to get the sense that the team succumbed to the extra pressure of playing in front of the fans that adore their head coach, clearly it was on their minds before the game began.

"I didn't want them to feel pressure to win a hockey game for their coach," said Roy after the game. "I wanted them to win for the team, it's all about our team here."

While the team desperately wanted to win to keep pace with the Blackhawks, who have tied them with 93 points in the difficult Central Division of the NHL, the vibe in the building and both locker rooms was that this game was more than that.

"We wanted to get that win for him, it's important sometimes to know what's at stake in the game and we knew it was important for him," said goaltender JS Giguerre.

The score could be deceiving and doesn't reflect the way the game was played. It was a tie hockey game midway through the third period until the Canadiens capitalized on two powerplays and scored their final tally when Dale Weise put the puck into an empty net.

"Overall I thought the game was played even 5-on-5 and honestly I think it could have went either way," said Nathan Mackinnon.

What a night for Thomas Vanek who finally found the back of the net and picked a special night to do it. Like most goal scorers, they come in bunches and those three he scored tonight were just the beginning.

The win gives Montreal a three point cushion on the Toronto Maple Leafs who lost in Detroit and two points up on the Tampa Bay Lightning (who have two games in hand.)

QUICK THOUGHTS:
Thomas Vanek: Can score goals
Carey Price: Not at his best, yet
Lars Eller: Looks completely lost
The Fourth Line: Best game of the season for any trio with that role

Monday Mornings with Mitchy

The excitement for Thomas Vanek has already dissipated. And it shouldn't have.

Patience people, patience.

We’re talking about a player who has been traded twice in one season, and will more than likely be in a fourth city, in two seasons this summer.

It’s going to take time for him to adjust.

The good news is it took him time to adjust to his surroundings with the New York Islanders as well.

Vanek scored just once in his first seven games with NYI. He went on to score 16 more with the Islanders before being traded to the Canadiens. He’ll turn things around, goal scorers don’t forget how to score and are all of the streaky nature. Once he pots one, they will come in bunches.

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Coach Michel Therrien is playing with fire.

Everyone loves PK Subban. Continuing to deflect praise towards your superstar is just not smart business. Because when things go well, people are going to be hesitant to praise the coach. And when things go sour, people will pile on.

Again Saturday, when Subban made the unbelievable play to pass the puck to David Desharnais instead of throwing it into a bunch of traffic in front of the net, Coach Therrien wouldn’t praise the guy who carries this team on his back many nights.

“It was the right play I guess…. But I want to talk about Carey Price….” Said coach Therrien.

Are you kidding me?

You would think that a coach with as much experience as this one in Montreal, would have a little more foresight than he does.

He’ll learn, when it’s too late.
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And finally, somebody has to get a little meaner in front of Carey Price.

The penalty kill is good, so take penalties when it’s called for.

For a goaltender that just came back from injury, Price was run into at least five times on Saturday against the Ottawa Senators and nobody did a damn thing.

There’s no fear of going to the front of the net against the Habs. It’s a free ride. But have you seen how the opposition reacts when say, Brendan Gallagher is crashing into their crease?

The Canadiens have some mean defenseman. Douglas Murray and Alexei Emelin could very well cause some havoc in front of the goal.

I’d throw Subban into the mix here, but if he takes a penalty after the whistle, we won’t see him on the ice for a while….
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The Slick Awards

Rising to the occasion award: Lars Eller, PK Subban, Brian Gionta, David Desharnais, Francis Bouillon

Old man rivers award: Jarome Iginla

Unsung hero: Brandon Prust