Montreal Canadiens Fans: A Win Is a Win

The Montreal Canadiens beat the Edmonton Oilers last night at the Bell Centre by a score of 5-4 after a shootout.

This morning there are moans and groans around the city that “it should have been easier because the Oilers are the worst team in the NHL.”

Blah, blah, blah.

The Canadiens are on a four-game winning streak, winning five of their last six—is there real reason to complain?

Tomas Plekanec chipped in last night (Jason Hitelman)

Sure, the Oilers are not very good, but they play in a far superior conference. Their record against Eastern Conference teams is 7-8-2: not great, but surely not the worst in the NHL.

Compare it to, say, the Toronto Maple Leafs record against Western Conference teams (4-12-1), and the Edmonton Oilers look like a playoff team.

Just this past weekend, the Oilers shut out the New Jersey Devils. That is not too shabby.

People were so easy to call this game a cake-walk before it happened, probably even forgetting that Edmonton had already beaten the Habs earlier in the season.

But, lo and behold, the Canadiens won the game and still have to deal with scrutiny.

The game wasn’t a blowout because even though the Bleu, Blanc, Rouge is playing very well at the present time, they are not part of the NHL elite.

It’s not like the Montreal Canadiens have suddenly become the Washington Capitals!

If the Habs want to make the playoffs, they are going to have to play hard game in and game out. Though they are a small team, they happen to be a team with a lot more character than others, so I like their chances on that front.

Blowouts are not to be expected from this team—wins should do just fine. To use a cliché, at the end of the day, it is the two points that matter.

Needless to say, if you are fan of the team, you should be happy with their performance over the past couple of weeks.

It is incredibly important that they keep up their game-play when they face off against the Boston Bruins on Saturday night. The game will be the most important one to date (it seems like there have been at least 10 do-or-die games this season).

The Bs are coming off a huge win against the Philadelphia Flyers and will look to carry momentum into Montreal.

The Canadiens must take advantage of the Bruins lack of important manpower (see Marc Savard) and keep playing hockey as if they were in the Western Conference.

The Habs have been playing much bigger than they actually are and could silence their critics if they continue to.

Posted by Jason Hitelman on Mar 12 2010. Filed under Eastern Conference, Montreal Canadiens, Northeast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.