Game Three: Habs vs. Flyers

Overtime:

- Well, If you're gonna pick one guy you want on the break to win the game it's Galchenyuk. Great save by Emery.

- Embelishment. Yeah, Chris Lee is a sucker for that. Flyers to the powerplay.

- Combination of terrible Flyers powerplay and brilliant PK gives the Habs a shootout shot.

- Parenteau in the 4th round and would you believe it, the Habs win the game. Incredible.

Third Period:

- How many scoring chances have the Habs had so far? Five. Just one with the man advantage. That's coming as close to officially not showing up at all, as you can possibly get in a game of hockey.

- Simply put, failing a crazy bounce, Habs are almost certainly going to be shut out tonight. 

- Well, Markov making me look good again. Flyers defense looking terribly flustered, relatively routine wrister for Andrei. 3-1.

- Habs have, erm ... come to life. 

- Wow. Habs pouring it on, Flyers absolute zone meltdown, and tutlepleks cashes in his 4th. It's a one goal game. I'm astounded.

- Flyers defense too focused on hitting bodies and not nearly enough on zone cocerage on mobile wingers. Habs getting more than ample opportunities to tie this thing up.

- Good lord. There it is. Brilliant slap pass Plekqnec on Glachenyuk's stick and in. The Habs tie the game. The Flyers are stunned. I am too.

- Habs third periods this season have been incredible. Too bad their firsts have been so awful.

- Fllyers sat on it, Ray Emery in net, and a sure lead blown. It's astounding, but not really.

Second Period:

- Simmonds. Powerplay. 3-0. Flyers keep it simple and capitalize. Why the Canadiens don't do the same is baffling. Habs really in deep now.

- Habs just plain listless in this period. Too many thinking about going home, methinks.

- If a team like the Flyers can make the 1-3-1 work, maybe Habs should consider the same?

- Almost Eller. Almoat Bourque. It's one of those nights.

- Habs were hoping to go to 3 and 0 for he first time in 10 years. It's not going to happen.

First Period:

- So Emelin out, Tinordi in, and Nahthan Beaulieu will get a few shifts next PK Subban. 

- Man, that Flyers defense looks slow. It's a poor matchup against a team like the Canadiens.

- Did you blink? You might have missed two Flyers goals, first after blown coverage by Beaulieu, the second after Parenteau makes a bad turnover. So um .... yeah. 2-0.

- Well, at least the Habs have now woken up and remembered they're playing a hockey game. The poor starts to each game this season are finally hitting this team (deservedly) hard.

- Nifty kill by the Habs, Flyers are so thin at the line, don't be surprised if their man advantage ranks near the bottom third of the League this year.

- How can this Habs team with so much talent and speed be so terrible with the man advantage?

- Habs back to their dump-and-chase ways tonight. It's killed their powerplay, it's given Emery a pretty soft period.

- Another disastrous start to a first period puts the Habs into another scoreboard deficit. The good news is the Canadiens held much of the play edge after the two early goals, but their powerplay continues to look atrocious. Still early, but the margins for error are pretty narrow if Montreal hopes to salvage this night.

Pregame Goo:

Do you remember a time when the Flyers were a dreaded, feared organization for the Habs faithful? I sure do. From about 1995 to about ... I dunno ... three years ago, I hated Philadelphia. HATED THEM.

That hate was more born out of fear than anything, because for a good 15 season, Philly owned us. From the mid 90s when a desperate Serge Savard traded away the Habs best forward, John Leclair, the Habs wins against the Flyers have been few and far between. They haven't won in Philadelphia for five damn years.

But that was then. Now? Not so much so. The Flyers have been going through a difficult transition of late, this summer being no different as Philadelphia gave then GM Paul Holmgren a nice little "here's another job for you so you don't do any more damage job" job, and moved in former Flyers netminder Ron Hextall.

Now, the Flyers did manage to make the playoffs last year, but they faced an array of challenges this summer with respect to having more than a few overpaid, underproducing players under contract. Hextall, in an attempt to fix their cap problems, traded Scott Hartnell for R.J.Umberger, a deal that surely will haunt this franchise for years to come.

Hextall only compounded the problems when he signed Michael Del Zotto, Nick Schultz, and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare. Well, at least they fixed their cap issues. Oh what? They're $5 million over the cap? Oh well then. Nevermind.

Let me put it to you this way. Don't expect to see the Flyers back in the playoffs this season. Or probably the next.

So tonight!! The Habs aim to start their year three and oh! Carey Price returns to net, Thomas Plekanec aims to pad his League-leading goals total, and Rogers sports gets its first Saturday night of hockey coverage. Let's hope they don't embarrass themselves the same way they did with Wednesday nights awful, awful coverage.

Pucks drops at 7:10 EST.