Friday, October 2, 2009

Bloody Hell

What the hell is WITH the ACC anyway? That place is cursed. Andrei Markov played his last game there and ended up missing the rest of last season and the playoffs. He comes back healthy this year and, once again, in that accursed building, ends up with a freak injury that's going to cost the Habs his services until Christmas, if they're lucky.

I have to admit, my first instinct is to panic and assume the team is going directly into the toilet because of this. The Habs' record in recent years when Markov's been out has been pretty much the opposite of good. So I'm trying to talk myself down by remembering that this isn't last year's team. This is an entirely new group of players, with a better outlook on life and the game. And Jaroslav Spacek is used to filling the number-one role, as he did in Buffalo. That's better than last year, when nobody was able to even temporarily do Markov's job. It could have been worse, too, for the team and for Markov. Two to three months could easily have been a year or a career. So, this is what I'm telling myself as my heart resides somewhere around my shoes at the moment.

They say a team can only succeed if it passes through the fire of adversity first. I'd call this adversity, of the first degree. And if this fledgling team can survive this and even manage to win without Markov, it'll be stronger for it in the end. If it doesn't win without him, we can say at least he'll be back in time to help fix the damage. So, it's really, really bad news. But it's not the worst. There's always something worse.

8 comments:

Anvilcloud said...

No, it's not good news. What a test of character the next few months will be.

One would think that they will have to call Weber up to work the point. With several months work he could stick, and that might be the glimmer of light that I am trying desperately to see.

Kyle Roussel said...

I like your more optimistic take a lot more than mine!

This is a great opportunity for Gorges, Spacek and probably Weber as well. Those 3 guys can probably save Gainey's job, because if the Habs go in to the toilet because of this, it may very well cost Bob his job.

DB said...

A few thoughts on Markov and last night's game:

- if a team can't withstand the loss of one player, even a top player, then it really isn't a very good team.

- You should only panic if you took Markov in your fantasy league.

- Habs played rope-a-dope hockey last night and the dope they roped was number 8.

- Laraque is no longer very slow.

- what was stopping the buttons on Cherry's jacket from flying off? I haven't seen anything that stressed since Carbo during his press conference on Kovy's Gainey-cation.

- will someone please explain how 2 goons fighting each other protects the skilled players.

- what was O'Byrne's Pete Mahovlich moment this past summer? Sure wish he would pass it on to a few other players.

- a lot of Habs looked like they had to refer to the System Reference Manual before making a play. I hope that once they've digested the Manual that plays will be faster and more precise.

- does The Traitor's contract guarantee at least a daily TV appearance on every sports channel out there? Sure seems that way.

pierre said...

Despite our team being out of sinc yesterday and not standing out in any particuliar ways I could see new elements in our game...... the Ds were shipping in more than in past years and our forwards were playing deeper all in the name of keeping and maintaining high offensive pressure where it count most.

Without Markov Martin might have to reajust his system because the scenario will no longer be the same..... in the end in order to win without Markov our game and our system migh end up looking more like NJ than like DE..... which, for me, as a hockey fan would be a bomer, not a reason to give up of course.... just less festive of an experience all and all.

pfhabs said...

when the difference between being in 12th or 8th is less than 10 points losing Markov, who is worth more than that, is a disaster

defence by committee or by a Hamilton rookie cannot give you the points in the standings that the 3rd highest scoring D man last year can give you

nice to be optimistic because it sucks to be at the point that its over after 1 game...but reality does suck at times...sorry

Howard said...

The emergence of O'byrne as a viable defenceman has really helped the Habs plight. With the pairings of Hamrlik/Spacek, Mara/Gill, O'byrne/Gorges I think we'll be fine. It might be an idea to call up Weber as a 7th defenceman for the PP, but I think Gorges showed last night that he can contribute offensively. I'm not panicking, for now. As you said JT, we can only get better when Markov comes back.

Unknown said...

My hope for the next four months is that we can still enjoy the games... instead of having 'our hearts reside in our shoes' on those winter hockey nights... instead of comparing every defenceman's move to what we imagine our beloved Markov would have done...instead of moaning about what could have been.

Is it even possible to further lower our expectations and still have fun watching our team? GHG!

NailaJ said...

And then there's Deharnais... also out for 3 to 4 months...