Even McPhee can shudder - too close for comfort

Ok I'll give you guys that this is temporarily uncomfortable.

It's just because that, as it happened all season, 7th to 9th place basically all won and loss exactly when we won and lost, making the 5 points spread as apparently short as it was effectively solid all season.

But now, as it theoretically was all season, it's all up for grabs, in a way. Should these CH (hey, notice how "competent Habs" abreviate to CH... maybe an old mystery was just solved here), should these CH falter and lose all three games they run the serious risk of not making it. That was the jist of everyone's point : "should we lose every game from now untill the end of the season..."

Except they won't. Except no team deserving of making the playoffs drops two critical playoff-like games to the suckiest teams that ever sucked, ottawa and tranna. If they did they'd deserve to be ousted in favor of the come-from-behind gang that pulled it together on the last week of the season.

But it won't happen. Carolina has three tough games to play, including this Wednesday against Detroit and back-to-back games against division rivals atlanta and tampa. They just won't emerge with six points. Habs magic number being two, with this lost point all they need is one point for the rest of the season to clinch.

But I get y'all's point : this is too close for comfort. I could theoretically melt down if all stars aligned against them.

But, my friends, the stars have aligned against these Habs all season, and always they rose to the occasion. The stars owe them, right now, and I'm glad they kept their points with them for this time of the year. BTW, noticed that penalty shot that hit the post really awkwardly? That was pretty good timing for that bounce, wouldn't you say?

We all remember that year no one got injured and we finished 1st in the East, That didn't end well, not to mention cost us years of bad luck. I think we're done paying now. I think it's time to kick some playoff ass.

Maybe Chocula was keeping PFK in the sleeve as a secret weapon for the playoffs, so that the opposition has not gained any meaningful experience against it. Maybe I'm on meth.

Give this to Buttman : under his rule the nhl became a heckuva product. I will grant you, though, that it would be nice to clinch before the last week of the season. Well, the last six days.

But, good news is, if we win tomorrow we're in, no magic number this, no disappointment that. We're in. We could finally kiss and make up, people.

Where we stand, 16 years after the black hole.

Basically we are one year (this year) away from fully recovering for the black hole that hit us when we fired Serge Savard, for the same stupid reason that led the entire city to agree that Casseau had to go.

In order to stop consuming myself with pure frustration I try to focus on the fact that we are now basically back to where we started rather than on the pain that it was to achieve that.

Because where we started is with Patrick Roy in nets and a team built with warriors with, not the scariest offence, but one where the goals could come from everywhere and also a solid defense. The right mix of veterans and rookies with a few shipers and a few bigger, uglier mugs. A backup whose job is not be thought of, and we're good. That combination can win the Cup on any given year if the stars align right in the playoffs (as in : after you beat washington and pittsburgh there souldn't be two more rounds of hockey to play, to quote an example chosen at random).

I hope this clears things up.

Ok, now who's ready for the playoffs?

Now are we in?  Can we talk about the playoffs now?

You prefer talking about our magic number? About the fraction of one percent chance we miss them still?

If the Habs are PTSD from the PatCHes assassination attempt, Habs fans are PTSD from the post-Serge Savard era.

To kick things off I say let's prepare for boston. Being ready for this year's boston will make us a better team because they are a better team on paper than depleted pittsburgh or defence-less washington. Plus you can't prepare of Ovechkin, Backstrom, Semin and Knuble, you can only worry about them. It's impossible to prepare for philly because they are unstoppable, it's just depressing to think that we could play them. I prefer denial at this point.

Plus, preparing for the booins will serve us well when we play them in round 1, the most likely of scenarios.

An end to the distraction

Do you think that any team in the NHL could possibly play Carey Price for six games at any point in the season and get zero point out of those six games?  Say the Islanders? The Panthers? Edmonton? I say Price plays six games in a row for these guys there's no chance that they won't get at least a point or two. And that's all the Habs need.

So relax. They were all turned in one instant from one of the sassiest in the league to the by far most completely depressed team.

The noise, the violence of the hit, the fear that he was dead for all that time, that's a real turnoff, man. It turned most of us off of watching or caring about hockey. So imagine them, on the ice from shift to shift, it's just...awful. Obviously they suck.

My first thought, when they said the goalless streak was a record from 65 years ago was "shit, was that the time that guy died, or something?"

I think this week is going to be good. Two weeks to go. Two clean sheets (the weeks). I think they'll be good.

One way or another, we're clinching this week, so everybody is finally going to feel allowed to talk about the playoffs, which I remind everyone, begin two weeks from now. Fortunately, the Habs know that more than a lot of Habs fans.

Go Habs Go! (GYFCHG, in the vernacular)

Great schedule ahead!

I love our last 6 games.

First, one week of playoff-intensity games against very beatable opponents. Get the feeling in without all that getting-your-ass-kicked finish to it. Terrific practice.

Then, a perfect last week to prepare : a prestige-playoff preparation game against Chicago to get a real taste of what's coming, followed by a "feel-good game" against Ottawa to get the confidence up and score a few goals here and there, and finally a game against the leaf to get us MAD just before the playoffs and tap into the extra energy players derive from hate. (Hopefully we do well but suffer a frustrating loss so we can really get that sense of "we really want to win the next one" for game #1 v. whoever). It doesn't matter if we don't do well against Ottawa because that'll just piss us off and lead us to pummel Toronto and enter the playoffs riled up and ready to go.

Any way you look at it, and regardless of what happens in this coming week, the Habs will be ready come playoffs.