I can’t recall a playoff series that has such a wide gamut of expectations on either side of the fence as this 33rd matchup between Montreal and Boston. Both sides expect (demand?) victory, and both sides have compelling cases as to why their side will come out on top.

No doubt Bruins fans, and indeed Bruins management expect their team to employ the ‘Big, Bad Bruins’ philosophy. It’s been their identity for decades, and it’s how they play the game. They’ll expect the belief of superior size, and skill, propelled by their two most recent home wins over Montreal, to grind the Habs in to a gooey tri-coloured paste. They’ll expect to break the Canadiens’ will through intimidation. The Bruins almost certainly expect to prove that their Northeast Division win wasn’t all for naught, and they want to do it with authority. Their Head Coach, Claude Julien expects that his team will carry their strong regular season in to the playoffs with their rough-and-tumble style, and escape the first round unscathed (no doubt he has to expect that, otherwise he can expect to be shown the door). General Manager Peter Chiarelli clearly expects big things, as he was the one pulling the trigger on significant trade deadline upgrades. He will have answering to do if the Bruins don’t go very deep in the playoffs.

The Bruins see this postseason as a prime chance to win it all for the first time since 1972. They’ve added Tomas Kaberle, Rich Peverley, and Chris Kelly for their playoff run…you don’t make those types of additions if you don’t think your window is wide open. These moves signaled the Bruins intentions and expectations, and they desperately want to capitalize before that window slams shut. The pressure is squarely and intensely on the Bruins to squash their pesky little foes and take another step in leveling the scales – which currently tip heavily in Montreal’s favour: 24 playoff series victories to the Bruins’ 8. Should the Bruins again fall to their bitter rivals (the Habs represent the ultimate bear trap) you can expect a lot of questions. You can expect a lot of anger. You can probably also expect some big changes.

The Bruins have elite goaltending, but I’m not sure what to expect of Tim Thomas, and I bet I’m not the only one. He’s a virtual lock for the Vézina trophy as the league’s best regular season goaltender, as he should be, but his numbers against the Habs are anything but impressive. Who will we see? The former and probable once-again Vézina winner, or the guy with bambi legs when facing the Habs?

Goaltending aside, there’s a lot of very good talent up front wearing black and gold. Bergeron, Horton, Krejci, Peverley, Ryder, Recchi, Marchand and Lucic are all terrific players in their own right. They’re a solid mix of power, skill, speed, and sharpshooting. Overall they lack playoff experience, but Dr. Recchi’s long career probably carries enough experience for everyone to share in. Defensively, however is where the Bruins are vulnerable. Outside of Chara, their defense is nothing to write home about. They’re not horrendous, but the quicker Habs forwards should be able to exploit that weakness – provided the Canadiens can get possession of the puck.

As for the Habs and their fans, last year’s improbable run deep in to the playoffs broke ground that nobody with the CH tatooed on their heart had seen since 1993 - a lifetime for fans spoiled by annual Cup parades. That run to the Eastern Conference Finals – for better or worse – sent the explicit message that simply making the playoffs is no longer enough. The happy news – if you can call it that – is that both the team and fanbase seem to be in lock-step with this belief. The team knows the bar has been raised, and the fans are all too happy to go along with that.

Recall that just one year ago, it was a pretty much a brand new Habs roster, with new coaching, new management and new ownership…how could they have done what they did considering all of the upheaval? It was mind-boggling to be sure, but fast forward to the present day, and the new car smell has worn off this Habs team. The Canadiens are now expected to replicate their results from last year – or at the very least not bow out in round one – not to the hated Bruins – and especially not after what Chara did to Max Pacioretty. It’s simply unacceptable to Montreal fans – no matter their conference rankings – that the Canadiens be eliminated by the Bruins. It’s the bitterest of pills. Fans of the Bruins will undoubtedly be upset should the Bruins fail, but most of them will quickly get behind the Celtics and Red Sox to soothe their pain (though the Sox may not be the ideal place to find solace right now). In Montreal, fans will gnash their teeth over a loss to the Bruins all summer long.

Getting a little more granular, Habs fans expect greatness from Carey Price, despite his less-than-stellar career playoff numbers. His playoff experience certainly is a mixed bag, but think back to Price’s rookie season and his performances in the first round against the Bruins – most notably his game seven performance. His 5-11 playoff record is underwhelming, but it overshadows some brilliant performances, and is skewed by the complete no-show the Habs put forth during the centennial collpase. After a terrific regular season, and with a solid record against Boston over the past 2 years there’s little reason to expect anything different from the Habs netminder. He will almost certainly be good, but he needs to be better than Tim Thomas if the Canadiens are to win this series. There will be defensive lapses all around him and he will have to continue to bail out his mates, as has done since October.

With the aforementioned centennial sweep at the hands of the Bruins a long faded (repressed?) memory, it should not factor in to anybody’s psyche in this series; the Habs roster reset of last season took care of that, even if the Bruins choose to use that sweep as a source of confidence. So what else do Habs fans expect? Certainly they expect the best players to perform like the best players, as they should. That means Plekanec, Gomez, Cammalleri and Gionta need to produce on the scoreboard, with no exceptions. If Plekanec can’t produce points on the road, if Gomez can’t salvage his disastrous season in the playoffs (where he usually excels), if Cammallieri goes stone cold again, and if Gionta is neutralized, the Habs are done like dinner. There cannot be any “yes, but X was good defensively” or “yeah but X played hurt” type of excuses if they fire blanks. Guys in their paygrade don’t earn several million dollars just to be defensively reliable; Jeff Halpern is. Mathieu Darche is. Tom Pyatt is. Also, at this stage, everyone has a nagging injury, so that excuse carries little water except for with apologists. This is the time of year when good players really earn the paychecks and make their names, so these four key cogs need to deliver on the scoreboard, end of story. It would be grossly unfair to the likes of Lars Eller, David Desharnais, Andrei Kostitsyn and Benoit Pouliot to expect them to carry the load offensively, and any production from Moen, Darche, Pyatt, Halpern, and White while certainly welcome, should be seen as found money. It can be argued that the Canadiens’ under-25 group is a prime reason why the Habs are in the playoffs, but it will have to be the highly paid veterans who lead the charge. Defensively, the group “is what it is”. They’re slow, old, not very tough and don’t move the puck particularly well. As they did in virtually each of the 82 games, the Canadiens will be caught running around their own zone in a frantic, disorganized mess from time to time. This is expected, and habitual with this team. Anyone surprised at that may need to be handed the smelling salts. While it’s unlikely for the defense to clean up its act now when they have even more miles on the tires, their veteran savvy may reveal a trick or two up their sleeve. Shot blocking is one thing; physicality, and quickly moving the puck with purpose are other animals entirely. By now you know which ones the Canadiens do well, and which ones they don’t. The questions is which of the things that they don’t do well can they mitigate the most?

We can expect Jacques Martin and his staff to be steady in their demeanor, even if it isn’t always deemed the ideal approach. Don’t expect any surprises. Don’t expect much emotion, or much reaction to anything. There will be canned coach-speak, and the common clichés. In this respect, the Habs coaching staff is as easy to set expectations for as it gets. If there’s one unfortunate expectation it’s that the coaching staff has been unable to stop the Canadiens from taking minor penalties through 82 games, and there’s not much reason to think they’ll find a way to stop it now…but any more bench minors for Too Many Men should be viewed as unacceptable. The Canadiens already spend too much time on the penalty kill and in their own end at even strength. There’s no need to make that problem worse by taking entirely preventable penalties. While the Habs usually do a good job of killing penalties, any time spent on the penalty kill is time wasted in the Bruins zone, and precious energy spent by the likes of Tomas Plekanec and Roman Hamrlik. On the flip side of the special teams battle, the Habs do a terrible job of drawing penalties. They’re not big enough to force opponents to take interference penalties, and they don’t play a style that allows their speed to force opponents to hook, hold, grab and trip with much frequency. In order for the Habs to get on the power play, they need to be antagonistic thorns in the Bruins’ side, and they need to avoid retaliating when they do raise the Bruins ire. They need to be that team that the Bruins constantly whine about. Getting under the Bruins’ skin and getting them off their game is paramount.

If the Canadiens are planning on applying pieces of last year’s playoff game plan to this year’s, it would be at best a risky gambit. While the Canadiens allowed offensive-minded players like Ovechkin, Semin, Crosby and Malkin to fire at will, once they faced the Flyers, who are a deeper, more evenly distributed team they were stopped dead in their tracks. This Bruins team more closely mirrors that fatal Flyers bunch in that there isn’t one or two players to shut down in order to win. Stop Ovechkin and Backstrom – you win. Stop Crosby and Malkin – you win. Stop Richards and Carter? Oops - what about Brière and Giroux? It’s tough to identify just a couple of Bruins to stop, because others are eminently capable of seamlessly filling the void; they’re like the Hydra that way. No doubt they’re a formidable group, and they’ll seek to overwhelm the slow-moving Habs defense. The Canadiens would love to block as many shots as they did last year, but it would be dangerous indeed to allow the Bruins free passage in the Habs zone as they did with the Capitals and Penguins.

At the end of this long-winded post, I’m expecting a simlarly long series that will go at least 6 games. I believe that whoever takes the first game will eventually win in 6 games…and I think Carey Price will steal game 1 in Boston.

While the hit was a shock to everyone, it’s important to use this incident as a spearhead for league-wide change, and not just an opportunity for Habs fans to get “justice for their guy”. While some justice would have been nice (considering Campbell’s quote after suspending Ovechkin last season), that no supplemental discipline was given to Chara may be a blessing in disguise. If he had received a game or three, there would still be a large amount of fans dissatisfied with the decision. Upon serving the meagre suspension, the refrain would have reverted to “he served his suspension, move along”.

Instead, the league has flung the door wide open to criticism on their insane views of what is tolerated as “part of the game” and what isn’t.

I’ve been very, very vocal about the whole situation on twitter, and it’s led to many “accusations” that I’m only this upset because it’s happened to a Canadiens player. While my anger is certainly intensified this time around (and to be fair, a broken neck and severe concussion is as horrific an injury as we’ve seen in the NHL since the Bertuzzi/Moore incident of several years ago. Marc Savard’s accumulated head traumas are certainly the most profound for any player since Moore) there’s no doubt that I’ve made my stance and opinion on the state of the NHL very clear. I may not have listed every incident, but you’ll get the point.

Below is a compilation of blog posts that I’ve written over the past couple years that prove (I hope) just how disgusted I am with the league and their ineptitude to properly deal with headshots.

• (March 9, 2011) http://www.cowhideandrubber.com/pacioretty-slams-own-head-in-glass
• (February 25, 2011) http://www.cowhideandrubber.com/look-what-youve-done-gary
• (February 8, 2011) http://www.cowhideandrubber.com/as-the-hamster-wheel-turns
• (March 18, 2010) http://www.cowhideandrubber.com/day-zero-for-colin-campbell
• (March 14, 2010) http://www.cowhideandrubber.com/campbell-gets-another-chance
• (March 10, 2010) http://www.cowhideandrubber.com/nhl-general-managers-finally-act-on-headshots
• (January 18, 2010) http://www.cowhideandrubber.com/the-monthly-hockey-headshot-debate-heats-up-again
• (November 5, 2009) http://www.nhldigest.com/was-branch-too-harsh-on-liambis/

I’m not sure how I’d qualify it, but the oldest blog entry on this list most closely mirrors the way I feel today about Pacioretty. This tells me that despite the introduction of rule 48 to NHL play, that the sport of hockey is still nowhere near getting to the root of this frightening problem.

As Canadiens fans prepare to protest at the Bell Center prior to the game on March 15th, I can only speak for myself when I say that I hope the focus of  the protest centers around the fact that the NHL now expects their players to take far too many risks and that they need to get serious about suspensions and safety. Hockey has always been a fast, dangerous sport. The lack of respect among players, and the flaccid, impotent rules (as well as the disciplinary office) only make it a more hazardous environment.

“I thought ‘Fil’ and Bertuzzi together were really good for us, really got going. And then, obviously ‘Pav’ and ‘Homer’ and ‘Mule’ have been excellent for us, and I thought ‘Z’ and ‘Clears’ chipped in as well. That was good. ‘Helmer’s’ group had a real good night, and that’s what you need, you need everyone on deck.”

Ah, the Winter Classic. The outdoors, middle of winter, the fresh air…hopefully some idyllic snowflakes (that goalies will invariably use to buttress their creases). In an attempt to evoke childhood memories and the roots of the game, the NHL has found some secret sauce with the now annual New Year’s Day outdoor game. On a day that is still ruled by College Football, the “lowly” NHL has managed to get itself on the radar with their ode to all things folksy about the game.

Personally, I’ve never been overly impressed with these games. The settings have been neat. The games for the most part, have not. Try as the NHL may with its well-produced marketing efforts, I’ve never been fully captivated with these games aside from the fact that it’s hockey on a day where I’m usually trying to cure a pounding headache.

Now I know that the NHL is a business and with their latest sacred cow wants to milk these things for all they are worth…but could something be as predictable, scripted and contrived as a Penguins vs Capitals matchup? I know you want to showcase your best when you have the spotlight, but come on. Sure, “Sid the Kid” and “Alex the Gr8″ qualify as the best that the NHL can offer, but when things as predictable as this come to pass, I just want someone to pass me the bucket. Can you imagine how much hype will surround this event? Unless you’re a Penguins fan, Capitals fan, employee of the network carrying the event, an NHL employee, or a hockey-loving vacuum (even this may be a stretch for those of you who love all things hockey), you may want to invest in a bilge pump to keep from drowning in the thick gravy we’re all about to be hosed with. Note to the NHL (and especially to NBC): there ARE other stars and other teams in your league.

Frankly, I’m surprised at my own reaction. I figured I’d enjoy something like this. Maybe I will, but right now my impression is that this feels manufactured and vacuous. A Crosby / Ovechkin matchup would sell at any point, in any year but I believe that the NHL dropped the ball by announcing this so quickly. I have a suggestion, albeit a moot one. Hear me out, but I think with the hockey we are about to be treated to, the NHL would have been wise to wait and see how the Cup Finals played out and thought of concocting a Toews / Richards rematch for their next Winter Classic. The 2 best players in the league *today* may not be Crosby and Ovechkin, but Richards and Toews. You can certainly make that argument.

With the plotlines that engulf this upcoming series (Hawks in 6, by the way), there could have been an air of authenticity and genuine nastiness to this affair. With Sidney and Alex, I get the sense that the only plotlines would be “can Crosby can channel his shinny hockey childhood once again to topple his nemesis?” or “can Ovechkin can gain a measure of redemption against the kid who has a Stanley Cup, Gold Medal and Maurice Richard trophy to his recent collection?” It just feels tired, uninspired and lazy to me. A weak attempt to add 8 minutes to the feature-length DVD that we’re sure to see one day about the Crosby/Ovechkin rivalry. Apparently the legends are true. NBC, at least when it comes to hockey, really does stand for “Nobody But Crosby”. I do like Crosby. A lot in fact. But there has never been a moment in NHL history where so many GREAT young stars are filling out rosters everywhere.

I admit, it could be a great game, and I always hope that it is. But we’ve also seen that outdoor conditions can severely affect a player or team that relies on skill to succeed. Anything other than an offensive show would probably leave most fans feeling cheated. By January 2nd, I could end up eating my words, and I hope I do. It might be a great game in a great setting. But for now, with the calendar about to roll over to June, this leaves me completely indifferent. But like most of you, I will gladly watch, simply because we all love the game and we don’t want to miss a thing.

I haven’t even touched on the Canadiens – Flames matchup that will take place in February in Calgary at McMahon Stadium.

My reaction to this game is “Why?”

I’ve never been to Calgary, but I hear it’s pretty cold and unpleasant in February. I don’t know why this game needs to happen. Wouldn’t the Oilers or Leafs or Canucks or Senators (ok, not the Senators) be as good a matchup? Again, I’m not opposed to this, but I just don’t get it. Please sell me on this, unless you share my opinion. If the Canadiens are to play an outdoor game, it should be at Percival Molson Stadium, where the CFL’s Alouettes play. Now THAT would be a setting I could get excited about. Aside from the setting, what’s the draw to this game? The return of Cammalleri to Calgary? Where he spent one season? If it was a marketing angle in the least, it’s already been done…

How do you feel about these games? Is the NHL going to the well too often? Is the whole thing too formulaic? Please leave your thoughts below, and thanks for reading!

Better late than never, as the saying goes.

NHL “disciplinarian” Colin Campbell today handed down an 8 game suspension to Anaheim Ducks defenseman James Wisniewski for this horrendous head shot:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’m sure there are many hockey fans out there that are both puzzled and outraged with the decision. Why did he get 8 games while Matt Cooke got none? Why did he get 8 games while Downie got none? Why did he get 8 games while Ovechkin only got 2?

The fact is it doesn’t matter. Not anymore.

While Campbell sat by and blithely found reasons to dismiss dirty hits, or hand out limp 2-game bans, fans got angrier and angrier while the NHL made itself in to more and more of a laughing stock.

If there’s a silver lining to a hit like Wisniewski’s, it’s that Seabrook walked away from the hit, and it’s that Campbell acted swiftly and harshly. He didn’t dawdle over whether or not Cooke would or could be suspended, he didn’t hand out pathetic $1,000 fines, and he didn’t sit around spinning the wheel of justice until it landed on a small enough number of games fit for a star to miss. Clearly, when he wants to, he is able to act quickly instead of checking schedules for potential conflicts, and checking to see which way the wind is blowing.

On the night that an angry Bruins team was going to get their shot at retribution on Matt Cooke, Campbell levied what I hope to be the new standard for dirty hits, especially ones to the head. Now I’m sure that Bruins fans (and the Bruins themselves) are extra angry. If any one of their players gets excessive with Cooke, or one of the Penguins stars, you can bet that the suspension will be severe. It’s unfair, and on some level it’s wrong. Sometimes you’re the bug, and sometimes you’re the windshield. In a season where nothing has gone right, the Bruins are the bug.

I think fans have to understand that Campbell has probably figured out that he’s made a fairly ugly mess of things and that he has to put a stop to it at some point. With guys having their heads smashed on a nightly basis, the time to act is now. In fact, the time to act was long ago. The players are as disjointed a group as there is, there’s no sense in looking to them for logical behavior or coherent action. To a man, they keep blowing the same hot air: “I didn’t intend to hurt him / I don’t go out there to injure”. Sure guys. Then why does it keep happening? And why do you guys keep acting as a roadblock to getting new rules in place? If the players can’t or won’t control themselves, then the league has to do it for them. Marc Savard, Brian Campbell, Brent Seabrook, and Sidney Crosby have all been subject to a range of questionable hits over the past week. You can even lump Seabrook’s questionable hit on Perry in there if you want. That’s 5 guys of Olympic and all-star calibre in a week. Two will miss a long period of time, 1 is yet to be determined, and 2 were lucky to walk away unscathed. At that rate there won’t be any stars left to sell the game!

Colin Campbell needed to swallow his pride, and start acting like someone who has the teeniest clue about what he’s doing. I believe he did that today, and if it’s at all possible, he deserves some credit. If 8 games becomes the new baseline for taking a run at someone’s head (heck, even if 5 games is the new baseline; Wisniewski is a repeat offender after all), then Campbell can restore some measure of faith and credibility by sticking to it, regardless of the name on the back of the jersey. He will never fully erase the years of futility and impotency that he will forever be known for, but he can do the game some good if he finally does the right thing and get serious with cheap shot artists. Players don’t care about 1 or 2 game suspensions. That’s a short break from a long year. The lost salary is just a few nights out where they take it easy instead of going all out. Start suspending guys for 10% of the season and the picture becomes clearer. Get these guys off the ice, and hit them in the wallet. That’s where it hurts most. Suddenly, they’re not thinking about just cutting back to make up for lost pay; they’re actually reeling from the financial hit. It may take a while, but I’m certain that a player with violence on his mind will think twice about recklessly hitting an unsuspecting opponent if he reprograms himself to understand that he won’t just miss a game or two, but 5 or 10.

Where do you stand? Do you think Colin Campbell finally got one right?

When it rains, it pours.

NHL disciplinarian Colin Campbell has been handed another opportunity. Will he use this opportunity to further embarrass himself and the league, or will he stick to his new found standard of consistency?

Alexander Ovechkin, a reckless runaway train on NHL ice surfaces, and now hopefully labeled as repeat offender was at it again today vs the Blackhawks. In case you have not seen it, here’s the hit:

Click here to view the embedded video.

If that isn’t a suspendable hit given the climate in the NHL today, then I don’t know what is. Except for the fact that Ovechkin is the league’s biggest star. Or in the top 2. Take your pick, it doesn’t really matter.

Last week Canadiens motor mouth Maxim Lapierre was suspended for four games for a nasty, boneheaded hit from behind on Sharks forward Scott Nichol. To refresh your memory, here is the video on that hit:

Click here to view the embedded video.

On the surface they may look slightly different, but in the end, they are both in fact the same thing. Both were from behind, and both shoved defenseless opponents headlong in to the boards at high speed. Lapierre was suspended four games for his hit, and deservedly so. While he is a mouthy player who refuses to back up his words by dropping his gloves, he had not yet been suspended by the NHL. Contrast this with Ovechkin who has been suspended once already this year (no doubt begrudgingly), and has many questionable hits on his resume, including others from behind, and knee-on-knee. It’s clear that while some would dismiss the wreckage in Ovechkin’s wake as a byproduct of his aggressive, reckless abandon style of play, there’s no doubt that the focus should be on reckless.

So again the ball is in Campbell’s court. In just about everyone’s eyes, he dropped the ball by not suspending Penguins forward Matt Cooke under the “intent to injure” leeway that he has. He cited consistency as his reason for his inaction. To him it was more important to remain consistently wrong, because he did not suspend Flyers forward Mike Richards early in the season. If being consistent is his new mantra, then we should look forward to seeing a suspension of at least four games, should we not?

I am not going to hold my breath, because Campbell has given hockey fans no reason to have faith in him, but with the entire hockey world watching for dirty hits and Campbell’s reactions, he can’t afford to drop the ball again. But haven’t we heard this before?

Also embarassing was NBC’s reaction to the hit. While Ray Ferraro nearly had a stroke decrying Lapierre’s hit, barely anything at all was said of Ovechkin’s dirty hit. Pierre McGuire was notably silent on the issue, and when was the last time that happened? I’m not a conspiracy theory guy, but it’s not hard to imagine that they were being told to not get too critical of the game’s main attraction.

What’s your opinion on this latest questionable hit from Ovechkin? Will his status as a star save him again, or will the league do the right thing for once?