And seeing that YouTube replay of Volchenkov colliding with Cammalleri did nothing to warm the cockles of my heart. I'm of two minds about this team, if Cammalleri is out for a significant amount of time (and by the looks of it he will be) we're pretty much toast. I don't know if that's a bad thing, at least we have a reasonable excuse. I had hoped that the weekend wins against New Jersey and the Rangers were going to be a turning point for our Habs, but the two losses in Florida dispelled that notion rather quickly. The thing that bothers me the most with this team is inconsistency. I want to get off the good hockey bad hockey roller coaster, it's starting to nauseate me. I'm not sure what the problem is, for the most part our off season signings are doing their jobs. Defense has it's moments and Andre Markov is not yet 100 percent. There's no contribution to speak of coming from the third and fourth lines, and I'm not sure about the coaching. I'm certainly no expert but I don't understand why Bob would hire a defensive minded coach and then go out and sign purely offensive players. *scratches head*
When Bob blew up the team this summer it took me a while to get used to the new look, but I'm basically a positive glass half full type of person and all I really wanted was for the team to be better than last year. I didn't have unrealistic expectations, I was hoping to finish 6th or 7th in the standings and get through a couple of playoffs rounds. Bob would have had the season to assess the team and make some adjustments during the summer. As we stand right now, I don't see us making the playoffs. Maybe with the return of Andre Kostitsyn and depending on the severity of Cammalleri's injury we MAY have a SLIM chance. The only other positive is the teams we are battling for position are as mediocre as we are.
The only thing I'm sure of is after this season I DON'T want another year of crap. I'm as loyal as the next fan but one decent season in seventeen is just not acceptable and from what I've heard from Geoff Molson it won't be acceptable to the new ownership either. I don't care what it takes or who has to go to make this team competative and fun to watch again, please God just make it happen.
