HabsCast Hockey Blog

I love both of these videos.  Special thanks to Laurent for putting both of these videos together

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“If you are what you say you are, a superstar
Then have no fear The crowd is here
and the lights are on
and they wanna show Oh oh oh oh yeah” 
Lupe Fiasco  

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A little more info on everyone’s favorite Russian sniper:

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These are the HabsCast crews’ expert predictions! 

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HabsCast is proud to announce the creation of HabsIBelieve.com which is meant to bring all Habs believers together and show support for our Montreal Canadiens in their journey for 25! This site was inspired by Brother Roy’s speech on the Team990 and was initiated by HabsCast creator David Gross. We are encouraging all Habs fans to write their beliefs on the site with hundreds of others. I believe that if Habs fans come together and stand behind their team then the Canadiens will have more of a chance of bringing Lord Stanley home!

GO HABS GO!!

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“Should I shoot or pass? Wait, where’s Kovalev? I guess I’ll shoot then.” 

These are some of the thoughts going through the head of Tomas Plekanec’s mind when he has the puck,who is the second best scorer thus far for the Canadiens. Plekanec has  16 goals and 24 assists in 45 games this season, 11 of which came in his last 7 games. It’s easy to see that this guy is on fire! However, people, including Plekanec himself, contributes his success this season to Alex Kovalev, the top scorer for the Montreal Canadiens. People also insist that without Kovalev, Plekanec wouldn’t be where he is stat-wise this season. I believe in the contrary. Plekanec has a lot more to do with Kovalev’s performance this season than the latter. Plekanec holds great playmaking skills and speed, which in return is helping Kovalev this season. It’s just as fair to say that without Plekanec, Kovalev wouldn’t be scoring as many goals this season. Kovalev and Plekanec’s relationship on the ice is “I scratch your back if you scratch mine” and it’s been working wonders for their stats and the team. The bottom line is Kovalev needs a guy who can exert 100% every night and be able to keep up with his skill level, and Plekanec is becoming more of a perfect match. Although Plekanec doesn’t possess the gifted hands of Kovalev, he makes up for it with his vision and drive to succeed, which will only help him become better in the years to come.

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It’s now time to take a look at the defensive side of this year’s Team Canada, that means both the defensive corps and the goalies.

On defense, Canada is lucky to count on six guys who are returnees from the Super Series that took place a few months ago. In fact, the only defenceman who didn’t play against Russia is Montreal Canadiens’ very own P.K. Subban. So these guys are somewhat experienced and will be led by none other then the captain of the team and arguably the best player of the WHL right now, Karl Alzner. Alzner, a 19 years old mobile player and excellent puck-handler, also took part in the gold medal conquest in Sweden last winter, though he was 7th defenseman and didn’t see much ice time. His experience in big situations will be really useful to this team. The second best defenseman has to be Guelph Storm’s Drew Doughty, who is one of five undrafted players who will be playing on this canadian team and expected to be (one of) the top drafted defenseman in next year’s entry draft. Doughty was exceptionnal against Russia and is the only D with Team Canada who’s averaging over a point a game with his junior club this season. One thing to watch for is the fact that most players on the team’s defensive unit (Josh Godfrey, Logan Pyett and Thomas Hickey) are known as being good offensive threats but also as guys who tend to compromise things when playing in their own ends. That’s not even counting Subban who is nothing less than horrible, defensively speaking. This team could also be seen as a bit weak on the left side, Alzner and Hickey being the only two left-handed defenseman. All these facts tell us that we will probably be a very offensive team and a lot of weight will lie on our goalies shoulders.

Talking about goaltending, nobody can predict who of Jonathan Bernier and Steve Mason will get the lion’s share of ice time during the tournament. It will likely depends on who has the momentum coming out of the first round. But the interesting thing is that both goaltenders can bring something different into the game; Bernier being a smaller quicker goaltender with NHL experience and very good abilities around his net while Mason is a very big butterfly goalie with good rebound control, not unlike a certain Carey Price. I do think Bernier will be the one in front of the net for the last game but we shall see.

I’ll talk to you for one last time before the start of the tournament when we’ll take a look at the other teams and players to look at during the holidays.

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This year, like every year, boxing day will mean for a lot of hockey fans in Canada the first day of the IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship, one of our best holiday traditions.

And now that the official roster for Team Canada 2008 has been revealed, the time is good to take a look at what this year’s edition of this annual tournament has to offer. We’ll start by looking, of course, at our very own Team Canada. A team that is a brand new one compared to last year’s team, and we could say a very inexperienced one. We mustn’t forget though to take into consideration the fact that a lot of these new players took part in the Canada-Russia Super Series that took place this summer and also the fact that a lot of the young players on this team are very talented, and i mean Very.. Let’s first take a look at how we’ll be doing on offense.

Although the only returning forward from last year’s tournament is Halifax native Brad Marchand he’s not the one evryone has been talking about in the last couple of weeks. The focus is mainly around three offensive stars, one of whom has already been drafted third overall in this year’s draft by the Phoenix Coyotes, Kyle Turris. The other two will be eligible in the next few years; Sarnia’s Steven Stamkos is projected to be the number 1 draft pick in the ‘08 draft while young gun John Tavares will without a doubt be competing for the first spot in the ‘09 draft. These three guys are definitely the ones to watch on offense this year. Turris was exceptionnal in the Super Series and will try to prove yet again that he’s ready for big level hockey. John Tavares is probably the best player currently playing in the CHL (he’s already piled up 68 points in only 30 games played with Oshawa) but a lot of people remember him as a big disssapointment against Russia this summer, he’ll certainly try to bounce back. As for the mature, intelligent and consistant player that his Steven Stamkos, most of us will really see him play for the first time next week. (If any of you require a proof of his amazing talent just type his name on youtube.. you’ll see).

Other returning forwards from the Super Series are: Brandon Sutter who did exceptionnally well this summer and who will no doubt be seeing a lot of ice time during the world juniors, especially on the special units because of his really good work ethic and talent in forechecking and puck-chasing situations; The excellent Stefan Legein who is returning to bring a lot of character to this team so is Colton Gillies, the biggest guy on this team and definitely one of the hardest hitter. The last returning forward is Lethbridge Hurricanes’ Zac Boychuk, one of the top rookie of the year in the WHL.

Kitchener’s Matthew Halishchuk (a fast skater, good with the puck though physically weak), Moose Jaw’s Riley Holzapfel (also small-sized but an hard worker with a strong shot), Belleville’s Shawn Matthias (good skater and hard worker, though tends to make mistakes in his own zone) and Sault-Ste-Marie’s Wayne Simmonds (a physical forward with a nice shot and a lot of offensive abilities) are all at their first experience in major-junior hockey on the international level but still all NHL-drafted players.

I wanted to keep Gatineau Olympics’ RW Claude Giroux for dessert ’cause he is the player i know better for having seen him play on numerous occasions and, in my opinion, although he’s one of the only player on the team from the QMJHL, could very well be a big factor in the team’s success during the holidays. He is extremely agile, very fast, and an intelligent player and playmaker. He may be, with Brad Marchand, one of the smallest players on the team but he always uses his size to his advantage in the neutral zone to eacape coverage and create turnarounds. Giroux may be one of the most underrated players going into this tournament.

Talk to you later for the defensive players and the goalies.

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