Bienvenue

Which is how they say welcome here in Montreal.

Just got back from the optional morning skate. Same lineup tonight as in last night's 3-2 shootout win over Pittsburgh, which means Petr Prucha has a chance to solidify his spot in the lineup after scoring his first goal of the season. Lot of questions this morning from the Canadian press (which overlaps the Canadiens' press) about the last time these teams met, the Habs' 6-5 shootout win at the Bell Centre on Feb. 19 in which the Rangers blew a 5-0 lead. The stock answer from the Rangers: that was last season, this is this season. Seriously, there shouldn't be any carryover from that game.

What the Rangers want is carryover from last night.

The skaters this morning were: Steve Valiquette, Lauri Korpikoski, Prucha, Fredrik Sjostrom and tonight's two healthy scratches, Dan Fritsche and Nigel Dawes. The Rangers conducted a specialty teams meeting at 10:45 before the optional skate but Michal Rozsival left the building early. Tom Renney said it was a "maintenance" day for the defenseman but he should be fine tonight. Just speculating here but Rozsival could be fighting a bit of a bug.

Speaking of specialty teams, chatted with Chris Drury about the practicing the power play. The captain was saying the team needs the power play to produce - it's 2 for 24 over the past six games and scoreless in the past three. "It would certainly help us in winning," Drury said. "There will be a point in time where the power play could get us the win, a big goal, get us back in the game." But Drury cautioned that practicing the power play is not always the safest thing for a team to do.

"You don't want to be taking one-timer shots on guys in practice," said Drury, adding it's more productive (and safer) to prepare in a classroom setting with video scouting and the like so the players can "know what the other team is doing."

By the way, Drury, a big baseball fan, loves playing in the Bell Centre because of the tradition in the building. Drury never got a chance to play at the Montreal Forum but said the Canadiens did a great job of transfering the special feeling the old arena had into the Bell Centre. Sort of like the old and new Yankee Stadium, in theory, I suggested. He agreed.

And speaking of fighting, I asked Colton Orr if he saw Sidney Crosby's comments about their go-rounds last night - "It helped me in the first," Sid the Kid said, "it's motivating when guys are coming after you like that. It's not a guy you expect. I don't know if that's what he needed to prove his toughness, to come after me" - but Orr said he doesn't read the coverage of the games.

"Maybe he was trying to get hismelf going, I don't know," Orr said. "I'm just playing my game."

As for Prucha, he said it meant a lot to him that his teammates reacted with such pride and joy to his goal last night.

"Sure, and not just that, even before that," Prucha said. "Players like Scott Gomez, Drury, Naslund, they'd talk to to me and say, 'Stay positive, your game will come through.' It helped me a lot staying positive. There's not too many things you can tell a player. They know what I'm going through. They didn't have to talk a lot, every word is enough."

Also, Renney sort of agreed with my hypothesis that as confident as the Rangers are when they enter the third period trailing, there's some doubt in the opponents' mind because they are aware of how frequently the Rangers have been able to rally this season. Renney said, while not knowing specifically that is the case, he knows it was true in the Rangers' room at times. For instance, a couple of seasons ago, the Penguins displayed the same comeback knack the Rangers are showing. Renney said that was something the Rangers certainly were thinking about during the games.

This season, I think the Rangers' reputation is helping them in the third period. Plus the fact that they just seem to skate harder at times over the final 20 minutes, and then the five-minute overtime. And, of course, the shootout.

Finally, the Canadian press (and the Canadiens' press) asked Renney whether he thought Jaromir Jagr might come back to play in the NHL, he didn't dismiss it out of hand or deflect the question, as I thought he would.

"I'd love to see him back in the NHL," Renney said. "I think he could play at a high level for three more years."

More later from the Bell Centre.

Comments

[LI Joe]

good to see prucha get the goal. he has an infectious smile which has to be very hard with how much he's been sitting.

re my earlier post about betts line ice time - it was more in the 3rd period before the tieing goal.

http://www.nhl.com/scores/htmlreports/20082009/TH020362.HTM

[LI Joe]

http://www.tsn.ca/columnists/james_duthie/?id=258309

boy the stars really don't want him back. some good videos on tsn about this today as well