Swept Away

Sadly, the once vaunted Centennial Season came to an inglorious end last night at the hands of the Bruins. While it's obvious that the Habs were fighting an uphill battle without Markov, Lang, Boullion, Schneider and Tanguay in the lineup, I think it's safe to say that the better team won this series. Boston was just too good in all aspects of the game this year, and while you would have liked to see the Canadiens field a full lineup to try and make the series a bit more competitive, I'm not sure that it would have ultimately made much of a difference other than in the number of games that would have been played.

While the Bruins now move on in their quest for the Cup, the Canadiens will be forced to endure a long summer of questions. With 10 players from the roster coming up for UFA status, we'll likely see a lot of movement before the start of the next season. Additionally, the coaching, management and ownership situations are all in states of flux themselves, so it will most certainly mean some tumultuous times for the team to endure in the coming months.

Random Thought For the Day:

-Does anybody else have a really bad feeling about the situation in goal for the Habs next year? Through his actions, Bob Gainey has made it clear that as long as he's around Carey Price will be the starter (for good or bad). The problem I see with this is that Jaroslav Halak would have given the team a better shot at winning down the stretch (not letting him start Game 3 was criminal), and yet he was overlooked in favour of "The Franchise." After his continual mistreatment by the team this season I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Halak walk, which would be a shame given what he could have done with the right opportunity.

Unfortunately, this becomes an even bigger problem when you factor in the fragile state of Carey Price these days. The fans absolutely gave it to him last night, and the mock cheers and Roy-esque salute after an easy save in the second period were more than a bit worrisome. It's entirely possible that the team and fans could have seriously damaged his confidence through their respective treatments of his game, so going forward it's going to be a delicate situation to see just how it all plays out...