41 games for Pinto; 5 games or less for Gallagher: haystack league os*i

Happy Friday to you all. And also to those – the real term, by the way – who identify as non-binary. We’re inclusive at DLC…

I’ve just been told that 25Stanley could rise from the ashes next week.

…

“I’ll call you back, Chantal. I need to write my daily script.”

Royal evening at the Bell Centre
Those who spent a small fortune for the right to spend last night at the Bell Centre got their money’s worth. What a show! What aaaaambiance! Nothing like dinner at Barbies Resto Bar Grill, say…

Patrick Roy got some love from the Montreal crowd (both on the streets of Montreal and inside the arena), but he couldn’t get his hands on the win. What’s the Islanders’ record under Roy after that game in Montreal? 33% (0.33). You can’t make that up.

As for the Canadiens, Martin St-Louis, Geoff Molson, Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton avoided the worst. But a fourth straight thaw, this time against Patrick Roy’s team in MONTREAL , would have set off a firestorm in the stands… and on social networks.

Thanks to Patrick Samuel Montembeault, whose 43 saves earned him a star, the Montrealers prevailed. Thanks also to Sean Monahan, who scored the winning goal late in the game. If Kent Hughes trades him and doesn’t receive AT LEAST a first-round pick in return for his services by March 8, he’ll be a failure. At $2 million a year, Monahan is a bargain.

Last night’s game was a must-win for the Habs. Rare are the games with such significance since the summer of 2021. It felt good!

The meaningful games that Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton dreamed of probably won’t happen in March and April… but yesterday, we had one. And we won it!

Damn, it’s going to be fun in a few years, when the rebuild is complete and the club can aspire to top honors. #Can’t wait

The only fly in the ointment last night was Brendan Gallagher’s stupid elbow to the face.

Second, Adam Pelech missed more than a quarter of last season with a concussion. I hope he doesn’t have to miss as much time this time and doesn’t suffer as much.

Gallagher had MASSIVE time to hold back his hit. He wasn’t surprised by his opponent’s sudden change of direction. He prepared himself and hit Pelech directly in the head, deliberately. #NoExcuse

Such an act deserves to be punished very severely. As much as I love Gallagher and he wears a blue, white and red uniform, I’m able to say that he deserves more than a 10-game suspension. If we were able to suspend a guy who bet on a sport other than hockey for 41 games (Shane Pinto), I don’t see why we shouldn’t be intransigent with a guy who hurt another in such a dirty way on the ice.

Since Gallagher’s salary this year is an incredible $8 million, a 10-game suspension would mean a loss of revenue of around $1 million. One might think that the Players’ Association is doing what any “good” union does and protecting its client, rather than using common sense.

Gallagher is not a repeat offender and has never been suspended… and the NHL hasn’t handed out any suspensions of more than six games in the last two seasons(David Perron), so it’s a safe bet that Gallagher will (unfortunately) receive a two- or three-game sanction. Or four, like Charlie McAvoy!

You think I’m being too harsh? Imagine if Brad Marchand or Radko Gudas had hit Cole Caufield like that, not Gallagher on Pelech…

I think I’ll coin a new phrase when someone near me acts stupidly and dangerously, being unable to manage their emotions during a period of frustration: don’t be Richard Labbé Brendan Gallagher.

A word of criticism for Martin St-Louis, by the way: how can he defend Brendan Gallagher more than Arber Xhekaj after the game? Yes, Arber Xhekaj took two stupid penalties and yes, he looked more like the player St-Louis didn’t like at the start of the season than the player who completely changed the look of the Rocket’s season…

But if there’s one player to throw stones at this morning, it’s Gallagher, not Xhekaj.

Xhekaj only played 11:42 last night, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see St-Louis prefer Jordan Harris to him tomorrow in Pittsburgh.

In closing, I’d like to quickly return to the tribute paid to Patrick Roy during the national anthem. The Canadiens organization showed a lot of class by doing so during the national anthem, and not during a commercial break (when viewers are binge-watching a commercial). And no one dared boo Roy during the national anthem!

All love for No. 33 in Montreal. pic.twitter.com/GAWI2m9CAh

– Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) January 26, 2024

However, the crowd was so loud that the singer couldn’t hear the organ. As a result, she distorted as much as my daughter does when she sings Taylor Swift loudly in her room.

And while we’re on the subject of Taylor Swfit, I invite you to read a little about the fact that some idiots have created indecent images of her via artificial intelligence programs and are broadcasting them all over the Web. The sky ‘s the limit.