It is widely agreed upon that one of the main reasons, if not the main reason, for Montreal's demise in these playoffs has been their lamentable power play. In the regular season they sported the best man advantage in the whole league, clicking at nearly 25%. Once the post-season came around, they scored only 7 goals, giving them a 14,5% efficiency, good for 11th overall. But even those numbers are somewhat skewed by the 2 goals scored during Derian Hatcher's major penalty. Overall, the team was let down by its most potent weapon and it frequently proved incapable of providing the timely scoring the team sorely needed. One, especially Habs fans, has to wonder, when did it go wrong? Simple, it all went wrong in Game 1 against the Boston Bruins.

Montreal virtually dominated that game end-to-end, out-hitting and out-shooting the B's en route to a convincing 4-1 decision. With frustrations boiling over, Boston took a couple of late penalties which blessed Montreal with a two minute 5 on 3. For the best unit in the league, a long double man advantage should, must, translate into a goal. It did not. On that sequence, Kovalev tried to do far too much while Streit and Markov looked uncomfortable at the points. In the scheme of that one game, the failure of that particular powerplay was irrelevant, but in the scheme of the playoffs, it was crucial. Throughout the rest of the post-season Kovalev continued to make his game uselessly complicated, Streit continuously failed to put pucks on net and Markov remained unable to keep pucks in at the blueline, something he did masterfully, something miraculously, throughout the season.

I know hindsight is 20/20, but at the time I remember having this distinct feeling that "this is not good" when that fateful powerplay expired. Eventually, I connected the dots.  It seems clear to me that this one event drastically hurt the confidence of a usually devastating unit.  

According to sources in Montreal, defencemen Patrice Brisebois is on the verge of signing a one year contract with the Canadiens. Earlier reports stated that the Habs had offered the veteran a deal worth 700,000$.

First of all, I must say I am impressed with Brisebois, who is coming back into the lion's den after essentially being booed out by the harsh Montreal fanbase. Many may be disgruntled by his return, but for all the complaining about players not wanting to play in Montreal, it is abundantly clear that Brisebois does.

I believe that Brisebois could actually provide a good boost to Montreal's second power-play unit, considering that after Hamrlik, Markov and Streit the team is left between Dandenault and Bouillon to man the point. In that regard, he is undoubtedly an upgrade. Also, although he is an aging defencemen, one must be mindful that two of his best seasons came in the last three years. Prior to leaving Montreal, he had one of his most solid seasons with the Habs, leading the team in +/- at +17 while avoiding many of the costly brain cramps that earned him the ire of the fans. The following season, post-lockout, in Colorado he obtained a carreer high in points with 38. Although last year was considerably difficult for him, mainly due to injuries, I feel he could still contribute something to the team.

Having said all that, I cannot help but feel that his signing (should it officially occur) is precursor to a trade. Montreal already had a pretty clearly defined top-seven with Hamrlik, Markov, Komisarek, Streit, Dandenault, Bouillon and Gorges. Combine that with Mathieu Biron, Jaime Rivers and J.P Côté who are in Hamilton but have all seen time in the NHL and with Pavel Valatenko and Ryan O'Byrne who both seem on the verge of the big league, it just seems to leave the team with an unreasonable logjam on the blueline.

I guess only time will tell, and this post will be awfully useless if Brisebois doesn't sign after all...