Sunday, November 06, 2005

Habs hold onto conference lead

Montreal kept its hold on the Eastern Conference Saturday night as Les habitants sent the Sabres back home to Buffalo by a score of 3-2. Alex Kovalev and Richard Zednick did the scoring for Montreal and Jose Theodore held the Sabres off the scoresheet when it counted on the way to their 11th win of the season, and the second one against Buffalo in as many nights.

Montreal is off to the kind of start that Bob Gainey and Claude Julien could only have dreamed of prior to the start of the season. With an unbeaten road record and a pretty strong record on Bell Centre Ice, the Habs are looking a lot like the grand ole days of Le Glorieux.

With 23 points so far they are only 2 points behind the Detroit Red Wings for the overall lead in the NHL. Their divisional rivals in Ottawa trail them by 1 point, if this trend continues through this week and next the November 29th match up in Ottawa should be a must see event.

With Montreal showing the speed and scoring to keep pace with the likes of Ottawa and Detroit the subscriptions to RDS are sure to rise as the season moves on through the winter. There is less and less exposure of the Habs games to English Canada, now that the CBC French network has lost the broadcast rights to Saturday Night to RDS. A smart cable provider might add the French Sports network to its cable package, with Koivu, Kovalev, Theodore et al playing at such a high level there's an audience looking for a place to watch.

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