After serving as the Florida Panthers general manager for the past four seasons (and head coach for three of those seasons) Jacques Martin will be named the new head coach of the Montreal Canadiens on Monday. During his four-year stint in charge of the Panthers, the team failed to make the playoffs each season, while he brings 14 years of head coaching experience to the Canadiens.
After a brief two-year tenure with the St. Louis Blues in the late 1980s, Martin took over the Ottawa Senators in 1995, leading the team to the playoffs eight times in nine years, while also winning three division titles and the Jack Adams award as coach of the year in 1999.
The report goes on to mention that the Avalanche have stepped up the offer to try and draw Roy away from other suitors, particularly the Montreal Canadiens, whose head coaching job is currently vacant. The Habs fired Guy Carbonneau earlier this year and GM Bob Gainey filled in for the remainder of the season.
So much for the preliminaries. The 2008-09 NHL regular season is now history -- and, as I've written before, not a moment too soon. Beginning Wednesday night at 7:00 PM ET in Washington and Pittsburgh, the only hockey that really matters will finally take center stage: the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
To get an idea of what life is really like for a hockey fan this time of year, think of it this way: imagine the Sweet 16 of March Madness were all best-of-seven. It's the very simple reason why folks like us are completely giddy from now until sometime in June.
If your significant other is a fan of the NHL, Monday and Tuesday might very well represent the only real chance you'll have to say hello -- or, given the state of the relationship, goodbye -- for the balance of the next two months. It's a chance you shouldn't miss.
With that, I'd like to share a few thoughts on each of the eight playoff series that make up the first round. Safe to say, at first glance, it looks like the most compelling tournament in many years.
On Saturday night, the Montreal Canadiens continued their season of disappointment by getting crushed by Toronto, 5-2, on home ice. The recent struggles have left more than a few fans, like the fine folks over at Four Habs Fans, slightly perturbed.
Entering Monday night's action, Montreal could wake up on Tuesday morning on the outside of the Eastern Conference playoff picture if Florida can knock off Carolina. So, where has it all gone wrong for the Canadiens in what was supposed to be a season of glorious centennial celebration?
Senators 5, Canadiens 4: It could be argued that Montreal has already hit the panic button by firing Guy Carbonneau, but if there's another one hidden in the bowels of the Bell Centre, it might be time to press that one, as well.
Thanks to their 5-4 loss to Ottawa on Thursday, the Canadiens have now lost four in a row and six of their past eight, as they continue to flirt with the possibility of missing the postseason.
Hurricanes 4, Devils 2: Having lost three in a row, the Hurricanes were in need of a win on Wednesday night to help take advantage of the recent slumps by Florida and Buffalo. Thanks to a 40-save performance from Cam Ward, and a 3-for-5 night on the power play, Carolina picked up a 4-2 win over Kevin Weekes and the New Jersey Devils.
Anton Babchuk scored a pair of power play goals for the 'Canes, while Eric Staal and Sergei Samsonov also tallied goals in the win. Ward faced a barrage of shots from New Jersey, as the Devils outshot Carolina 33-14 over the final two periods.
We're in the home stretch of the NHL season, and both conference playoff races are heating up as the standings change on a daily basis. The Eastern Conference has seven teams separated by just seven points in the No's 4 through 10 spots, while everybody except Phoenix and Colorado is still competing for a playoff spot in the West.
This is the 100th season that the Montreal Canadiens have been in existence, and during that time they have become the most storied franchise in hockey, winning 24 titles. They've won almost a quarter of the Stanley Cups that have ever been handed out, and expectations this season have been through the roof. The problem for Montreal is that the longer this centennial season drags on, the more it falls apart.
The Montreal Canadiens entered 2008-09 as a serious Stanley Cup contender in what was supposed to be a glorious centennial celebration. Instead, the season has been derailed by scandal off the ice and disappointing results on it, and the man that's going to take the fall for it all is head coach Guy Carbonneau. The 38-year-old Carbonneau was fired on Monday afternoon, and will be replaced by general manager Bob Gainey.
After serving as the Florida Panthers general manager for the past four seasons (and head coach for three of those seasons) Jacques Martin will be named the new head coach of the Montreal Canadiens on Monday. During his four-year stint in charge of the Panthers, the team failed to make the playoffs each season, while he brings 14 years of head coaching experience to the Canadiens.
So much for the preliminaries. The 2008-09 NHL regular season is now history -- and, as 
This is the 100th season that the Montreal Canadiens have been in existence, and during that time they have become the most storied franchise in hockey, winning 24 titles. They've won almost a quarter of the Stanley Cups that have ever been handed out, and expectations this season have been through the roof. The problem for Montreal is that the longer this centennial season drags on, the more it falls apart.
As we've noted before, what Russian hockey players say to the Russian press oftentimes is far more revealing than the story told by their North American counterparts. Once again, we're privy to an English translation of 
