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Look, this is a very level-headed and logical approach to the situation, but we have a very strong "#### Lefebvre" policy here and I have to strongly suggest you adhere to it.

JDLR plus Leblanc and Hudon.... are massive red flags on Lefebvre's coaching. Massive. You've already done a good job on Hudon. At 20 years old Leblanc was an NHL player with 7 goals and 7 assists for 14 points in 40 games. He did not look out of place. He didn't make the team the next year cause he Gallagher passed him, and Leblanc was AHL eligible and Galchenyuk was not. They wanted to keep their new third overall pick... okay fair enough, but he was still really close to NHL ready. What happened next? He regressed in every AHL season under Lefebvre. Didn't get better, he spent the next three years getting worse. Next Hudon..... in juniors he was an elite defensive player. Picked twice for Team Canada at the World Juniors and given the role of being the shut down forward on the team. Went to the AHL, his scoring kept happening. His defensive game has stalled and gone to shit. He's a defensive liability which is why he can't get an NHL job despite great AHL scoring. How does this happen. How is a kid excellent defensively at one level and makes no progression on that aspect of his game in the AHL. 1 guy... maybe its the player. 3 guys? I look at the coach. ... the fact he's developing no one? DAMN RIGHT its the coach.

1 player who spent half a season in the AHL, 2 goalies who developed more in college than the AHL, a bunch of players that have plateaued in the AHL... have any of these guys actually flourished under Lefebvre? Or even just met expectations? It's either a scouting issue or a development issue... and I'm siding with the scouts who were doing well before Lefebvre showed up.

13 million is 17% of the cap In 2007 the Penguins signed Sidney Crosby for 17% of the cap at 8.7 per season. In 2008 the Penguins gave an Identical contract to Malkin. in 2009 they won the cup. Will they win the cup? who knows... but contract wise, this plays out like Pittsburgh. The guy who will eventually (and not this off-season necessarily) but eventually must go is the third line C... RNH becomes their Jordan Staal trade.

Lovett's point is a good one - it's the disappointment that gives such snark to the Bergevin-bashers, of which I'm one. Unlike Gainey, he inherited a strong core. He was gifted a foundation that many GMs have to actually build up from nothing. That was five years ago. And the team has basically spun its wheels over that span, with better and worse seasons, but never once truly entering the top tier of heavy-duty contenders (let alone actually coming close to winning anything). Meanwhile a development system that was once highly regarded has been completely gutted, meaning the future looks worse than the present. So, after Houle, Savard, Gainey, and Gauthier, we are looking at ANOTHER wasted generation of Habs - with the next generation likely to be even worse. Unless this team wins within the next three years or so, I doubt that it will win anything at all for the foreseeable future. Ugh. As for how the Habs can become contenders before this core rots out, well... 1. Add a top-4, preferably top-2 LD. 2. Keep Galy, play him at C and hope his 200-foot game improves. 3. Add a legit #2 or #1A C. #1A would be better since Galy is an ambiguous proposition at C. 4. Re-sign Radu and Price. 5. Hope everyone is healthy come playoff time. I'm not even sure that this would do it, but the above is surely within the realm of the attainable. Of course, it's "tough," but then again everything is for our esteemed GM

What's next - bringing back MT as an assistant?

I can't believe this is even a debate. I'm surprised that there are even two people(Don & Bergevin) who think Lefebvre has done even an adequate job. Unless I have the chance to talk to Bergevin, I'm not even going to bother to list all of Lefebvre's failures. -

Jacob De la Rose is a guy who at I think only 19 years old, Michel Therrien was fine placing as a third line centre. And somehow, since that time, he's developed into... not an NHL player? So not good that Bergevin has to acquire fourth line grinders because De la Rose isn't good enough for an NHL spot? Maybe it's a player. Maybe Montreal is constantly drafting players that keep regressing into their flaws and continually miss their mark in development. It's just really bad luck. He certainly wasn't a bust in scouting. Last Word on Sports had him #34, with other places having him as a first round pick. I trust LWOS' scouting and this was their analysis on DLR: How did he lean so heavily into the, "Not as productive" and where did this offensive flash go? The physical contact? The vision? It all points to development.

It's being reported that mcdavid is going to get a $13.25m/yr for 8 years. If that is the true number, I think this an ideal time to swoop down on Draisaitl. Offer him $9.5m. I can't see the oilers being able to afford spending close to $23m on two players. Last week Friedman was saying that he expected the of them to be signed for a combined hit of $19m - an amount he felt would make it difficult to maintain a contender with.

Do not want Brodin or Scandella for Chucky. Those trades are clear losses for the Habs. Just play Chuck at Center

In 5 years I expect him to have produced some NHL talent. The fact that the three impact players we have drafted in recent years spent 0 games with Sly (Chucky, Lehkonen), and less than half a season (Gallagher) and none of the rest have developped is damning. You can say its scouting, but consider the same scouting staff was getting results with Lever, Boucher and Cunneyworth coaching, and you can see that things can't get worse by replacing Sly. But you know full well my opinion on Sly, I've written it to you previously on at least three occassions.

More like he picked up some more toilet paper

They haven't won the cup since 93. It will be business as usual.

Excuse my ignorance of the forum personalities here but what is up with this guy? I've yet to hear a positive comment from him. Is this some kind of joke or are you really this negative about everything? Considering putting him on ignore.

You would have hoped that the team sucking at any location would have been enough to get his buddy fired. But than I guess it's the prospects fault - they were really good prospects when drafted (it also want poor drafting), but those lazy kids just refuse to take the next step. Besides drafting and coaching are really hard jobs. You have to cut MB's buddies some slack.

I blame Lefebvre and the development team for many misses. But not those two. They were bad draft picks who were failing even before getting out of Junior.

The biggest indictment of Beaulieu is his failure to take advantage of being paired with Weber. Weber even made Emelin look good for a while. For N8 to have blown that gift-wrapped opportunity to become a top-4 guy really says something.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I'm so tired about hearing how much we need offensive dman.. we need dman who can prevent the other team from scoring. Alzner was a +23. Granted, he played on a good Caps team, but +23 is still impressive. Look at this team - Weber was a plus 20, Markov was +18.. who was next? Beaulieu at +8. That's a significant improvement. I'd rather sign Alzner at 4.5 than Markov at 5.5 or 6. I think Raddy signs and Chucky gets traded for LD.. Maybe a Noah Hanifin type.. Makes your top 4: Hanifin Weber Alzner Petry Even if there is no trade, a top pairing of Alzner and Weber is better than ANYTHING Montreal trodded out last year, and Markov is only getting older.

I want nothing to do with alzner. First of all we need a puck moving dman. Secondly, given we need a puck moving dman to play on the first pairing, where is alzner going to play?? 2nd pairing is Markov-petry. That leaves the bottom pairing. Anything more than $2.5m makes zero sense for a bottom pairing dman. third, he is going to want term. For a defensive dman, in today's NHL, anything more than than 3 years is dumb - unless he is either young (under 25), or signs cheap. lastly, given our other most pressing needs (offensive dman and scoring), we should be spending the money on offence. Having said all that, I can see a clown like MB willing to go all in on Alzner. Need to add more character and leadership since he feels we have such a fragile team.

I think its different for Vegas flipping a player. I don't think its different for Vegas taking a guy from San Jose, then trading him to Montreal, then flipping him again.... I just don't see that happening. This isn't playstation. And this isn't the Halak situation where he was traded to Buffalo to equal cap hits with Ryan Miller going to the Blues, and then moved on again by the Sabres cause he was UFA and the Sabres were sellers.

Gallagher did, Beaulieu did, Condon did, Andrighetto did, Hudon and McCarron likely will. Lernout, Lindgren likely 50-50, but were long shots to begin with.