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I see what you did there...

What kind of analysis is this? Our offense is defunct for multiple reasons, playmakers being the least of our concerns. What is more troublesome are how skewed we are, positionally, up front, we got Wingers trying to be Centers, Centers trying to be Wingers. We lack a legitimate 1C, probably even a 2C but lets worry about one issue at a time up there. Then we have a D core that is carried by 2 guys, both playing from the same side, also happen to be the only 2 capable of producing points on any kind of regular basis. We have no one on the Left side capable of eating minutes while driving some offense on a consistent basis for the forwards. Those are the real issues plaguing this offense, you have to be properly setup at the forward and defense position before you can even get into what style of players you need to compliment each other better and further upgrade that offense. You need a real 1C, you need a real top 6 with maybe only 1 guy out of the 6 being a bubble guy, the rest have to be hands down top 6 guys. You need at least 3 of your 6 Dmen to be very good all around players who are capable of playing big minutes, solid in their own zone, while contributing to team offense, whether on the PP or 5 on 5. We are obviously not there yet, and need to get there before we can even consider talking about how many natural goal scorers, playmakers, or net drivers we are lacking to make it better.

It's never to blame Weber. Weber is fine. It ain't Weber's fault he's not better than Subban, just like it wasn't Savard's fault he wasn't better than Chelios. It's Bergevin's fault for deciding to build the D around a guy not known for puck possession in the puck possession generation, and not getting him a quality defence partner to alleviate the pressure, and letting Markov walk when he could have helped assist Weber in the workload in the locker.

This is where the opinion loses all its merit. The team sucked in Subban’s final year with us and then improved last year. While the argument you may be trying to make is that the trade you speak of did nothing to improve our squad, it also makes it look like we were a good team the final year we had Subban. Which we weren’t. That season had me watch less games than this year by the end of it. I think the Habs have had good teams and bad teams under Bergevin and while Subban was great to have, him vs Weber has very little to do with why the squad finds itself where it is. We were 6th in the division in Subban’s final year with us and we were 6th in the division this year. We were also 1st in the division prior to both those seasons.

For 4 years he went with desharnais plekanec eller as his top.3 centres to enter the season with no changes. In the fifth year he went with galchenyuk desharnais and plekanec.

I don’t think the focus should be entirely on Bergevin even if there is a turn around. I’ll be happy if we make some noise next year in the playoffs but I can guarantee that even if we do, I’ll be praising the players as well as Julien more than obsessing about Bergevin. That’s even if he signs Stastny and Tavares, drafts Zadina and acquires a top pair LD.

I guess everyone forgot that he inherited a team that finished almost last in the league, hardly "on the cusp". But then went on to win a couple divisions and a few rounds of playoffs. This year was a disaster though

Sad that we're having this discussion It'd be nice to have a GM we trust to be minimally competent, as most of us did with Bob.

I think the other big difference is size of the players and just how much stronger all players are now. I loved watching the fights like the one in the nordiques playoff series where almost the entire team fought. Back than,not everyone that fought trained 12 with weights all year and they weren’t “fighters”. Only the goons really trained as fighters (not withstanding when Savard brought in a boxer to train the team during the smurf years ?,), so there was less of a chance of guys hurting someone Now with all of the training that the players being bigger and stronger, they can do a lot more damage to each other. It’s no surprise that it is mainly the dedicated fighters (who were bigger/stronger than the average player and fought a lot more), are the ones who mainly have the brain injuries. i see no reason for fighting anymore. You can police the rats by giving them meaningful suspensions. If someone low bridges, or gives a viscous slash or head shot, start suspensions at 10 games and that will weed out those actions. Expand the unsportsmanlike to be an option a major and add suspensions that start at 5 games and you won’t have Pinocchio kissing or licking players anymore.

The Habs are in 'win now' mode?!? No offence, but...

All reasons why you keep the younger player under contract, and trade Pacioretty

The team has been a gong show since 2016. That's three years running. And yes, once Weber settled down after his spectacular initial six weeks, the team was basically a .500 club.

I'm not sure why I even bother. We are just going to ignore Montreal WINNING it's division last year? How is that getting worse? Weber's "six week explosion"? The guy finished 6th in Norris trophy voting for the ENTIRE season. If you're going to whine and post sarcastic emojis, at least be factual when doing so. I'll be the first one to admit that this season has been an absolute gong show with no plan whatsoever, but we can't just say the team has gotten worse every year since he got here.

I think honk the fact the Nashville got to the finals the first year after making the Subban trade debunks his character/leadership/attitude narratives. nashville traded their grizzled leader, captain and character player and did better than they ever did before, while we had the leadership issue become a coaching issue (fired the coach) and now attitude issue as we continue as to plummet in the standings.

The good news for Bergevin is that expectations are now so low. If the team makes the dance, and especially if it manages to win a round, it will be hailed as a brilliant turnaround. Everyone will forget that he inherited a team on the cusp on contending and reduced it to this condition.

Oh, please. Like he built the 2014 and 2015 teams from scratch.

Oh, please. Perhaps you can explain how the team he inherited was on the cusp of contending, but then in the following years suddenly weren't.

It's a long story, but one of the things that happened was that he had no replacement for Pleks, who got old, nor for Markov, whose departure was foolishly forced but would have happened eventually. Broadly speaking, Gainey's core was good but needed extra elements. MB failed to provide those - notwithstanding the Radulov gambit, which worked for one year - and entropy took over. It's also true that the team has basically sucked since it traded Subban, apart from Weber's aberrant six-week explosion when he first artived. The fact is that the longer Bergevin has been in charge, the worse the team has gotten.

2016-17 First 41 Games: 25-10-6, 124 GF, 96 GA 2016-17 Last 41 Games: 22-16-3, 99 GF, 102 GA On December 1st, they were 16-5-2 after 23 games. As you can clearly see, Price was excellent all season long but they scored 25 less goals. The forwards collapsed due to Galchenyuk's injury and returning early, which lost the confidence of Julien and put Danault from a 3C role he was playing fine in to a 1C role he was just coattail riding in. Instead of trying to add a forward to the top six, Bergevin decided the team needed a dozen grinders. Bergevin's response to that season? Sign Alzner, Hemsky, and Streit while letting Markov and Radulov walk.