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That was the lineup on saturday too. Benn has been excellent so far this year. I don't think he can keep it up, but if he can just be good til we get healthy on the blue line. I'm not a fan of Alzner at all and we need juulsen back.

Kotka is not so difficult ... his name basically means "eagles' cape" so "eagle" would work. And we already have Niemi for the second part.

You know, despite the fact that it doesn't really make sense, there does seem to be something in the idea of certain franchises having identities that define them across generations. You think of the Flyers, you think of gritty, physical teams. Ditto Boston. Sure, at their best they are also very skilled, but there's something to the core identity of those franchises that makes their greatest teams also reliably intimidating teams physically. The 2011 Bruins squad was a perfect expression of Bruins-ness, for example. So were the ultimately unsuccessful Lindros Flyers teams. The Habs also have a historic identity: what used to be called the Flying Frenchmen, a swift-skating, puck-moving team, even in eras when goonery was the rule; often considered 'too small' but with a lot of pluck and determination, and - invariably - with great f**king goaltending to back it up. Sure, we've had tough guys and muscle too, the Fergusons and Nilans and the perfect mix of both in, say, Larry Robinson. But think of any classic Habs team (except maybe the Burns-era teams) and that's what you think of, a team that plays very much the kind of game that we are seeing from this group. It's not that this team is in the same league as classic Habs clubs; heck it's far from clear that they are really a playoff team. But what I am saying is that this team, so far, has returned to the classic 'Montreal Canadiens' style of hockey. We played like this in 2008, and again in 2010 and 2011, the Smurf Years; once more in 2014 and 2015 and then lost the plot, as Bergevin wasted years and burned the prime of an entire core trying to make us older, slower, and stronger. A catastrophic mistake, of course. The Habs should always default to skating, skating, skating. It's what the has always meant.

Why? Making $1,000,000 for basically practising hockey. Tough to take.