habscout

I debated signing up then took the plunge during a Black Friday sale. It is worth it, even at full price ( I am over 1 1/2 years subscribing now). As someone said the daily coverage is very good, similar to what the Gazette used to be durng the hay days of the Habs (1950's through 1970's) I used to be a faithful Hockey News subscriber for many years but found I did not read much of the non-Habs stories so it felt like a waste. With the Athletic, if you follow a team in another major sport then they have beat writers covering them. So you get more value from it in my opinion.

Hard to say if he will grow much; perhaps a little. His brother is almost 2 years older and a little bigger at 5'8", 173 pounds. On draft day when they announced the Habs selection and showed Cole with his family, his brother looked somewhat bigger than Cole. I am pretty happy with the Habs picking Caufield. They have not gone for a highly skilled player like this in a while, when they have not been drafting in the top 3. He's a pure goal scorer, very shifty, but he's not a selfish one as I have watched several videos where he has dished the puck off to a linemate when he could have easily taken the shot. Yes he benefited from playing on the same line as Jack Hughes, but he also scored when Hughes was at the U-18 tournament. He could be top line player eventually for the Habs. I have no doubt he will play at least 1 year in college, since he's going to the same one his brother is at. He may leave after 2 seasons, similar to what Poehling did, who also wanted to play college hockey with his brothers, and did so for three seasons before turning pro.

As much as I would like to see the Habs draft a stud LD , I think Harley is terrible in his own zone. I don't see him maturing his game enough to become a top 2 defenceman in the NHL.

Yeah but in a way, not too surprising. Seider was a fast riser in the last half of this season. There was some talk that the Habs were interested in selecting him if he fell to them, although Minnesota was rumoured to also want him.

The #1 & #2 picks were no brainers. The #3 pick is where things start to get interesting with the Hawks selecting Kirby Dach. The Recrutes guide predicted that one.

The team owners pay Bettman well, to be the league whipping boy.

Here are some depressing stats. The Habs have scored only 16 goals in the 8 games they have played so far in March. They have allowed 26 goals against during that span. Their record is 3 wins and 5 losses.

I somewhat agree; however I saw a few good shifts by Weal tonight. You used the wrong word with "deserve". They outshot Chicago 2 to 1, but the Blackhawks had some key scoring chances, and obviously capitalized.

With this loss, the Habs fall lower outside the the last wild card spot, 3 points away from the CBJ's, who got 1 point in an OT loss.

Yeah well skating is not everything, unless you have hockey sense too, which IMO Debrincat has in spades. That's another short-sightedness the Habs have had with *many* of their past draft selections under Timmins, although the last couple of drafts they have improved in that area.

To add to my last post, Debrincat has more points than any other player outside of the first round in the 2016 draft. When you add the first rounders, he is fourth in points, behind Matthews, Laine and Tkachuk.

Why not? He was highly touted but just too small to be a first round pick. The second round is the perfect time to "gamble" on a small OHL forward that has scored 100+ points in 2 straight seasons before his draft year. Sure he was on Connor McJesus line, but still he managed to produce, and then he scored even more the year after McJesus graduated to the NHL.

I would not compare it to the Leafs Ballard regime, which was a meddlesome, micro-managing owner of a Steinbrenner/Yankees level, who was only in the NHL ownership game to make money and headlines with his own name. Bergevin just does not know how to handle the contract negotiation side of this sport in my opinion. Radulov was low balled, although it was likely he was going to leave for a more tax friendly option. With Markov, I believe he would have resigned for close to the same salary but he was deliberately low balled [half?] because Bergevin was dealing with Markov without an agent between them. With respect to Drouin, that time he drastically overvalued the asset. That contract was the time to negotiate a bridge deal, but instead he paid much higher than I believe any arbitrator would have awarded a player with *only 1* good NHL season. The result we see now, is a under performing Drouin who will never live up to his long term salary, instead of giving him a shorter term "show me" contract to make him earn his pay.

Debrincat set up that last goal. You all probably know this, but one of the 2nd round draft picks they gave up to get Andrew Shaw, was used to draft Debrincat. That kid would have looked might good in a Habs jersey.

2nd Blackhawks goal. Game over. :-(