habscout

Before the end of this season, I would have bet anything that Lefebvre would swap positions with Daigneault, so Bergevin didn't get any blood on his hands and none of his buddies lost a paycheck. Well if Syl is truly gone that is a step in the right direction. Too many people have excused his team's poor records. In the past pundits said he wasn't helping to develop any/many prospects; this season when the Habs needed so many players called up some were saying Lefebvre should get some credit. Bottom line I believe Sylvain is a poor coach. Any worthy coach can get the most out of the players he has, season after season. I can understand that not every high level coach can produce a winning team out of a less than stellar roster, but someone with good coaching skills should at least get a contending team out of a hockey team at least once in a 6 year span. Alas, Sylvain did not, so now he's gone. I hope the Habs will hire a good junior level coach like Dominique Ducharme or Benoit Groulx, before Tampa hired him to coach their AHL team.

Someone posted the original TSN690 interview on Soundcloud. You can listen to it here. I plan to compare it to the TSN690 "editted" version later. Bergevin on Melnick in the Afternoon - Soundcloud The new "transparency" era is a somewhat interesting one, but to me it seems like a bone to placate the dog-like media in Montreal. I heard that the Canadiens long-time head of communications, Donald Beauchamps, will be leaving the organization. I find it interesting that at the same time this message of "transparency" is now forthcoming from the Habs as of the start date of their end of season press conference. Maybe Donald was the scapegoat for the Papal-like secrecy behind the Habs communications? I have heard Chris Nilan gripe at least once a month on the air about how difficult it is to try to get anyone from the Habs organization to come on the air for his show for an occasional interview. So I guess maybe one of those times must have been when Geoff Molson happened to tune in to the radio? Perhaps that's wishful thinking. I fear and feel, that this version of the Habs is on the precipice of a lengthy slide into the cellar dwellars of the league, similar to the dark ages under Rejean Houle. As I type this, I am watching the Jets versus the Wild in game 2, and Paul Stastny just scored. If I was him, I would seriously consider any offer that Winnipeg makes to keep him before July 1st. The guy has already reached his peak contract at $7M/season, so realistically he must know he will never get more than that amount. He could stay and play in Winnipeg for less, a team that is clearly on the rise. Or he could take his chances on a bigger payout by a team like the Habs, one that will struggle to get back into a playoff position. Personally I think he's a fine #2 center, but if he signs with Montreal he would be deemed their #1 and I don't feel he would succeed in that environment. -Norm

I am listening to the Habs end of season press conference. Pat Hickey asked Marc Bergevin a question along the lines of "where do you go from here?". Part way through the explanation Hickey pointed out that Price had a down year. Bergevin's response, well a lot of players (in the league) had a bad year. And then he added this to back up his point, "Pekka Rinne had a bad year." Seriously, Bergevin really doesn't know what he's talking about! I thought that comment was way out of line, so I looked up Rinne's stats and noticed Pekka had improved his GAA by 11 points, his save percentage by 9 points, he posted 11 more wins, 6 fewer losses and 5 more shutouts that the season before !!!!

I almost expected CJ to play the "veteran"" Benn and Alzner for the full 2 minutes, or at least 3/4's of it. No problem, for starting the GDT.

Well the Habs got a nice goal by Deslauriers on a good pass by Carr. 3-3 [I told you all to take the over tonight!]

Wow, what a shot by Malkin! The top power play capitalizes to take the lead 3-2. Team tank is back on track. :-(

Big penalty kill for the Habs against the Penguins #1 powerplay. I was a little surprised to see Juulsen gets that much time killing the penalty, and a little pleased to see him do well. It didn't hurt to see him cross check Kessel to the ice in front of the net. :-)

Petry misplayed the body, then the puck took an unfortunate deflection of Byron's stick to go in; Penuins tied it up at 2. I hope everybody took the Over on this game tonight.

Penguins are in the game, making it 2-1. They are starting to wake up, generating some chances.

Yeah Chuky is playing well. As for Price, I think I'd rather only see him practice to end this season. Why risk anything to play a regular game now.

I remember Chris Nilan talking about Vesey on his TSN690 show that spring. Vesey's dad is good friends with Nilan. Chris was dropping a pretty big hint that Vesey was considering not signing with Nashville, although Nilan speculated he would sign with Boston. Later after he signed with New York, there were rumours that Boston was in the mix too. I wasn't too surprised because I thought I read a rumour that Nashville was really trying to get Vesey to leave college after his junior year.

Wow Montreal is up 2-0 now! Penguins look a little sluggish.

I am surprised nobody started the game thread, and the first period is a few minutes underway. So here it is. Habs are off to a good start, and up 1-0 !

How does Danault miss the entire net on a 2-on-1 ??

Well Team Tank does it again, although they "earned" a point with the shootout loss.