xXx..CK..xXx

To clarify, he’s still Dallas’ third leading point getter and has more points than Jamie Benn. I’d love to have him on the team.

Yes

And yet Reilly is a +1 compared to Olofsson and Petry at -4, or Kulak and Fleury at -6. I understand Petry has tougher matchups and more minutes (then again so does Weber at +9), but the Kulak comparison is perhaps more revealing. Then again, Folin is +2

All I was saying is that Mete and Rafalski are bad comparisons based on nothing. I also take your perspective on prospects with a grain of salt because you often hype our young players up more than they should be. The mere fact that you compare Mete and Ellis is more proof. Ellis was always better than Mete. Ellis came into the league at a young age with an already clearly defined role of power play specialist. Mete didn’t come into the league because he would be the perfect partner for Weber. One was thrust into a role, the other was placed into a role. Nothing against Mete. At this juncture, he deserves to be on the team.

Brian Rafalski and Victor Mete couldn’t have taken a more different path to the NHL. Rafalski went undrafted, played in Europe in his early 20s and didn’t play in the NHL until he was 26 or 27. In his first NHL season, he came in and produced 5 goals and 37 points. Many people attributed the fact that he was already ready to produce as a result of him developing and gaining confidence in Europe. Mete is the complete opposite. He will be good, that’s for sure. But if he is indeed anything like Brian Rafalski, it will take him another 5-6 years to show it. I understand it’s a comparison made as a result of their size, speed, and puck handling skills but the comparison is a shot in the dark. None of that has much to do with the topic though. Personally I like Mete and would rather trade Danault over him, but he should be far from untouchable. All that being said, I don’t see Mete being moved for a few more years, if at all.

Blackhawks assistant Marc Crawford “placed on leave” after recent allegations about his “conduct with a previous team”, the LA Kings. Supposedly incidents involving Sean Avery in LA and Brent Sopel in Vancouver have been mentioned.

Bold move, Joe.

Cup contender is a high goal but this summer I would have targeted Columbus, which we did with Kinkaid. Ryan Dzingel, Matt Duchene. I know Bergevin was “in” on Duchene. I also somewhat wanted Edler from Vancouver. I didn’t want Gardiner. These moves don’t necessarily make you an instant contender but they send you into the right direction of perhaps being a buyer at the deadline as well. Two years ago would have been Tavares (obviously we had no chance), James Neal, Paul Stastny, David Perron, JVR. Michal Kempny could have helped our current D core. It could easily be argued as it already has been that we don’t know how many of those people Bergevin was in on but regardless, once we know something is off the table, there needs to be a plan B. If none of those options were available, then use the cap space to acquire a player at some point within the season. The options are somewhat endless.

Here are the standings from the last season the Habs spent to the cap for those who are interested: https://www.nhl.com/standings/2016/wildcard

The initial moment that led us to have unexpected cap space available was the season that both Radulov and Markov were let go. I will accept that Radulov may have decided to sign elsewhere where taxes have much less of an impact, however I don’t think it would have been unwise to offer $500k or even a million more than he was worth considering three years later we are still “waiting for that opportunity” to use our unused cap space. Radulov is one of the best Russian players to ever play the game, so if signing him is not an opportunity in your mind, then I’m not sure what would constitute as an opportunity. Furthermore, our record with Markov was impregnable Compared to without him when he was on the team and while he admittedly was on his final legs, we are still looking for his replacement three years later. I don’t think there’s a single person out there who would say we should use our cap space on players that make you marginally better, so why would that be your conclusion? We should use our cap space on impact players. Free agents don’t want to sign here? Although that’s an easy excuse, if that’s the case, target teams who need to alleviate their cap issues. Make trades. Last year we ended the season with roughly 9-10 million in unused cap space. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that teams like St. Louis and Washington are roughly 1 million over the cap during their cup winning seasons. Pittsburgh had roughly 1 million available. These are the teams who have won the cup recently. No one is saying that we should spend on mediocrity. Leaving 10 million available and then “saving it” during a season where we miss the playoffs by 2 points does not seem like a correct strategy to me. It’s very hard to raise expectations to a cup aspiration, at the very least.

I don’t get the discussion. First of all, we haven’t been a bubble team for an entire 25 years. There have been seasons where we have had an outside chance at the whole thing. The Gionta/Cammalleri core had some good leadership and statistical output come playoff time. We’ve had plenty of mediocrity, mixed in with a good stretch of years where we were one of the top 8 teams in the league. One could word it as having been only “second tier contenders” rather than “first tier”, but they certainly were not only a bubble team. Second of all, I don’t understand where the notion comes from that “all fans” are happy with the status quo and that this would somehow have an impact on management and their decision making process. Even if it was true that most fans are content, which is something in and of itself that I disagree with, I don’t believe that this would mean that management are standing pat as a result. I personally feel that those who always talk about being a contender “three years down the road” are a small subset of the fan base, and while it’s not true for all of them, most of these same people have been saying the same thing every time the Habs go on a losing streak. “The Habs can only be competitive in 3 years” It was somehow specific the year we traded Pacioretty that we could only be good in 3 years. Not 2 years, not 4 years, but 3. Now it’s the same old song. My personal stance is that the Habs should usually be able to be a competitive team as long as we spend to the cap. In the past 2-3 seasons, we have failed to do so and so I believe that this puts our team behind the 8 ball. We can’t expect successs, when other teams are using all their available assets and we are not. I agree that we should focus on team needs and am certainly on the side (as I usually would be) that we should focus on improving the team, rather than trade away our best players for “potential“ down the road.

I think Julien probably should have taken a timeout somewhere during the game. Probably at 4-3 Habs. At that point, it was still a score we would have taken prior to the game. I don’t know if it’s related but it seems teams are using timeouts less often than they used to, now that the challenge system exists.

Many were hard on him here but I always wanted him. That being said, I also wanted Zadina and he has not done much. Let’s not be too hard on Kotkaniemi though. First off, he will be a fine player and secondly it wasn’t until we drafted him that our center depth began to look promising.

Ottawa starting off stronger in the 3rd. I’m calling out Domi, Gallagher and Tatar. We need a goal from at least time of them.

3 time Stanley Cup winner and 3 time Selke winner. He was also captain for 4 years. I think most 3 time Selke winners will make the Hall of Fame. Gainey won it 4 times. Bergeron has won it 4 times and he will be in the hall of fame. Then we have Carbonneau, Lehtinen and Datsyuk who have won it 3 times. Lehtonen and Datsyuk aren’t in the Hall of Fame but unless I’m missing something, I think Datayuk should be eventually inducted as well.