The Chicoutimi Cucumber

From their recent interview remarks, it sounds like that's what he and MaxPac sing to one another in the shower.

A disturbing analysis, not unlike what a lot of people were saying about Marc Savard before the boom was lowered on him. I really hate the thought of these guys being one concussion away from destroyed lives. Assuming Wilde to be correct, it's regrettable that Bourque doesn't have the sense to step away and move on with his life; it's certainly not as though his play shows any passion for the game in any case.

Now that Desharnais has bagged some assists, I think this thread has become a bit unfair. DD isn't a goal scorer, so holding a lack of goals against him is judging him by the wrong standard (this was also true of Gomez, incidentally). If he can build on the Minny game to become, once again, a tolerably productive playmaking C, then this thread should be put behind us IMHO.

I think most people would say "yes." Stick Briere in his place (the perfect placeholder until Galy is ready to assume duties at C) and then see if you can't put the cap savings toward a top-9 forward with some size and skill.

I was referring to Desharnais's remark about being best with Pacioretty, not Patches himself. Nobody doubts what you're saying about MaxPac. What I was saying is that Desharnais has to be able to play with other NHL wingers, and his implying that he can't be expected to succeed without #67 is ridiculous.

Yeah, how dare Therrien treat him like a bona-fide NHLer and move his wingers around Great to have chemistry, but come on.

That performance by Patches and DD are hugely good news. If those two guys start playing like legitimate top-6 forwards, we're a whole other team from the one we've seen hitherto. As much as everyone has enjoyed piling onto Desharnais, we need him to play well. It's only one game but it's a good sign - fingers crossed it continues and the slumps have definitively been broken.

I don't really blame him for trying. Something has to be done, after all. The key, I think, is putting Gallagher with Pacioretty. Gally is a dynamo, and if he can light a spark under Patches, we'll suddenly be looking a lot better. So that's the good side of this configuration. (of course, you can argue that it's pathetic that a more seasoned player like Patches needs a sophomore to "get his game going," but beggars can't be choosers at this point).

Subban is not going to "fold under a big contract." Subban never folds. He ain't the foldin' kind. When are people going to realize what an unbelievable stud this guy is? Who worries about, say, Shea Weber "folding?" Why worry about PK, then? I agree that it's all water under the bridge, and I also have no objection to paying players what they're worth. But that Bergevin may have missed the chance to lock up Subban on a cheap, long-term deal (something that I don't believe we know for certain he could have done, incidentally) could be understood as one consequence of cleaning house. New GM and coach comes in, neither have first-hand knowledge of what kind of man PK is; influenced by the universal suspicion of his "character" they proceed to err on the side of caution in his contract. These kinds of errors always happen when you bring in new guys. Look at JM driving Sergei Kostitsyn out of town just to make a point. Perhaps he wouldn't have been so eager to throw a flawed-but-useful player on the scrap-pile if he'd had a little more time in the driver's seat. Fans who are too eager to throw management on the junk-pile might keep in mind that "transitional" errors of this sort are basically inevitable.

Well, Higgins went through 2-3 years where he was a marginal player. I think there were deeper problems there than just fans' inflated expectations - either he lost all confidence, or he had serious maturity/partying issues of the sort that were rumoured to characterize the young bucks of Gainey Rebuild 1.0 and probably played a role in the disaster of 2008-09. When he got to Van, he was basically on his last chance, and Vigneault has been quoted as saying he was "ready to listen" (implying that this hadn't always been the case). There's no question that now he is fully back to being the player he was in his good years with us: a fleet-footed all-purpose forward who plays a 200-foot game and can serve for occasional spells in the top-6. Good to see.

OK, forget "power forward." How about "big body who drives to the net." I also thought his slump was overblown, but his last couple of games were discouraging. Instead of getting better he seems to be getting worse.

The parallel with Zednik is thought-provoking...and unsettling. Patches MUST be an impact power forward if the rebuild is going to succeed. I agree about Bournival as well. Frankly, I think he has a chance of being one escape route out of the slump; if we can get him into the top-9 and being productive, that would help to compensate for the fact that Briere, DD, Patches and Bourque are all stinking out the joint. Clearly, MT prefers a different approach, which is to try to get at least one or two of those other guys going. That said, all the griping about line-juggling is a bit futile. All NHL coaches juggle their lines like crazy, especially when the team is struggling. We can yelp about specific decisions, but Therrien is just following the standard coaching template in constantly rejigging in the desperate hope that something clicks. As for Honey Boo-Boo, we're not losing games because of the usage of Bouillon; we're losing them because 4 of our supposedly top-9 forwards are utterly lost at sea. Until that changes, we won't win.

Well, it's one thing to trade a young, stud blueliner for a veteran with a huge contract who proceeds to stop playing at anything like the level he'd always played at over his career. It's another to trade a young, stud blueliner for a comparable elite young talent at another position. E.g., if Beaulieu was shipped out as part of a package for Yakupov, say, that'd be high risk, but not analogous to the disastrous Gomez deal. But anyway, I'm not saying we should trade those guys - just saying that every case is different.

Yes. So much is riding on MB in the next two seasons, it's scary. I'm not at all an expert on the Habs's system, but I'm still not convinced we have a critical mass of elite young/youthful talent to become true contenders. (Of course, watching McDonagh on Saturday was depressing in this respect, as it always is; he's just the #3-4 blueliner we need). Very curious to see what Bergevin makes of it all...and we'll start to know more at this year's deadline, I suspect.

They are "hard working players" because they ARE hard working players. If you can't see a difference between what Pleks and Gio bring and what Bourque has been bringing, then you're not paying attention. Those guys need to produce more, yes; they're somewhat (not hugely) off their normal paces. But at least they're generating things, playing well in all zones, leading the rush, etc., etc. Bourque, meanwhile, has been useless as Stephen Harper's #### since game one. You're right about the off-wing thing, though - that's a fair point in his defence. As for a "big trade," I'd love to see it myself, just from a fan point of view. But I'm not sure it makes sense, unless you're trading veterans you planned to trade at the deadline anyway. We can trade Patches because he's in a slump, but are we then gonna trade Kane when HE goes in a slump? Given that the point was never to contend this season anyway, any trade involving young-ish players shouldn't be made just to "shake things up" in the short-term. It has to be with the long-term in mind.

I like this idea at least as much as my own eccentric "tie = 0" formula. It retains the shootout while minimizing its importance and purging that idiotic loser point. Plus it's minimally disruptive to the traditions of the NHL (e.g., 2 points for a win). Great post, good sir!

With Diaz, sign, then look to trade him. This will be the first season where Bergevin has to start making really serious decisions with ramifications for the rebuild. It's gonna be interesting.

Yeah, I never understood the problem with him either. Oh, well. It's not like he's a difference-maker or anything.

The alternative is trading him at this year's deadline for no particular hockey reason, or else losing the asset for nothing at year's end. Like I said in another thread: as long as we sign Diaz for market value and don't include a NTC, signing him in no way prevents us from trading him in the future, as need requires. The same, incidentally, would have been true of Desharnais, had DD simply continued to produce on the level he'd been doing up until he signed the contract. The DD thing is a freak event. Chill.

Yeah, that's pretty solid analysis. I think Pleks and Gio have played well this season, by and large, although their numbers are lower than they should be. But as you say, they're not the problem; the problem is all the passengers - Bourque, Briere, Desharnais, and Pacioretty. You can't succeed with that many veteran forwards dogging it (although Patches has had his moments at least; the other three? Feh). We're supposed to be a team that can roll three lines - we're built that way - but if 4 of your top-9 forwards are stinking out the joint, that makes that impossible. There's the basic problem right there. And come to think of it, we never did replace Cole in the top-6. Briere might as well be nothing. One partial solution might be Bournival. Throw him in there with a lot of ice. But that's not MT's style (a 'protected minutes' style that puts young players in a position to succeed, rather than throwing them out there as replacements for useless vets). I would try it for 2-3 games, though. See if he can rise to the occasion. And I'm not even sure you can blame Therrien the way most fans seem to be doing. Again: four out of the top nine forwards are sucking ass. That's not Therrien's fault. It's nobody's fault really, except maybe the players themselves, and perhaps the GM's for believing they could be relied upon to do the job. Other than that, there's nothing to be done, other than trade, or else just hope the vets can work their way back to top-9 calibre performances.

None of these except the Subban file are in any way mistakes with any long-term ramifications for the rebuild. Bergevin has to be given time. If we take a win-now-at-all-costs mentality with this team, we will be consigning ourselves to yet another decade of mediocrity. That said, I wouldn't throw myself under a bus if MB makes a bold multi-player trade of the sort Habs29 describes (with Max and Kane as centrepieces) - provided we're adding young pieces. Preying on Edmonton is another possibility.

I don't care what anyone says. To me, Toronto has been through all the right growing pains: they went through a season where they had a great first half, then flamed out disastrously; then they made the playoffs, only to lose due to a catastrophic game seven collapse. They have improved over each of the previous two seasons and have taken another step this year. I'm not sure what lessons there are here for us. One is not to throw guys under the bus no matter how uneven is their path of development (e.g., Reimer). Another may be to not fear bold moves. And a third may be not to neglect the physical aspect of the game. A swing-for-the-fences move for Yakupov wouldn't be for the faint of heart...but it would certainly be interesting. EDIT: Harper to appear on AC! Just when you thought they had run out of assholes to throw at our TV screens, they go and get the great granddaddy of Canadian assholes. Oy.

I'm not prepared to go this far. Every indicator is that Bergevin is playing the long game. If he thought we were contenders, he never would have signed Briere, which was a patchup job to tide us over until the team is scheduled to contend (i.e., in about two years). We'll know more from his actions at the deadline this season...or any big move he makes before then.

AC bozos are really letting Pacioretty and Bourque have it. They've got a point. Pacioretty reminds me of Cammelleri, in the sense that Cammy used to come back from injury and then be terribly unproductive for the next dozen games. Patches seems to be doing the same thing. Probably because guys like that come back before they're healed. EDIT: brobin, bubble team looks about right. MB had better make the right decisions at the deadline, because I think it's going to take more than we presently have, in terms of young talent, to become contenders. Hopefully this is just pessimistic.

I seem to recall last season's team playing a very aggressive forecheck. It doesn't seem to be happening any more - ? The team needs a spark. Hard to see where it's gonna come from. Here's another thought. This team looks exactly like what we expected the 2012-13 team to look like. Sigh.