The Chicoutimi Cucumber

People forget that Price was awesome in the 2011 playoffs. I'm not sure I'd conclude that he lacks 'mental fortitude' because of a dodgy April of meaningless games; but I agree that if he struggles in the postseason, it'll be harder to defend him in this respect.

I guess so. In a way what I'm saying is these guys believe in Price so much that when he doesn't deliver, they're lost. Price will get back in the groove as long as he doesn't get down on himself and lose confidence. Getting away from the Bell Centre will almost certainly help. By rights, this should be where his sizeable experience of radical ups and downs in Montreal comes into play and gets him through it when it matters most, i.e., the playoffs. As a whole, meanwhile, the team needs to stop worrying about results and focus on process. The little things - winning battles, bearing down on the defensive coverage, trusting your teammate to do his job, etc.. Same old recipe. And I agree 100% about Drewiski. With Emelin out, he has to play every damned night - and eat significant minutes to boot. There's no other choice.

Give me a break. If Price gets his game back, the whole team will feed off that. That was one of the points of my earlier post - for all that we go on about PK or Markov or Pleks or whoever, Carey Price is THE key guy on this team. As he goes, we go.

One thing this slump seems to show is that this team lists as Carey Price does. I can see losing when your goalie blows chunks, but what explains the PP going 0-for-5 if not, perhaps, a team demoralized that its key cog is stinking out the joint. The main reasons for clinging to some sort of befuddled optimism are 1. Price is a proven commodity and unlikely to keep playing like this 2. The team drooped immediately after making the playoffs. This suggests that, beyond Price's problems, the issue is a drop in intensity, drive and commitment. But that in turn suggests that once there is again a genuine, non-rationalized reason to care, they will. And it wasn't just the 1986 team that looked like dogs heading into the playoffs...so did the 1993 and 2010 Habs, if memory serves. So teams can suddenly snap back into form. I wouldn't bet the rent on it, but it happens.

I'm not sure I understand the need to 'get rid' of anybody (except Kaberle, of course). If you have a chance to IMPROVE the team by adding a guy who is better than Gio, or better than DD, then sure, go ahead. But these improvenments don't just fall from the heavens, and subtracting talent doesn't make you any better.

Yes, I'd rather have Boston's roster as well. And their Cup rings.

Yep, no question about it. He just doesn't have the first step he used to have - there is zero explosiveness at all to his skating. You may have a point about Diaz complementing him in that sense.

Odd to see Boston of all teams struggling. If ever there was a club that should be able to draw inspiration and emotion from its fans, now would be the time. I guess the chaos there has had the opposite effect on the team...weird.

Many goal-scorers are streaky like that. It's hard to understand, but it seems to be a fact.

Markov won't be captain if and when Gio leaves. He had the chance before and declined. I must say I would not be surprised to see Pleks wearing the "C" someday, The issue with Gionta isn't that he's bad, just that he's overpaid (as well as tiny). This inevitably makes you a whipping boy in the cap era. Let's see how he does in the playoffs, shall we?

I don't know if Diaz should be thought of as a 'stabilizer.' But there is no question he will help the transition game and the offence, IF he picks up where he left off. Which is a big 'if,' incidentally.

Probably just fretting, but I'm a bit worried that guys like Prust, Ryder and Armstrong are trying to play through imperfectly-healed injuries rather than getting properly healed up for the playoffs.

One thing the coaching staff can emphatically NOT be accused of is mishandling the young talent. That we are clamouring to see more of those young players is an ironic testament to how well they've been brought along IMHO.

Well, it's a good question. What's more worrisome is that he's 25 years old. He's not some wet-behind-the-ears teeny-bopper and has been a pro since 2008-09. So the excuse of youthful folly can only go so far. Conversely, guys like Cooke and Torres took even longer to figure things out, and in Torres's case are still slipping off the line now and then. At the same time, a disastrous season like this can be one of those real learning experiences that either destroy and player or make him better. I don't say "trust him." I say "it's your job to earn back our trust, and we will give you every form of support that we can to make you the player we know you can be so that we can come to trust you again." This should include sending him to the minors (as well as counselling and possibly treatment if he has 'issues') - but my grasp of the CBA in general and his own status in particular is too uncertain to know whether we'd risk losing him on re-entry waivers.

Agree 100%. We will regret losing him. I saw this movie before with Darcy Tucker. No thanks. In a way this is a test of the new regime. They're supposed to be all about player development. Well, that means not dumping a potentially very useful kid after a horrible year of growing pains. Shipping him out would be the 'old' habs' way. I've had enough of that to last me a lifetime. The only question is if he has issues off the rink, in which case matters get murkier - but I'd still like to see us being an organization that helps struggling young men to become better players and better people, instead of dumping them when they become a Problem.

No need to panic, no. But there are definitely grounds for serious concern in that this team made one of the most fundamental of mistakes - they lost focus and commitment once the playoffs were sewn up, and are now discovering the old truth that you can't turn it on and off like a tap. The only answer is to recommit, grind it out, and try, try, try to get back in the zone by the time the playoffs start. Problem is, this is not a linear process or one guaranteed to succeed, especially in the insane Montreal pressure cooker. If they pull it off it will be an awkward process involving two steps forward, one step back. If they don't pull it off it will snowball into a humiliating first-round exit, with all the usual scapegoating and bitterness. I'm slightly surprised that guys like Carey Price, who have been through the cycle of Montreal success and subsequent crash-and-burn, either didn't see the danger or failed to carry the dressing room with their message. Oh well. Therrien has his work cut out. This is his first real test.

White is frustrating...he has such potential to be one of these tough-nut edgy agitators who can be invaluable. Unfortunately he is having one hell of a time learning how to play on that edge without falling over. I'd be very disappointed to see him going elsewhere and becoming an effective hell-raiser. But frankly, I've wondered before if something isn't slightly amiss with him (e.g., substance abuse issues or something), because his judgement seems to be just WAY below NHL level.

I mercifully missed this one. But I'm with those who make a connection between clinching the playoff spot and this sudden drop-off in play. Emelin's a good player and all, but surely he can't be missed THAT much. They need to regroup and get back to paying the price, blocking shots, outworking the opposition every shift. The onus is on Therrien to refocus his squad, and on the players themselves to look within and ask whether making the playoffs was all they really wanted to do. We need also to consider that opposing coaches may have broken down the Habs's success and adjusted their game plans accordingly, to good effect. In this case the onus is even more on Therrien to make the necessary adjustments in response. My guess is that getting back to our 'A' game will not be a pretty process. We are probably in for 5-6 frustrating games as the team tries to claws its way back to where it was - assuming things don't snowball in the other direction. Very frustrating to see these guys making such a bush-league mental mistake after clinching. They've fallen right into one of the classic traps of newly good teams.

Ha ha, if they win the Cup, my head will explode The only blemish will be a twinge of regret that Saku will not be raising the mug with them.

Getting Diaz back is a potentially huge boost for the playoffs - provided he picks up where he left off.

See my last post on greatness being inescapably linked to context. If you transported Subban to 1972, he would certainly dominate, but so, probably, would any top-4 defencemen today. As for whether 'generational talents' are still possible, I say yes. If you look at Crosby, he was definitely pulling away from the pack before suffering his brutal and deliberately-induced concussion in the New Year's Game (a direct consequence of the NHL's criminal neglect of player safety). There are grounds to speculate that he has been prevented from becoming that generation-defining talent primarily because of injuries, not the impossibility of such talents existing. But we need to keep in mind that Orr, Gretzky and Lemieux were historic rarities. It is not normal for a player to so thoroughly dominate his contemporaries. To my imperfect knowledge, it had not happened before Orr (unless we want to consider Joe Malone's jaw-dropping feats early in the century). Morenz, Howe, Richard, these were all great players, but they did not leave the pack behind like those other three. In that sense, the label 'generational talent' is misleading. What we're really talking about are historic talents. And you can't infer from the absence of such a talent in any given generation that it's not longer possible for them to exist.

It could go either way. But pessimists need to ask themselves this question: were those losses to the Leafs representative of the Habs' game? Because looking at the 6-0 and 5-1 wipeouts, what I see is 1. A team that was still finding its identity and rebounded from the ass-whuppin' to coalesce into a top team in the Conference and 2. A team whose all-star goalie had a rare disastrous night and consequently lost. Because neither scenario is representative, we should be less worried that we 'match up' badly than that these aberrant losses have gotten into the heads of our players.

When it comes to comparing players across generations, you can't just contrast individuals in isolation from context. Heck, due to conditioning alone even today's 3rd-liners would probably dominate were they to be magically transported to the 1960s (when guys like Phil Esposito worked Joe-jobs in the offseason and 'played themselves into shape' over the year). What you can do is look at how a given player or team dominated relative to the competition they had. Orr was absolutely the dominant player of his generation, so dominant that he changed how the whole game of hockey is played. Very few other players have ever owned the sport like he did. Gretzky did, and so, for more brief periods, did Lemieux. Crosby has shown signs of being able to lap the field when it comes to scoring in much the same way that those latter two did, but his health has so far prevented him from really pulling away from the pack. The norm is to have a clutch of 'great' players (Yzerman, Sakic, etc; Stamkos, Malkin; Lafleur, Dionne, Trottier) duking it out season after season. When a guy comes along who just overawes everybody else, that's something special and historic. I don't hear anyone saying that Subban is going to rise above all of his contemporaries to be THE dominant hockey player of his generation. And that's why he is highly unlikely ever to be comparable to Orr. It's the same way with teams, I think. The Habs of 1976-77 are The Greatest NHL Team of All Time not because they had a more powerful roster on paper than the 1985 Oilers, but because they lost 8 - count 'em, 8 - games - before going 12-2 to win the Cup. We're talking complete, abject domination of the entire league from pole to pole (with the sole exception of a competitive series against the Islanders). The Oil never even approached this level of supremacy. Greatness is defined by its context. And taken that way, there's little chance for Subban to match Orr, or for any team to match the 1977 Habs.

Yes, the Leafs are definitely underestimated around here. Heck, they would have made the playoffs with ease last season had they had some goaltending. The line between us and them is not that wide. Indeed, the line between most playoff teams and most other playoff teams is not that wide. Welcome to the top 8, folks.

I don't want to face the Leafs for reasons that go way beyond their drubbings of us this season. I took the same stance in 1993, that I wanted no part of a Leafs-Habs Final - because if we lost, we'd be hearing about 1993 for the rest of our lives even if the Habs went on to win 30 Cups in a row, while if we won, we'd still be hearing about 1967 ad nauseum. Because of Leafs Nation hegemony over HNIC and the Central Canadian media, there is simply nothing to be gained by playing the Leafs for a team that's won the Cup 11 times since 1967 and made the playoffs regularly over the past decade where they haven't. That said, as far as this season goes: there are no bad teams in the playoffs - like it or not, the Leafs are NOT a bad team - but it's also true that the playoffs are a whole other kettle of fish. It would be a bit much to extrapolate from two bizarre losses (one early in the season when the team was still finding its identity, the other when our goalie suffered a highly unusual meltdown) that we can't beat these guys. Machine has the right attitude: this team has surprised us all season. They've earned our faith. Plus, if you want to go deep you can't continually rely on preferred matchups; sooner or later you gotta pummel the motherf*ckers no matter what their jersey. So, y'know, bring ANYONE on.