The Chicoutimi Cucumber

And that right there is the reason why goons no longer have a place in the NHL. Remember the hype around Reaves at the start of the season? 🙄 It seems like WiFi's ragdolling him and his subsequent suckage put an end to that pretty quick

Boy, look at Morgan Reilly's numbers. I always liked his game - my kind of defenceman. For a guy in TO, where they pump the tires of every bum who cycles through the lineup, he seems almost underrated. And that's the only nice thing I'm gonna say for the next 12 hours. F**k off, Leafs. I hope Boston or whoever takes a leaf-blower to you and sweeps you in 4.

Well - I remember most Habs fans being pretty excited about the Gainey rebuild, and a lot of optimism on this board about it. 🤷‍♂️ (It wasn’t just us, BTW. A lot of commentators saw guys like Higgins and Kosty as future stars, Komisarek as a menacing shutdown D-man etc.). The difference between Gainey Rebuild 1.0 and a lot of what followed is that it was a genuine rebuild, i.e., an effort to build patiently through the draft, and supplement those pieces with shrewd UFA signings and trades. Most of what we saw after that rebuild went bust in 2009 was closer to a series of improvisational patch-ups - hence the whole “make the playoffs and anything can happen” ethos.

The bizarre truth is that Armia has had a hell of a half-season - ever since he was called up.

Fair enough. I agree with your priority - I want an impact FW above all.

This is a bit out of left field, and certainly reflects my Vancouver exile from civilization, but Dakota Joshua might be an intriguing UFA option at W. A lot would depend on term (he's 27) but he's like a more consistent, game-in and game-out version of Armia - or maybe the guy MB thought he was getting when he re-signed Armia: big, physical, goes to the net, can score. (15 goals this season). He wouldn't be a big fish UFA signing but he could be a nice secondary piece.

That was the magic Kovalev year. It was widely perceived to be the coming-out party for the Gainey rebuild, with the expectation that all that young talent would push the team into conteder status for the 100th anniversary season (2009). So I disagree with your assessment. That season was a rebuild supposedly coming to fruition. Only in hindsight do we realize that the rebuild was a failure and that most of those young pieces were mediocre or just plain garbage. As I say earlier in this thread, that team is a standing reminder to us about the perils of over-estimating young talent in a rebuild.

I want to believe, but I think we have to be careful about getting too excited about "competing with top teams" in the final third of a season in which we are bottom-feeders. It's notorious that bad teams sometimes look pretty good down the stretch, when they have zero pressure and when their opponents are often in snooze mode playing against them. (Even that bum Galchenyuk scored 30 goals one year playing in those conditions). The X-factor, as you note, is how HuGo will use our hoarded assets to add impact pieces over the summer. IF he makes the right moves; and IF Dach can stay reasonably healthy; and IF one of the young D (Hutson/Mailloux/Reinbacher) can make the jump; THEN we can be a bubble team.

Yup, losing Danault was one key link in the chain reaction that led the Habs to bottom out. We lost Weber (#1 d-man), Price (franchise goalie), Danualt (best C), not to mention important supplemental pieces like Lehks and Perry. I'd thought that KK could replace Danault. But then we lost KK too. And subsequent history has shown that KK is barely an NHLer, let alone a replacement for Philip Danault. In retrospect, it seems truly incredible that management thought they could lose all those pieces and NOT need to rebuild. MB tried another patch-up job and this time - unlike his brilliant efforts over the summer of 2020 - it blew up in his face. Would keeping Danault have sufficed to staunch the bleeding? Probably not. And then we could have flipped him for a nice haul of assets. So in a way, signing him would have still been the right move, unless we gave him a NTC.

He was. Although it's worth remembering that he had an absolutely horrible season, offensively, in 2020-21 (his last year with us). The playoffs were really his coming out party, where he established himself as an elite shutdown C, despite contributing little offensively. We should remember that nearly everyone on this board preferred to let him walk than to have Bergevin sign him to the contract that he got with LA. Such a shame about Gally's bloated contract. (Although I'm sure he's not crying about it). In the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately world of sports fandom, it does tend to overshadow his heroic efforts of the previous seven or eight seasons.

Was that 2021? I always said that team was seriously under-rated…

Ahhhh, thanks. That makes sense. In fact I have vague memories of regarding Thornton as a douche at the time for making an excuse of it, when the guy who ate him for breakfast had a similar problem. The Gainey feat was insane. Before my time, but what a legend...

Probably true. Sadly. Saks went and carved a great career for himself regardless. I just wonder whether he looks back sometimes and wonders what might have been. (Then again he always struck me as the "no regrets" type). Two players it's a great shame the Habs could never win a Cup for: Saku Koivu and Carey Price. They deserved rings, each in their own way. But at least Price got to the Finals.

LOL whoops I wonder if I'm thinking of a different series where Saks played through a significant injury - ? Ah, memory is a tricky thing.

Years ago, on this very site, I crunched a bunch of numbers on Koivu and discovered that he produced like a PPG player, except that he would have long slumps of, like 10-15 games per season where he would basically produce nothing. 🤷‍♂️ Hence the endless argument over whether he was a #1A or a #2C. The other thing about him was that (with all due respect to Commandant) he was a playoff beast. I mean, he put Joe Thornton in his back pocket even while playing through a cracked rib. The tragedy of Koivu, as I’ve lamented many times, is that he was never the same after his knee was destroyed. I am sure he could have been a top-10 player if not for that. He was that dominant before the knee injury.

I hear you! Although to be fair, 72 points is a nice total, and Domi did have a stellar year that season. Slick Nick looks set to pass Saku, and as much as I love Saku, Suzuki is a better overall player than he was. What a gem.

Just watching this replay Florida Panthers at Montreal Canadiens (sportsnet.ca) 1. Amusing to hear the colour guy basically disagreeing with the play-by-play man and saying Monty sucks 2. The first four goals were all on spectacular moves and/or spectacular defensive breakdowns! Amazing to watch but not really what you expect to see from a Cup finalist. 3. Habs scored two goals of the backbreaker variety: the softie Caufield put in with three seconds left in the second, and Evans' scoring the 5th goal shorthanded. Based purely on the replays, it looks like a game where Florida was not playing down to the level of the opponent.

When you look at that stat sheet, the dismal production from our FWs (apart from the top line) is absolutely glaring. And even the top line...20 goals, 55 points for Caufield is really second-line totals. Slaf is impressive in context - 41 points at age 20, and much of that in the second half. Bottom line, our FW corps needs major work. And even on D - subtract Mattheson, and the offence is also pretty bad.

I wish I had your serenity...it always bugs me when the Habs (either as a team, or as individuals) are unfairly overlooked or dismissed. Like how the Cups of '86 and '93 were systematically devalued ('worst team ever to win a Cup') and the run of 21 is treated as a burp somehow 'caused' by the lockdown. Oh sure. But if it had been TO on those runs, we'd still be hearing about the wonders of those years in granular detail. Meanwhile, on the rebuild, I'd go a bit further than you on this. We don't just need 'secondary scoring.' We need at least one more impact FW and we need at least one legitimate top-pairing D-man, preferably a PP QB with major offensive chops. The latter might already be in the system in Hutson. The former is nowhere to be seen. Right now, I don't see a contender in the offing. We'll need more.

Still waiting for Monty to get the respect he deserves. Probably the Habs need to become a relevant team again before the experts start noticing.

You’re late to the party, brother! I was called out on that gaffe earlier in the thread. Which led to some discussion of Savard’s merits and demerits. (Personally, I defend his overall performance despite his making two of the worst trades in Habs history).

Yep, everything you say is very fair. We’re in a rebuilding environment where there is no pressure to win, so the coaching staff can focus purely on development and ‘building good habits.’ I am impressed with the way they handled Slaf, though. Despite bringing him up too early - or so I thought - they nicely sheltered him from excessive expectations and seem to have taken an approach of building up his fundamentals, in the faith that he would eventually hit the tipping point and start producing. This seems to be working beautifully. I don’t know how ‘motivating’ the mere presence of MSL is. I think, after familiarity sets in after a few weeks of exposure, you need more than your rep. He probably does have a good rapport.

Yeah, Mad Mike Milbury. Oh my Lord, what a clown.

Well, that was the first thing I thought of when rumours popped up that it involved his son. “Is he going to want to keep coaching?” I strongly suspect he will. From a fan perspective, what I found interesting was my internal dismay at the thought of losing MSL behind the bench. Without commenting on his bench management and tactical skills, he does seem to have a skill in bringing along the young talent.

Geez, that is some rarified air. Well, except for Plasse, LOL.