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The Chicoutimi Cucumber

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Posts posted by The Chicoutimi Cucumber

  1. All the data shows that Youppi! has in fact been an above-average NHL mascot. The decibel level of children's squeals of delight in his presence exceeds that attained by the supposedly impeccable Canucks' mascot Fin by .078%, for instance. The boldness of his colour palette is also in the top third. The fact is that Youppi! is being made a scapegoat for deeper organizational problems, such as the inadequacy of the beer served at the Bell Centre and the crapiness of the DJ. I still say we can contend with Youppi! Stop the scapegoating NOW.

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  2. Yes. BG trading for Gomez and signing Cam, Gio and Spac was about as bold as it gets - very big, if somewhat smurfy, thinking :)

    Yes. PG trading Halak post-conference final run, trading up for Tinordi, getting Emelin to hop the pond, and committing to Markov for three and Cole for four = thinking big.

    Yes. PG letting the Wiz walk and signing AK and Gorges to 1 year deals in order to leave room to lock up Price, Subban, Eller and perhaps Emelin long-term = thinking big.

    PG has given Gomez one more shot this season. Despite what the fenwickers over at EOTP might say about Gomez's puck possession magic (see here), I'd guess he is on thin ice. If PG survives the season and Gomez doesn't produce, I expect some more big thinking bold moves, which will include the acquisition of a genuine 2C. The timing of this process makes good sense, as DD and Eller's long-term potential at C will be much clearer by the end of this season.

    Interesting post. Bonus points for the use of the word 'fenwickers' :halm:

    Obviously Gainey's 2010 blow-up was a huge move - one of the most dramatic acts of general-managing in NHL history, actually. Then again, it yielded a team that (if we set aside the current hysteria) has generally been of the 'pretty good' variety, not clear-cut contenders. So my question is really about whether we have the organizational vision, determination and cojones to go further than that.

    And to be honest, partly my question just comes from fatigue. I'm just so damned tired of this limping along, year after year, with no real conviction that a Cup is truly imminent. I'm tired of optimism being dashed year after year. But looking at it rationally, it's too soon in his tenure to draw any conclusions about PG's boldness and true will to win.

    As for your evidence:

    -I don't rate 'letting guys walk' so you can re-up other guys, for instance, as particularly 'bold.' A far gutsier move would have been to re-sign Wiz (if feasible) and then restructure the lineup as needed in order to keep Subban and Price when the time came. 'Not letting Markov walk' - this also fails to qualify as 'bold.' Both of the above are examples of sticking with the status quo rather than letting events (Markov's injuries, Wiz's career season) alter your intentions.

    -Getting Emelin to cross the pond? Hardly 'bold.' Is this what it's come to, where actually convincing a draft pick to play for your team constitutes bold GMing? :huh:

    -The Halak deal is more like it. A major move that makes the team better going forward. Not, I'd note, a move to make us contenders NOW, however.

    -Cole was unquestionably a good move in the short term, and I like the willingness to shrug off the capologists' angst in order to bag the guy we wanted. A good sign of the will to win.

    You're right that PG's fate may ultimate hinge on how he handles the Gomez file. If he doesn't get it right, we can probably kiss goodbye to any real hope that the 'Gionta' edition of the Habs will ever contend. Markov's knee and how he handles that, however it plays out, is also critical.

  3. How is this team going to be better in 2-3 years. They really have to get some lottery picks, to be good in the future. If I'm price or MaxPac and see the team not doing what it takes to be competitive, I walk when I'm a UFA in 2-3 years. Ditto with Subban.

    While I don't subscribe to either the 'lottery' theory or the idea that all our good players are just dying to blow town, I do tend to agree with you that we should be trying to build a winner NOW. There is no particularly fabulous crop of youngsters on the horizon - just a steady trickle of good-to-middling players, from the little I can see. That's the whole challenge: to get the team to that 'next level' without tanking for five years.

    So I wasn't saying it's a good idea to tread water now until some influx of great Young Studs arrives. I was asking whether it is what the organization is in fact doing, instead of taking bold steps to address glaring issues (especially the #2 C slot) and get us over the hump.

    I live in Vancouver, and the Habs at present remind me a little bit of the Canucks when GM Mike Gillis took over. At the time, the Canucks were a decent team; he said the Canucks could contend, but it would take 'a couple of bold moves' to get them there. It turns out that his 'bold moves,' like signing Mats Sundin, didn't all work out. But he got there eventually, and not by being afraid to think big. Chicago, Boston, Philly, San Jose - such teams aren't afraid of that big, chancy move to try to get to that next level. They think big. Do we?

  4. Er, just to be clear, I'm not saying Gauthier should be fired!! - but I *am* questioning whether this organization is deeply, truly serious about contending this season, or whether it's happy just to be 'pretty good.' In some ways it's an unanswerable question, but I remain slightly uneasy about the answer.

  5. I'm kinda glad this thread came up. I think it's ridiculous to fire Gauthier because he hasn't fired JM; and I won't bother reiterating the reasons why JM should not be fired (yet). Some have been mentioned in this thread, thankfully.

    My question is this. Is this organization truly committed to doing everything possible to ice a contender right now? Or is it happy to have a team that's good enough to have shot if it stays healthy and gets some breaks (which is what, on paper, we seem to have), while hoping we can get better in the future?

    Two cases in point: the #2 C slot, and Wisniewski.

    It is obvious for all to see that our #2C slot is a mess. Neither DD nor Eller, God love 'em both, qualify as truly serious options there if the goal is to contend. A Gomez who has returned to his pre-2010-11 form might qualify. Then again, his salary is a major impediment to improving the team in other areas.

    So fans can well ask why the team has not moved heaven and earth to fix this problem. Now, maybe we are trying to do so. But there's certainly no indication of that. And I do not believe that a Philly, Boston, Vancouver, Chicago, San Jose or other team with serious designs on winning a Stanley Cup would put up with this situation: they'd launch a bold, risky strike for the brass ring, cap be damned. Why aren't we?

    Wisniewski: I realize that the deal he eventually signed was probably unrealistic for us given the cap. But I cannot understand why the Canadiens made no serious overtures to Wiz last season. To me, it was a no-brainer that IF we could keep both Wiz and Markov we would have one of the very best defence corps in the entire NHL - which would both drive our offence up several notches and further protect Price. I can accept losing Wiz, but I have trouble accepting that a team which was really serious about winning right now would happily let an elite offensive defenceman walk without even sussing him out about conditions under which he'd stay. That doesn't speak to an organization that is truly urgent about contending.

    Final thought: back when Gainey blew up the team in 2010, I suggested that the new team was a 'rebuild in disguise.' These guys were here to keep us competitive while we brought along the nucleus of youth that would allow us eventually to contend. So now I ask: are we seeing this play out? Is gauthier's REAL agenda to cross his fingers in the present and hope for better 2-3 years down the line?

  6. I don't think sitting back is Jacques Martin's game plan though, he's always said he wants the Habs to be a puck possession team. It's just that with Markov out, this defence sucks and the Habs have to either run and gun, hoping they'll outscore the other teams (don't see it happening) or go into a defensive shell, relying on their PP and goaltending. With a full line up, they're a deep team. Right now, their D isn't playoff team quality. The only way to disguise that is to play all out team defence. Attacking more will probably just expose Diaz and Weber even more.

    This is about when Gauthier trades a 2nd rounder for a #4 d-man.

    Bingo. And if the Martin-haters saw any other team icing the kind of back end we are icing, they would accept it as a glaringly obvious fact that that team has to play a total team commitment to defence, because the talent back there is substandard. And incidentally, JM's teams in Montreal have consistently HAD good breakout passes when they have consistently had talent back there to provide them.

    This year's D is last year's D minus Hammer and Wisniewski. No duh,it has serious limitations.

    In response to a minor point Commandant made, I wouldn't go so far as to say Weber is a bad player. He may just be going through the kind of growng pains that invariably strike young players. That he is doing so is not necessarily JM's fault - if you focus on results (i.e., the only actual evidence we have) it is glaringly obvious that JM has done a fine job of bringing our young guys along - but it's also not necessarily proof of Weber's intrinsic mediocrity. He's only 22; I don't want this to be yet another case of us throwing away a guy after suffering his growing pains, so he can go be a valuable player elsewhere.

  7. Gomez was playing very, very well prior to his injury. The haters will never admit that of course. Still, I'm sceptical that he'll help much on his return because his game is 90% speed, and groin injuries are notoriously hard to recover from short term. Campoli might well prove to be a more valuable addition.

    I've been saying all along, the PP has been THE problem all season long. We're demonstrably quite good in most other areas. Give us an average power-play, we've got at least 2-3 more wins and are comfortably ensconced in playoff position, and nobody is going on about how ineradicably mediocre we are, how should tank to get a lottery pick, or how Gauthier should be fired. (They'd still be calling for Martin's head after every loss, though, because, you know, it's Montreal ;) )

  8. No, fire him because he can't keep working lines together, won't reward players who are producing points, won't demote players who are hurting the team, can't put together a working PP and can't put together a sustainable offensive strategy, and doesn't know his own players.

    Kostitsyn is always getting shafted in ice time, with Moen as a linemate, Gomez is always getting a free pass to ice-time and oppertunities to succeed and is doing nothing with it. Martin has his core of players that he deems to be his offensive core and will give them all the offensive ice time even when their not producing. He doesn't adapt when other players produce points. The team is struggling under him, and the change needs to be made fast to give the Habs a chance to make the playoffs.

    Only people who don't agree are the ones who are apparently happy with where the Habs are sitting in the standings and don't want to make the playoffs. Defend Martin all you want, reality is is has a sub-0.500 win percent with this team and in today's NHL thats not acceptable.

    ALL COACHES SHUFFLE LINES ALL THE TIME FOR ALL SORTS OF REASONS. Of all the arguments against JM this one is the absolute lamest. Any other coach we bring in here will do the same damned thing. Get over it.

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  9. It would be interesting to see what would happen if Habs' GMs did what other GMs around the league do, namely interact with the media and even the fans on a fairly reliable basis. In Vancouver, for instance, Mike Gillis regularly comes on The Team 1040 and even fields caller questions. In the process, he is a ble to provide a coutner-narrative to the invariably negative, paranoid, and fatuous fan-media discourse. It adds balance to the mix and ultimately, perhaps, helps to keep things on a more even keel than they'd otherwise be. You can argue that by failing to respond to the innumerable attacks on JM or other such criticisms, as well as by keeping everyone needlessly in the dark on issues like Markov's knee, the Habs fuel a culture of paranoia and negativity around their team. Gauthier should go on the radio or TV on a regular basis and explain what the Habs are doing and why.

  10. One of the small tragedies of Markov's career is that he started suffering catastrophic injuries at the point where the Habs had finally gotten around to being a good team. Except for 2008, he really hasn't been a major factor during what I would regard as the 'good years' of this century (2010, 2011). (Well, OK, there was the 'miracle run' of 2006).

  11. Assuming that Markov isn't finished, the Habs should be looking for a bona-fide upgrade at C - an upgrade on Nokonleinen wouldn't be bad, but really, it's that pesky #1A slot that needs work - not adding more fringe players and problematic 'projects.' I tend to favour leaving things more or less alone and waiting for the team to (somehow) get healthy...or else making a big move for Staal, Stastny or Ryan. We've got plenty of middling-to-low quality depth and don't need more.

  12. This!

    I have been saying throughout the fire Martin hooplah, that the team at it's current state and all of the injuries has not been good enough. If the team is not good enough with a healthy team, I want Gautier gone. Him and gainey are the ones that put these lil fellers out there.

    We have been borderline with an injury-decimated roster. The evidence is strongly in favour of the conclusion that this team when healthy is significantly better than last year's team and therefore a clear-cut playoff club. So on that basis, there's no case for firing Gauthier.

  13. But hold on here. Last season, without Markov, Gorges, and Pacioretty, and without a single player other than Wiz having anything resembling a 'career year,' this team was comfortably above bubble status, and gave the Bruins what their GM referred to as their toughest series. So, last year's squad was something better than 'mediocre.'

    What, then, has changed? Let's see:

    1. We lost Hamrlik and Wisniewski

    2. We lost Haplern

    3. We added Cole, Gorges, and Pacioretty

    It seems to me that if we can insert Markov (and to a lesser degree Campoli) into the lineup, and stay tolerably healthy, we should be better than last year's team. Markov replaces Wiz; Campoli + Gorges replace Hammer; Cole and Pacioretty bring added size and speed up front.

    Of course there's a difference between the team on paper and the team in reality. It just seems to me that all this pessimism is predicated on evaluating an injury-ravaged lineup and taking it as the 'true' representation of the team. But you know, coming to a definitive conclusion that we are a .500 team after a road trip undertaken without Patches, Markov, Campoli, White, Spacek, and even Gomez, and while Cammy and Gionta are mired in slumps, just strikes me as unduly negative.

  14. Pure spin. We are in the botton third of the league. We will see more backups until we prove to other teams they need their number one guy. It doesn't mean we will only see backups, depends on schedules, but teams are not afraid of us.

    Do you think they would play Bernier for Boston, Pitts, Philly, Chicago, etc. ?

    I don't know why some of you guys can't face facts. We are an average team with injuries. When they come back, we are an average team.

    We do have one of the best goalies in the league which masks many issues, but how long can we be so dependent on our goalie being lights out good?

    Our goalie is Carey Price. This means we can rely on lights-out good goaltending 98% of the time.

    I heard the same song and dance during the Roy years. My answer is always the same: the goalie counts. He is part of the team.

    So any assessment of our supposed 'mediocrity' should incorporate an analysis of the goaltending.

    All that said, I think it's clear we are a bubble team with the present defensive alignment - maybe a bit above that with everyone healthy. Add Markov and Campoli, things look rather different. Whether we will be able to add Markov, that's another question.

  15. The sour tone of this thread is interesting, considering that we just registered an important win :rolleyes: Instead of satisfaction that so many players are in fact playing well, that the team put in two very hard-working efforts after that abortion in Anaheim, and that we're gutting out points even without Markov, Pacioretty or a (sigh) 2nd-line C, there's just griping about various things, from Subban to the fact that we were scrambly in the last two minutes or that Kostitsyn has not been locked up long-term. Sheesh. Angry when things go wrong, angry when things go right.

  16. There's something to the notion that the team will get a perverse psychological life from this bad news about Markov. They're just like the rest of us, Waiting for Godot. Now there is some clarity and the players know they have no one to fall back on but themselves.

    That being said, this sucks. We're now consigned to clinging to life until mid-January...which is perilously close to running out of time to make big decisions should Markov's recovery hit a further setback.

  17. Yeah, you'd think people would have figured out that Montreal one of the worst cities in which to hire rookie coaches. Yet from Tremblay onward, that's pretty much all we hired, and while some performed well, not one - except maybe Vigneault - did anything extraordinary. In two cases, Carbo and Therrien, the results were quasi-disastrous.

    The Lightning are 3-6 in their last 9, while Muller has lost his first two games. In either case, Montreal fans would be braying: calling for Boucher's firing because he's 'lost the room' and 'plays a boring system' on the one hand, calling for Gauthier's head on the other ('even a coaching change couldn't save this awful team, blahblahblah).

    Hearts, I think your 'twinkle in the eye' remark is fair comment. But people keep comparing JM to their imaginary idea of a perfect coach. The REALITY, again, is that Bowman, Lemaire, and Bylsma are not available, and any other coach would also perform inadequately by the standards of perfection demanded by these fans. It's all nuts in my book.

  18. The Habs (and JM) can't win with their fans. If they give the kid tons of ice and he struggles, which he likely would eventually , then they 'ruined' him by throwing him into the fire too soon. If they bring the kid along gradually (i.e., properly, in my opinion) they get accused of stifling his development. Commandant, I like your pointed question about who he should replace, and the inability to answer it nicely captures the shell game that fans all too often play as back-seat drivers. That Eller generally looks good should be taken as an indicator that he is developing correctly, not that he is being mishandled.

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  19. Crawford did a solid job in Dallas despite missing the playoffs, and was fired, I believe, more because the new GM wanted his own man than for reasons of performance. He also seems to have altered his coaching style with the times. He would presumably bring a more uptempo philosophy to the team and would, I suspect, perform credibly. There is a question mark about his ability to either handle the pressure or help his players handle the pressure, given the appalling Bertuzzi incident. But that was a while ago.

    Will he be better than JM? I see no evidence of that myself. JM isn't perfect, but the only coaches who fit that description are Jacques Lemaire, Dan Byslma, and Scotty Bowman. And none of those guys are available. JM belongs in the same category as maybe a dozen other guys who are proven, quality NHL coaches; and unless a truly elite substitute enters the market, a coaching change'd be a lateral move at best. Especially as there is zero evidence of the team tuning him out or quitting on him.

    As for his not being a 'winner,' well, it's hard to win a Cup these days, and Cup-winning coaches don't necessarily turn out to be all that great once they move on; e.g., Crawford, Hartley. JM did have problems getting his young and Euro-heavy Ottawa squad to man up in the playoffs, but he has also extracted every ounce of this team two playoffs running. So I'm not really buying the 'not a winner' argument either. You could have said the same thing about Demers, Burns, or Julien.

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  20. I can't speak for anyone else, I can only speak for myself, but what I hate about the JM coaching style is the passive aggressive nature of the way his teams play. Instead of trying to build on a lead, they sit back way too often and let the other team come at them. I heard on the radio this morning that apparently as soon as the Habs scored their 3rd goal in teh 3rd period, they sat back. Forwards would move the puck past the red line and dump it in and then go change lines. Instead of going for that extra goal, they sit back, and too often it comes back to bite them in the ass.

    Someone said in another thread that the Habs were 3rd in the league on the PK and in Shots allowed. Yes, that is a very good thing, however, the Habs need to be good on the PK and in shots allowed cause they don't score any goals. Maybe if we had that Killer instinct, we wouldn't have lost the games where we had 1 and 2 goal leads (against Pittsburgh and S-J)...

    The lack of goals scored is seriously compounded by PP impotence. Like I say, so much comes back to the ineffectual power-play, it's not even funny. In every other respect this team is doing quite well.

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