The Chicoutimi Cucumber
-
Posts
19437 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
482
Posts posted by The Chicoutimi Cucumber
-
-
I'm not worried. Preseason, shmre-season.
-
this is off topic but;
With Gionta, Cammalleri, Gomez, Desharnais, Plekanec already in line up for next couple years, how could Gallagher ever be added? A team cant have 6 small forwards in the top 9 can it?
If any team can, it'd be us!
In truth, though, are all those guys gonna be around in 2-3 years, when Gallagher (realistically) will be a major lineup regular, assuming he makes the NHL at all? (Also, is Gomer Pyle realy 'small' per se? He's listed at 200 lbs. Really, he's not so much 'small' as 'not big'). I wouldn't worry about it too much.
-
I'm no expert on Campoli, but at face value I like this signing. Better this, than wasting picks in mid-season like we've done for two of the past three years in order to fill holes on defence. I have said for some time that it is naive to rely on unproven commodities like Weber, Diaz, and Emelin to provide quality NHL minutes, and given Markov's recent history we need proven NHLers who can move the puck should #79 miss a lot of time. A perfectly sensible acquisition.
(I wouldn't proceed to move Weber, though. Of the three players listed above he is the one with at least some meaningful NHL experience; better to let him and Campoli fight it out for that roster spot).
-
For any lingering nervous nellies: I remember one year in the late 90s, we finished first or second overall in the preseason. Everyone was excited. Well, it didn't take long to come back to earth and relearn that our team was a wretched pile of lizard guano. Preseason means EXACTLY nothing. How a veteran performs means nothing. How a team performs means nothing. How a rookie performs means only that he may be given a chance in the regular season; but a strong preseason rookie performance is still almost meaningless as an indicator of how he will do once the games start mattering. This whole thing may be necessary in order for players to shake the rust out and coaches to implement new systems. But it is a farce in terms of competition - at best a curio allowing you to distinguish which rookies seem further along in their development. Any further inference should be avoided.
-
Subban has a day to day upper body.. I suspect that means a tweaked muscle, very common in the first few games. Vets in the exhibition sit out if they have any minor injury.
Can you imagine if he turns out to be injury-prone all season and Markov stays healthy?
-
Glad to hear that MaxPac is scoring. Preseason means diddly-squat, but under the circumstances, it's huge for him. A good preseason will send him into the real games with confidence in his body and himself - just what the doctor ordered.
-
No question. Look, in the old days, players just didn't do this sort of thing to each other nearly as often; you couldn't do it, in a helmet-less age, without killing guys or crippling them for life, and those norms lingered for many years even after helmets became standard. So it is perfectly possible for players to control themselves. The challenge is to put back into the game a basic 'respect' that has been taken out of it. The only sure-fire way to do it is to make penalties so serious that players will be forced to unlearn these bad habits.
-
Video of Shanahan explaining his decision at the bottom of this page : http://blogues.cyber...brillant-homme/
Aha! Thanks. So:
1. Illegal play (as per 'new boarding rule,' which is excellent)
2. Player was injured on the play
3. Offender has suspension history
I don't like the weight Shanahan gave to #3, because it still gives an escape-hatch to a player like Chara who, while normally law-abiding, develops a clear vendetta against a specific opponent and acts it out. On balance, however, Shanahan did NOT make reference to 'intent' but rather focuses on the action itself (yay!) and gives a clarity to the process that has never before existed. An outstanding first move by Shanny.
-
Can I ask - did Shanahan make reference to 'intent' when he handed down these verdicts? Because that's always struck me as the most inane aspect of NHL discipline, this presumption to understand the inner psyche of players that ultimately resulted in well-liked players like Chara getting off scott free where an unpopular guy like Cooke would have been crucified.
-
A rejuvenated Spacek will make a big difference to our bottom-pairing options on a blueline that has me somewhat worried over its lack of proven, quality depth. There's the usual excitement over junior-age players who may never amount to a hill of beans, but this is the bit of news from camp that's really promising if you ask me.
-
Habs29 is sharp to observe that these guys are no-names and that the acid test is still to come. As for Brian's comment, the question is whether Shanahan is his own man or Bettman's lackey. I have a hard time believing that Brendan Shanahan - champion, hard-nosed SOB, independently wealthy - is anybody's lapdog, but time will tell. I don't see how anyone can deny that this is a good start at least.
-
Two thumbs up. And thank God, because the NHL *had* to get this right - both from a marketing standpoint and, more importantly, for the sake of simple human decency. If they keep this up, in a few years nobody will be able to believe that the Chara hit was dismissed as a 'hockey play.' You go, Shanahan!
-
Fun to read a GDT again, even if I pay minimal attention to the preseason. And fun to read about promising kids, although nobody should be getting excited about ANY rookie until they've had a few *actual* NHL games.
I'm intrigued by the positive reports about Spacek, though. If he can raise his game that will go some distance to solidifying our D.
-
Hamrlik didn't paper Markov's absence last season. If Subban had not raised his game and Gauthier had not brought in Wiz then the Habs would have likely struggled like they did without Markov in Hammers first three seasons.
The difference between you and I is that I trust Gauthier. As for getting upset about a 2nd rounder I could care less. I just watched Burke rebuild his minor league system while missing picks all over the place. At a certain point there will be no roster spot for Kristo or Leblanc etc and they can be dealt for picks, if they do force their way on the roster the guys who they will replace can be dealt for picks to make up for the precious second rounder they deal.
I got caught in linear thinking like this with the cap only to watch teams do all types of moves to get under it. It is constantly evolving and players who you view as stiffs today could have a Pacioretty like rise over 50 games.
Well, it's not that I mistrust Gauthier exactly; I'm agnostic on that question. It's more that I've learned over the years that, despite all the preseason hype, most rookies are fundamentally unreliable. This is often even more true in the playoffs. So it's fine to say that what matters is who's healthy in the playoffs, but if Markov (or Subban) get hurt in the playoffs, then our lack of proven/quality NHL depth on defence will become even more serious. The only qualifier here is that we might be able to pick up a Hamrlik-type at the deadline...although hopefully not for yet another high pick. All I'm really saying is that I don't trust the defence corps as presently constituted. The top 4 is strong, but depth-wise that is not a Cup contender's blueline.
As for managing picks and the cap, I'd point out that Burke replenished his stock of picks by trading quality veterans like Kaberle, which he was able to do because his team was a steaming mound of dog feces with little chance of making the playoffs and no chance of winning the Cup. But the goal for the Habs is to become like the Devils or Wings were for all those years - which means rebuilding on the fly, without going through years as a bottom-feeder. So the situation seems to be different.
-
No question the Habs' D has sufficient depth to paper over the absence of Markov for a short span. But I begin from the proposition that raw rookies cannot be relied upon for anything more than temporary relief; and I'm surprised to read as wise an observer as Wamsley telling me to put my faith in guys like Emelin and Diaz who may not even last one season in the NHL.
What the team had with Hamrlik, and perhaps no longer has without him, is the accomplished, minutes-eating veteran defensive depth that would allow the team to succeed without Markov for a sustained period of time. I may be wrong about this, of course. But when you subtract a defencemen who played 20+ minutes per night for us over the past four seasons, and replace him with completely raw rookies while crossing your fingers on a guy who has been collossally injury-prone, that should be cause for concern. Even WITH Markov we are relying on a bottom-pairing of Spacek and Weber. Take him out of the picture and you're depending on guys who have only a vague idea what the NHL/North American game entails.
I also don't understand the breezy attitude to throwing away picks year after year to paper over holes that, year after year, go unaddressed. The same people shrugging off the Habs' bizarre annual procilivity for wasting 2nd-rounders would be the first to tell you that, in a cap world, you need to stockpile picks. Instead we bleed them, over and over, to 'quick fix' our blueline when this should be done off-season.
All this being said, I hope that I'm wrong. If Markov stays reasonably healthy then these anxieties may turn out to be moot. That's kinda my problem, though: if, if, if... Too many things go wrong every year for this fingers-crossing to be a reassuring team-building strategy.
-
That photo is hilarious. At least he's not Kyle Wellwood bad! But considering the emphasis JM places upon conditioning, I'm willing to bet Emelin is already getting the evil eye. How he responds to Martin's prompting will be important, I'd speculate, in determining whether he's going to move into the doghouse.
Oh come on boys. Yemelin will be ship shape in no time.. So he drank beer and played Call of Duty all summer, no biggie right?
In contrast it looks like Kosty is already in fine form.
Looking for big things from this guy in 2012:
WOW!
I look for big things from him for about 30 games, along with about 50 where he seems to be skating around in a daze. In other words: the usual.
-
ahh, thanks Wams.
Its great to be back for another season. I'll be getting a head start by seeing the Habs play the Bruins on Sept 25th in Halifax. Should be interesting. Watch for me on RDS. I will be holding a Habs World banner and wearing a #47 Lebeau jersey.
As far as Markov goes. When he got hurt again I said he would never play in a Habs uniform again. I haven't been wrong yet.
This guy is finished. Even if he does come back and play it will only be a matter of time before he's out again.
The problem you see, is his mental state, not so much the knee..
Well, when Markov skates out onto NHL ice for his first game back, will you be prepared to admit "you've been wrong?" Nah. I'll bet you're more likely to say, if and when he gets hurt again in some way, shape or form, that you were right all along.
You're overstating your case and therefore making it into mush. The question isn't whether he'll play again. All medical reports we've gotten say he can and will. He says he can and will. The Habs say he can and will. The question is, rather, whether he will be damaged goods when he does return: less than the horse he used to be, prone to endless injuries, etc..
You claim to base your apocalyptic prediction on some psychic knowledge of his inner state. I didn't know The Amazing Kreskin was registered on this board.
All this being said, my problem isn't that we resigned him, it's that we didn't retain enough proven veteran talent on D to protect ourselves should Markov's pattern of injury continue. But nobody except me seems to mind the prospect of endlessly pissing away 2nd-round picks in desperate midseason efforts to paper over holes on the blueline.
-
Judas Priest. I'm trying not to overreact, but this gets to what I've maintained for a while - the D has too many question marks and Hammer probably should have been retained. Oh well, maybe it'll all work out
-
I'm trying to figure out what kind of trade value Turris has. I'm stumped. More than Eller, and if so, by how much? Weber plus Palsuhaj? Kostitsyn?
It is a stumper, isn't it? If we'd traded Halak for Turris I don't think anyone, either Phoenix or Habs fans, would have fallen on the floor in shock at the iniquity of the deal. If we'd traded Halak PLUS [high pick, or decent prospect like Weber, etc.] for Turris, then I think Habs fans likely would have been indignant at the perceived rip-off. So maybe his value isn't, or shouldn't, be all that much higher than what Eller's value turned out actually to be.
OK - but then what does that mean? There's no 'Halak' equivalent in play and MaxPac/Subban are presumably not touchable in this context. So we must be looking at a package...Weber +, as you say. The "+" might be a high pick (2nd rounder?) or a useful veteran the Habs don't expect to keep long-term (Kostitsyn, maybe even Gomez, if Phoenix is a cap-floor team; but once Gomez comes in you're probably looking at a multi-player deal on both sides). What I think, given the investment Phoenix has in Turris, is that any deal will involve something we don't want to give up. It won't be Desharnais + a 4th rounder, even if that represents 'fair value' in some objective sense.
-
Turris presumably has a lot of potential - I know Phoenix originally saw him as a future cornerstone - although I never saw anything terribly exciting and his numbers have thus far been mediocre. Still, he's a rangy young C with promise, and that has to interest the Habs.
I wouldn't get too worked up, though. If Phoenix rates him as a key player that they have to part with for contractual reasons, then they'll probably want high-quality youth in return - e.g., MaxPac or (if they really do see Turris as a future star) PK. Now if we could swing a deal involving Gomer, or get Turris for a Weber, or a Desharnais + a good pick, well then that might make some kinda sense.
-
Vancouver radio reporting that the Habs are one of three interested in Kyle Turis, whose negotiations are not going well in Phoenix, apparently.
-
Old timer Hamrlik? he was gassed the last 2 years come spring and uneasy about d, they will be fine? Off-topic i know.
I would guess the reason would be a bit of 1 and 3, but Gauthier seems to be very hard to read, but i have be pleased with almost every one he has made so far and dont see extra $ as a big problem or failure.
I have a feeling that Hammer will prove to be a very canny signing by the Caps, who had the best off-season of any team. This is shaping up to be their year IMHO. Typical of Montreal fans to criticize the guy for having been done yeoman's work being hugely over-taxed due to injuries. Without Hammer, I seriously doubt we'd have enjoyed the success we did over the last two seasons. Anyway, as for our D, I tend to side with Red Fisher: too many question marks. I am reassured by the cap flexibility that Gautheir has left himself if he needs to fix it, but if we end up throwing away still more good picks in order to paper over the defence, I will be pretty pissed.
-
One of the traditions of our parliamentary system is that it makes the Official Opposition party essentially not so much left or right wing, but anti-whatever the government is doing. In that light, we can't say for sure that the Alliance Party of 2003 would have went into Iraq if they were the governing party... they wouldn't have had the same obligations to the Canadian people in their role as the government as they did back then (which was to represent an opposing view). Certainly, after the fact, Harper has admitted that his party's stance was wrong back then, but we can't know for certain that they would have followed, although their reasoning for following back then (both US and UK were going, essentially) would lend itself to the conclusion that they would have went. The Canadian public back then was against going, though, and politicians do realize that entering a war without public support isn't exactly a good move.
In your last paragraph, you talk about a rational discussion of objectives, but I guess if you are accepting war you are accepting the loss of life, including bystanders. Cold rational analysis would calculate that into the 'worthiness' of going to war. The goal of Afghanistan was actually pretty clear: to remove a regime that harboured international terrorists, who attacked the United States in their territory. To get to the terrorists, the Taliban had to be toppled. Once the Taliban were toppled, a new regime would have to be installed and they would have to be able to run a secure nation. Right from the start, there was warnings about the 1980s conflicts and that we could be in Afghanistan for over a decade in order to stabilize it. NATO invoked a clause that the member nations considered it an attack on a fellow member, and all countries within NATO were called into action. It wasn't a NATO force, but it had the full support of the allies, of which Canada was one.
As per Iraq, you're correct in your skepticism, as were many other nations at the time. Canada didn't act alone in their refusal to enter that war, a majority of the European Union and I believe New Zealand and Japan didn't join, etc. The Iraq invasion also compromised the Afghanistan mission and exposed Canadian troops to the full force of the conflict. The goals of Afghanistan remained the same in this time, but unfortunately the Iraq invasion helped the Taliban make it into a guerilla war. The goals weren't obtuse or unknown anymore: the strategy was terrible and the results were the issue.
To me, the shift of Canada to the right is simply a matter of the country's age. The sellout generation is at retirement age now, and the rest of us are left to pick up the slack for them.
Not sure about the last part - it's elderly voters who are sending right-wingers to power, not the disaffected young, who for the most part don't vote. The rest is solid analysis. My only quibble is that I never accepted that destroying Al-Qaeda required wiping out the Taliban; that seemed to me (and a number of experts) to be a classic case of redefining an unconventional "war" to suit conventional methods. The point, though, is that we never even had that discussion, because everybody was uncritically rushing to the side of the U.S. in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 atrocity. As for whether the hundreds of thousands of killed and maimed innocents are factored in by the hawks, I think that it's clearly not so. I doubt that most Americans, or their leaders, gave five minutes' thought to the Iraqi children and families whose lives their government was gearing up to destroy (a cataclysmic moral failure typical of any war-minded country, not just America under Bush). The "realists" couldn't care less about such "bleeding heart" considerations. But those are precisely the sort of considerations that would constitute an honest and therefore mature approach to war. And that's why I'm uneasy with the Jets' decision to align themselves to this sadly hawkish turn in our political life.
-
Sorry, don't see that at all. I get that it aligns itself with the air force, but co-opting that logo does not represent a political agenda, or make a statement on the usage of such force. You can be supportive of the people involved in the pursuit and even wear their colours and still believe that war is reprehensible and should only be used in the manner you subscribe. Heck, you can wear the colours in support of the men and women that make up the force and be 100% pacifist.
I hate it when people use the honouring of the military, the deceased, etc., as a means to their political agenda. But because you honour the military does not mean you honour a political agenda.
I'd prefer the Jets did not homage the military because in hockey that tends to lead to Don Cherry style grandstanding. It definitely seems to align itself with conservative Canada, something quite prevalant in the hockey community, but it does not necessarily do so simply by using a logo like this, holding military nights, etc.
No offence, but you want to know why generations of people find the Liberal party arrogant and condascending? Part of it is in the first sentence in that paragraph. A 'much more mature attitude to war' is completely a matter of perspective, not a fact. Quite frankly, Trudeau's handling of the October Crisis didn't seem to align with this line of thinking at all.
Anyways, I don't like the military motif, either because it simply opens up the logo to misuse and what not. Also, I'm not entirely sure why they have to be so blunt about the fact that the team is located in Canada, as if anyone was going to forget. There were also way better designs out there put forth by amateurs, so when this came out it was very disappointing even from an aesthetic point of view.
The uniforms themselves look pretty good, though. The striping on the sleves on the whites is kind of awkward because they decided to put a blue stripe all the way down the arms, but other than that it's a nice, clean design.
On the first point, I'm not sure we disagree. You say that using the logo doesn't intrinsically align itself to militarism - which may be true - but basically concede that in the present context, it does, as per the boldfaced part. And we both dislike the kind of statement implied, in the present context. There's nothing to be gained in putting our hands over our ears and singing la-la-la while the practical reality is that the Jets are symbolically aligning themselves with a realignment of Canadian values. These things don't happen in a vacuum.
On the second point, I didn't say that Pearson and Trudeau had a more mature attitude; I said that Canadians in the Pearson/Trudeau era - actually, I should have said the Pearson/Trudeau/Mulroney/Chretien eras - had a more mature attitude to war. Proving this would require a sophisticated use of running public opinion surveys, and it may be that the wider public hasn't changed, so much as the governing and media elites. I'll grant that it can be hard to distinguish between the public and elite opinon. What we can say is that the current government would have poured Canadian blood and treasure into Iraq while the Chretien government did not.
Now, what's a "mature" attitude to war? Clearly, this is a matter of opinion, but that shouldn't rule out any discussion of the matter. There's a school of thought that sees any form of "squeamishness" about war as a form of pie-in-the-sky immaturity; and it's worth noting that the proponents of this supposedly "realistic" view were hot to trot to drag Canada into the Iraqi bloodbath, as though that were self-evidently a requirement of sensible foreign policy. These "realists" also poured scorn on "Taliban Jack" Layton for proposing that we negotiate with the Taliban in Afghanistan, when two years later the generals were conceding that we would have to do precisely that. Who has been the "realist" here? The "bleeding heart peaceniks" who wanted crazy things like actual evidence of WMDs in Iraq, or a rational discussion of our objectives in Afghanistan; or the "realists" who want to rush in with unclear goals, waste billions of dollars, incinerate and kill untold thousands of innocents as "collateral damage," not to mention our own soliders, and then withdraw with relatively little accomplished? You can guess which position I'd consider "mature." The "realists" seem to hold a view of the world as a gigantic first-person shooter video game.
Tampa vs Montreal, Sept. 29 7:30 pm
in Habs & Hockey Talk
Posted
It's legit to be concerned about our blueline (as I have been saying all along), but that should be based on an assessment of the personnel rather than the preseason. Defensive zone coverage is as much a function of team play and commitment as it is talent. JM teams always are tightwads defensively; I'd expect the coverage to improve once the season starts.
Campoli made some nice plays, but I notice he missed the net repeatedly with his shot. Isn't that part of the book on him - that he can't get his shot on net with consistency? Maybe we should get used to it.