The Chicoutimi Cucumber
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Posts posted by The Chicoutimi Cucumber
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We won, great. But who delivered the perfect tape to tape pass on that pathetic attempt at getting the puck out? Instead of getting it deep, he feathered it to a Ranger defenceman. My wife even noticed.
I believe I know the one Habsy means - one of the absolute worst attempts to clear the zone this season, a pass from behind the red line right across the front Price's crease and onto the stick of a Ranger. It was so inept it defied belief. That was served up by Wisniewksi.
A bad 3rd period, but hey, that's what all-star goalies are for! If it hadn't been for Lunqvist we could have had five or six, so it evens out, and I'll take it.
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I think what Chris means, is that Habs need some Dustin Brown / Jarome Iginla / Nathan Horton type players. We all know that Moen wins battles along the board...
There's no question that when the Habs are off their game, they tend to lose battles and avoid the dirty areas. And there's no question that we could use a big down-and-dirty power forward in the top-6. At the same time, I take Wamsley's real point to be that it's futile to make sweeping judgements about the team on the basis of a bad game or a slump. The fact is, when we're ON our game we do all those things more than adequately.
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According to H I/O, the team is basically full of sick people suffering from colds and flu. They were just out of gas last night. That's explain all the "lazy" penalties. No cause for recrimination here. The main thing is to get rested up and come back playing properly.
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Didn't see much of this game. Can't say I'm sorry. It sounds like one of those no-show nights that all teams have from time to time and that you just have to file under "Forget It." Hopefully the boys get their act together next time out.
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He was deserving of it last time as well.
2008/09 - 16- 4- 5 2.30 GAA and a .921 SV% 1 SO
2010/11 - 21-14-3 2.31 GAA and a .921 SV% 4 SO
People forget how good he was until his high ankle sprain and his rush to get back to start the All-Star game.
I'd agree, but the Habs-fabs swarming of the ballots to the point that Komisarek made the team tended to devalue the participation of ALL the Habs at that particular game. This time around there can be no question that Price fully deserves it.
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Second time this year we've seen rumblings of extension talks for Gill, but this time apparently the Habs have said they'd like to hold off for now.
If nothing else, it at least implies Gill would like to stick around, could be worse. There are other priorities than him to re-up though.
According to Arpon Basu, Gill is the real leader on this team (scan to the bottom):
If this is right, then he's invaluable. And he should definitely be re-signed.
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I met a man the other night who claims to have played with Bruce Boudreau back in his early years
He now coaches youngsters on his time off... This fella is not the tallest dude out there but built like a fridge... actually reminds me of Bruce Boudreau as a matter of fact. Anywho, he tells me that when it comes to selecting players and making cuts he starts like this...
You tall kids, come this way your automatically in, the rest of you 3 footers go and fight and kill yourselves to make the team.
Its a sad reality but it shows you why you can count on these small ones to have guts determination and most of all MOTIVATION
this sport like anything else glorious in life starts up there in the nut.
I for one am totally into getting all these small chip on yer shoulders midgets! lol
Yup, I too have a thing for the undersized but highly skilled and smart hockey player. Go DD go!
I'm no expert on coaching, but judging from the HBO special Boudreau does not seem to be the sharpest knife in the drawer. I wouldn't put TOO much weight on his coaching practices.
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It's a weird world where Eller goes from being a healthy scratch to a first-line winger.
I'm just saying.I'm becoming a fan of that Desharnais line. Look forward to seeing if they can keep it up, and if Patches can build on his best NHL game yet. And I look forward to the hysteria if McDonagh plays well.
Price is fully deserving of his all-star nod this time, and I'm betting it won't go to his head like before. Nice to see his ridiculous excellence acknowledged. What a comeback season for the young thoroughbred.
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I want nothing to do with the Nordiques. Experience shows that such a team can create a drain on Habs's revenues and in fact increase the pressure to position them as 'francophone' for marketing purposes. Also, rivalries of that intensity can work against a team. Beyond the career-ending injury to Pierre Mondu, it was often remarked back in the 80s that the team that won the provincial series in the playoffs had nothing left thereafter. Those kind of wars we can really do without.
As for the 'French' thing, like Colin I'm fairly sick of the whole canard. While the Habs certainly could have done a better job scouting the province, the real issues are that Quebec is producing shockingly few upper-tier hockey players, and those that do exist have often showed NO interest in playing for Montreal (Briere, Lecavalier). Neither fact is the Habs's fault. As occurs all too often, cries of injustice and victimization rise to the heavens in lieu of painful self-reflection. Quebecers aren't the only people to do this, but I must say they're unusually good at it.
I also like how the discourse has subtly shifted from being able to speak French to being Quebec-born. This allows people to just ignore Benoit Pouliot, not to mention Jacques Martin. The players must also be top-line players. That way we can discount Mathieu Darche, David Desharnais and Alexandre Picard. In any case, Lapierre was not a top-line player...And of course the fact that team management is controlled by a francophone doesn't count either.
All of this being said, in pure hockey terms I'm reconsidering my complete indifference to this trade. There can be no denying that when he was on, Lapierre was capable of being a devastatingly effective agitator and 3rd/4th line C. Festerling is unlikely ever to become one of the best 5th defencemen in the league. So we gave back the player with the most potential. I am concerned that we gave up on Laps because of an inconsistency which is in fact the calling card of young players. It would not surprise me to find him, in a couple of seasons, being a heart and soul guy despised around the league not just for his yapping but for his effectiveness.
It could be argued that Laps quit on the Habs, not the other way around, and that's a legitimate rebuttal to what I'm saying. But was it necessary to push things to that point? It's worth asking.
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If it wasn't for him (Desharnais), Thomas would have seen the shot and the save would have been an easy one.
Desharnais played well most of the night. So far so good for the Ultimate Smurf as far as I'm concerned.
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I'm too lazy to check if anyone has posted it, but it seems Cammi is just sick, not injured. As per RDS. I'm blissfully unaware of what the Bruins/CBC crew said after the game, I refuse to watch. They must be having a cow in Toronto.
Yeah, why anybody watches the CBC feed if they have access to RDS is beyond me. I fail to see why my tax dollars should pay for Mike Milbury to call the Habs 'cockroaches.'
Cammy has a virus. This makes me wonder whether the team as a whole has been suffering from it. It happens a lot - the flu works its way through a dressing room - and is often a contributor to a slump. Who knows.
HI/O also offers an explanation for the weird PP in overtime. Neither Wiz nor Subban wanted to shoot the puck because the ice in the Bruins' end was so bad, the puck wouldn't sit flat. I was wondering.
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AWESOME win!!! And potentially a crucial one in psychological terms. If that doesn't put the wind in their sails it's hard to see what will. Great shot by MaxPac, too.
In my now-forgotten earlier post in this thread, I didn't mean to say out core sucks, just that it hasn't been playing well. Ultimately those guys - or what's left of them -are the key.
But for now: WOOOOOOOOOOOO!
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That is one tough cookie of a game out there. The Bruins are giving us NOTHING. And unfortunately ye Habs just don't have the horses to make something happen.
Gomez, Cammy, and lately even Gio and Plekanec just aren't bringing their "A" games - for whatever reason (we don't know). Throw in the catastrophic Markov injury and a declining or hobbled Hammer and the Habs simply have too much of their core talent more or less MIA. Indeed, all the ranting about long-gone mediocre players (you think Grabs, O'Byrne and SK 74 would make the difference? Really - ?) is missing this deeper point. The fact that our best trio tonight just might be the Desharnais line speaks volumes. It's our core guys that are being substantially outplayed by the other teams' core guys, night in and night out. Until that changes, we will struggle.
Same old story. Your best players have to be your best players. The end.
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I don't see why small players can't fit into a defensively responsible system. It's like Desharnais himself says - he's not going to muscle guys off the puck, so he has to be intelligent. If his skills are good and he plays a game of above-average vision, positioning, and on-ice smarts - and if he listens to the coaches - then he has a chance to stick. Martin has proven over and over that he will reward players who listen, commit to the system, and can be relied on to deliver. It's up to Desharnais to realize that and respond.
The illusion lies in confusing Martin with Pat Burns. Burns had a big, strong team that did indeed grind opponents into submission. JM's model seems to me to be fundamentally about puck support and intelligence. So I'm not quite so sure that Desharnais has to be thrown under the bus before he's even begun.
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Since 2008, the Habs have dealt the following picks:
2008 1st (for Tanguay)
2009 2nd (also for Tanguay)
2008 5th (with Rivet for Gorges, Pacioretty*)
2008 6th (with Ribeiro for Ninnimaa, Conboy*)
2010 2nd (dealt to trade up for Tinordi)
2010 3rd (for Schneider)
2010 6th (for 2009 7th, picked Simila)
2011 2nd (for Moore)
2011 2nd (compensatory Fischer pick, for Wisniewski)
2012 conditional 5th (also Wisniewski)
And acquired the following:
2008 5th (with Tanguay, picked Trunev)
2009 2nd (for Huet)
2009 7th (from PIT, picked Simila)
2010 4th (from Tinordi trade up, picked MacMillan)
2011 4th (from ANA in Chipchura trade)
2012 5th (from ANA in Lapierre trade)
* picks acquired but player selected listed instead
Habs acquired a 2010 2nd for Grabovski, dealt it for Lang later on.
Habs acquired a 2009 2nd for Huet, dealt it for Schneider
I think that's all of them.
Whoa! That's impressive work. And it does seem that we've lost significantly more than we've gained on the 'picks' front. So I'm inclined to say, hold on to 'em.
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To answer Wamsley's post in an informed way, I'd have to have a more comprehensive understanding of where we stand relative to draft picks. It *seems* as though we've been dealing away a fair number since 2008 (remember Gainey's binge in 2008-09 as he geared up for Season 100?). If this is so, then Timmins or no Timmins we should be cautious about trading more of them as a bridge for Gorges. If we're basically breaking even then perhaps it's worth dangling one or two for a strong option on the blueline, if any exist.
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I am not sure that it is a big a deal as it sounds. I played for years with two guys who tore their ACL and continued
to play competitive baseball without getting it repaired.
They told me that they were at no risk of further damage. Gorges said that the problem arose when he tore his meniscus
recently.
Maybe I'm thinking of an MCL tear? A physcial therapist I ain't. Oh well, my romantic illusions about this have been shattered.
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WOW. That just might be one of the most astonishing stories of playing through injury I've ever heard. It's up there with Gainey's two separated shoulders.
Even more remarkable is that he's been so damned effective playing through that.
What a warrior! I just hope he didn't permanently damage himself by doing this.
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Does it? His qualifying offer is $3.25 M and if he has another 40-45 point campaign, he's a prime candidate to be non-tendered, which could make him a UFA anyways.
Well, the main thing is that you and I are on the same page in thinking that Habs are unlikely to make any significant move to fix the blueline via a trade!
As for Kostitsyn, I do think there would be teams interested in acquiring him at the deadline as an added weapon. The question remains whether they'd be willing to surrender a #4-5 defenceman for him. I suspect they'd only do so if that defencemen were UFA AND their team has a surplus of defencemen AND they can fit Kostitsyn under the cap. That seems to rule out practically everybody.
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Kostitsyn is a pending RFA, actually.
Sh*t, how'd I miss that?
That ups his trade value for sure. Hmmm. Maybe there's some hope.
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In his press conference Gauthier mentioned Carle and Feasterling. I think we'll see the latter up here in particular before any trade is made; at least he doesn't constitute a raw rookie, what with two half-seasons under his belt.
Shades here of 2009. With injuries to the blueline, Gainey went out and got Schneider. When Schneider then got hurt, he came under pressure to make yet another move. But he chose not to further mortgage the future to salvage a sinking ship.
Gauthier made his move to paper over the loss of Markov when he added Wisniewski. As superlative a deal as that was, he would likely be ill-advised to deal further picks in order to paper over the loss of Gorges (or the playing-through-injuries of Hammer and Spacek). Maybe he could move a guy like Desharnais, but Desharnais likely would not bring back a player of Gorges's quality anyway. I can see the case for adding a legitimate #6 defenceman, but really - how much help is that gonna be? Gorges is one of the best #5 D-men in the league. Desharnais won't bring you that.
Another option is to deal Kostitsyn (an impending UFA) for real help on the back end: presumably some decent-quality defenceman who is also a UFA, if there are any. That'd be a pretty fundamental move that would leave us short two top-6 forwards instead of one - but might really stabilize the blueline.
If I'm Gauthier, I first see what a Desharnais can bring, then maybe I get serious and start shopping Kostitsyn. But it's an open question whether any team would be interested in trading a #4-5 impending-UFA defenceman for a #6 impending-UFA forward. If you're a seller at the deadline it's because you want to hoard picks and youngsters. If you're a buyer you don't want to give up players.
I suppose my point is just that I don't see another 'painless' trade of draft picks being the likely outcome in all this, and any other option will be very difficult to pull off.
Hunker down, it's gonna be a long second half.
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Well, I like what I saw from Desharnais. He seems to think fast out there. And he also showed no fear in going to the net and behind it. Could just be rookie enthusiasm, but I hope we've found a little pistol out there.
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I can readily understand people finding JM's style frustrating, but I don't know why you'd blame him for the dismal offensive performance last night. Nobody was complaining about our inadequate offence in November. The issue I see isn't a 'system' per se. It's two things: first, players whose confidence is so fragile that they can't even make a tape to tape pass, don't trust their instincts, are thinking too much, and are continually hesitant to shoot the puck; and second, a depleted defence. Teams rely on the D to move the puck up ice, and they rely on the D to keep the puck in the attacking zone and kindle plays from the opposition blueline. When you subtract 3 of your top-5 defencemen, you tend to get dodgy offence.
The first problem would naturally correct itself, but this process may be undercut by the second problem. Time will tell. When Markov went down, I was worried but retained my basic faith in the team and its system. With Markov and Gorges done for the year and Hamrlik on the limp, I'm no longer optimistic. The most likely outcome for this season is a second-half grind reminiscent of the 2009 meltdown (only not as dramatically catastrophic). You just don't win with half your D missing. Period.
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It's shaping up to be "one of those years." :puke: Two of our most reliable defencemen, out for the entire season! That's bullcrap bad luck, man.
GDT: Rangers vs Canadiens, Jan. 15
in Habs & Hockey Talk
Posted
You know, it's the third season in a row that Habs' management makes a mid-season move to add a defenceman, resulting in a massive boost to the PP. Two years ago, it was Schneider. last year it was MAB. And this season the Wiz. Hopefully the Wiz turns out to be a long-term solution, not a band-aid, because while his defensive play is clearly not top-drawer, he's a legit top-4 guy and should be sewn up for a few seasons - especially given the uncertainty around Markov.