The Chicoutimi Cucumber

It does seem like a very sensible option. Boucher wins by garnering NHL experience and drawing whatever wisdom he can from one of the most experienced coaches in the game, as well as by not having to face a veteran line-up as a raw rookie head coach. Martin gets the benefit of whichever of Boucher's innovative ideas he chooses to implement. The only downside I can see is that there might be too strong egos clashing behind the bench. But surely Boucher has been an assistant before... This is the sort of succession planning that seemed to distinguish the Habs of the 60s and 70s. Whether it'll happen, let alone work, who knows.

Glad to see that people aren't piling on against Martin in this thread. 1. Proven NHL vets with Cup rings get second chances. This is as it should be, because those are the guys you will win with. Gomez or Cammallerri are team leaders who determine the outcome of games. Ryan O'Byrne is basically a place-holder there to eat a few minutes without screwing up; if he can't deliver that, then he sits, especially in the playoffs (see point [2]). 2. The playoffs are NOT the time to be 'developing' your young players. They are the time when you ice the players who give you the best chance to win. Period. 3. Subban and Pyatt got tons of minutes, proving that JM does not have a hate-on for young players. 4. Martin clearly INSISTS that all players, especially young players, commit to the system, work hard, and follow instruction. As fans we should 100% support this - it's how you instil the proper ethos and culture into the team. If you look at the young players who fell by the wayside this season, the two obvious NHL talents both had major attitude problems. Sergei Kostitsyn is clearly NOT a team player; and Latendresse had already given up and wasn't motivated. Out they went. D'Agostini simply didn't have it and neither did Chipchura, so these cases prove nothing. MaxPac probably just needed more time to develop in the minors. As for O'Byrne, that he looked a lot better than he has in the past suggests precisely that JM is handling him properly. If you add our goalies to the equation, you see JM's philosophy in miniature. The young player who commits, works and delivers gets the ice. Having said all that, I agree that the danger in JM's philosophy is that he will be too rigid. A gifted player like Subban does need some leeway. It's a legitimate concern that JM might suck the life out of him; but based on what we've seen so far, JM deserves the benefit of the doubt.

Oh, Lord...we went this route in the early 1990s. We drafted players for Pat Burns: big, tough, defensively-responsible types like Lindsay Vallis. Unfortunately they had no skills and couldn't skate. It was a disaster. On this philosophy we'd draft nothing but Kyle Chipchuras. Beyond this, the NHL has never been better-suited to smaller players. 4 of the top 5 NHL playoff point-scorers this year are under 6 feet tall and the only one of the top 5 goal-scorers are what you'd call 'big' (Byfuglien; the rest are under 6 feet, except Sharp, who is only 6'1 and under 200 lbs - if he was a habs no one would call him 'big'.). The leading playoff goal-scorer is a little fellow named Mike Cammalleri - perhaps you've heard of him? There is ABSOLUTELY NO BASIS for the argument that these playoffs demonstrate that you have to have a team of hulking monsters. Certainly not hulking monsters with no skills. If anything, this playoff shows exactly the opposite. The only problem our team has size-wise is that we are disproportionately small in the top 6. ONE power forward would fix that perception. I can see no rational argument that carries us from a Stanley Cup semi-final appearance to a total demolition of our entire team identity as emphasizing speed and skill, especially in a playoff that proves size is in no way the definitive critereon for success. The size thing is a red herring. Let's move on.

A clause like that would certainly ease the pain of losing this very promising coach. Incidentally, it says a lot about our organization that no fewer than two of our coaches are on other teams' shortlist and that one of them is widely thought to view coaching the habs as his ultimate professional goal. Detractors notwithstanding, the Habs have quietly emerged as something approaching an elite organization - Gainey's real legacy.

It's a little-known fact that Columbus is a great hockey town with dedicated fans. Hopefully, they won't get to watch Boucher work his magic. The general sense seems to be that he won't take the job, according to a Blue Jackets fanatic I know.

I suppose that anyone is tradable in principle. Nonetheless the idea that moving THE key player to our entire team's success is one that appeals more in EA Sports than in real life. Markov is the best defenceman to play for the Habs in almost 20 years. Enjoy what you've got.

Not this old saw again

I feel a bit bad for Brunet; I thought he was at least slightly improving, and it's not as though he was given lots of time to grow into the job. As much as he's been demonized by RDS viewers, he was a true-blue Montreal Canadien who endured a career shattered by injury - I thought he deserved more basic respect than he received from the fans. Having said all that, Joel Bouchard is 10X the analyst he is, so this does seem a good move. The real question is why Brunet was given the plum job in the first place.

Yeah, he probably could have commanded $3 mil on the open market. That's good news. It means that the Habs can point to that contract when negotiating with guys like Moore or Lapierre.

Every time we have UFAs or appealing UFAs are on the market, habs fans panic that the Leafs will sign them all and pound the snot out of us. Hasn't happened yet. In fact WE schooled the Leafs when we signed Cammy. Frankie says relax.

You've captured succinctly the point I've been trying to make, so thanks. However, I think Wamsley's original claim was that guys like Higgins should have been traded if we weren't going to lock them up. Fair enough, I suppose, although return would always be an issue.

Some grounds for hope here, according to Allan Muir. Scan about 2/3 of the way down for the discussion of Boucher. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writ...arch/index.html

The more I think about this the more ominous it appears. 'Video scouting' - sounds like a pathetic cut-rate version of a proper scout. Add to that the very disconcerting fact that Gauthier remains the Habs' head of pro scouting - implying that this is a part-time function that he can balance with his other duties as GM - and you have a picture emerging of an organization that does not see scouting as a priority. Unless we see a bunch of new scouts hired, this has to be read as bad, bad, bad news.

Exactly. The root problem of the entire organization has been the inadequacy of the young talent developed during the Gainey rebuild. This is quite a different problem from Gainey's supposed lassitude or incompetence in 'not locking up RFAs/UFAs.' Much of that 'core' turned out to be (more or less) garbage that you wouldn't WANT to see locked in for years to come anyway. And this root problem is why there's been so much turnover in the core. Bluntly put, the core sucked. Now, however, at least, in my opinion, the core is at least adequate and I don't expect it to be the revolving door it's been in the past. Certainly the lengths of the contracts Gainey signed in the summer suggest 3-4 years of stability in key positions.

Yeah...again...I'm not denying that the Habs might have managed some of this better. Streit to me is the main exhibit in terms of failing to lock up UFASs/RFAs. But I just don't see it as this cut and dried. You assert that Pleks 'would have been' locked up for under $4 mil after last season. What's that based on? WHY would Pleks agree to a long-term contract after he had had a disastrous season? If you're Pleks, wouldn't you want a short-term deal so you can pad your numbers instead? Komisarek at $3.5...is there *evidence* that Komi was willing to lock up for years at that rate? Or is there just a mystical belief that young players who KNOW (or believe) that they're still getting better will be willing to lock themselves up at below-market value, and that if they don't it's the Habs' fault? (For that matter, how do we know that guys like Higgins and Komi didn't plan to go UFA all along?) There's a certain underlying pattern of thought to your post here, which is: the Habs are always wrong. It's like your comment about Higgins: it's not that he turned out to be a turd, oh heavens no!! It's that the Habs 'ruined' him. Sure...they ruined him by putting him with our best players and giving him a lot of ice time (Just like they are 'ruining O'Byrne by NOT putting him with our best players and giving him lots of ice time - right?) Face it, on your model he'd be locked up for 6 years at (say) $4 mil. Ditto Andrei Kostitsyn and probably Ryder too (your retroactive devaluation aside, Ryder looked pretty damned good his first two seasons). So, yes, the Habs could have done better is some cases, but they also did well in others. Like I keep saying: not cut and dried.

That'd make a huge difference for sure.

Yes, I think part of the principle at issue here is that you want to treat your people fairly and be a good organization, one that people want to work for. Presumably that serves the organization best in the long run. If you treat Boucher as chattel who is trapped by his contract and prevented from pursuing his life-long dream, he will rebel and your organization has turned into an oppressive exploiter of its own talent. Not the way to go.

Yeah, you certainly have a valid point here. All I would want to do is soften your point a bit by suggesting 1. there remains an inescapable element of uncertainty in dealing with most young players; no matter how much you watch them, it is impossible to determine whether they will fully realize their potential, fail to realize it, or exceed it (who imagined that Halak would put together a season like this one?) - let alone whether they will become injury prone or fall into any of the innumerable traps facing them. I don't find this all that surprising. In the milieu in which I work, one sees a lot of young people training for careers in a demanding field with few opportunities. Some look brilliant early but fade out. Others have all the tools but end up losing the will as they get older (they get distracted by family or whatever). Some are plodders but manage to succeed on sheer determination and work ethic. Some start out average yet later blossom. A few are superstars from the get-go. But no matter how much you track most of them over 4-5 years, their ultimate tragectory always has that uncertainty to it. It's likely the same in the NHL. Consider Komi. A stud, heavy-hitting shut-down D-man his entire career, his 'toughness' was arguably exposed as fraudulent by Milan Lucic and now he is emerging as injury-prone. I seriously doubt there was any way of anticipating this based on his career up to the moment of that Lucic fight and the subsequent injuries. He had to rise to the level he did before these weaknesses were exposed. Had you locked him in as a near-elite bruising shutdown defenceman to anchor your D for the next decade, you might well have faced a nasty surprise. 2. To lock up an RFA, the player and the team have to agree on his likely potential. Higgins saw himself as a future 40-40 man. Good luck locking him up with that self-image. (Higgins is also a nice example of the uncertainty principle. He always had the profile of a blood-and-guts natural leader, a captain in the making, he seems to have fallen off the rails. Who knew?) 3. It remains possible that Bob never locked up his RFAs because he in fact was aware of their limitations and was just not convinced. Those who reply that he should have locked them up and then traded them need to consider point (2) above, and also the desirability of carrying a bunch of Higginses and Ryders at $4-5 million for 6 years and how tradable they would be. Note that of all the young guys of Gainey Rebuild 1.0, the only one who was clearly a disastrous mistake NOT to lock up was Streit. It's not like there is this huge pile of great players he allowed to leave. Few of us miss any of them. As for your Halak comment, well, throwing him to the lions in Game 4 of that series was a bit much. We unquestionably needed Huet for that playoff run. But I always liked Halak and thought the Habs treated him shabbily - although I certainly never expected Halak to dominate like he did this season.

I find it hard to believe that they will be scooped up so rapidly, unless they are considered elite at their job. So I wouldn't put anxiety too much into that. What *is* weird about the timing is that there is no way for their replacements to get fully up to speed in time for the draft. Presumably the Habs already have their basic list assembled - ? My guess is that Gauthier has been unhappy with the scouting end of the operation and is now free to apply the axe.

One word: MEH.

It beats me why the Habs wouldn't counter with an offer to make him Martin's assistant. Who knows, maybe they have already, or will. It's worth a shot.

Of course Streit is much better than MAB. The analogy lies in the fact that most people saw Streit as a one-dimensional player who could not play D at all, and a beneficiary of, rather than a key contributor to, our league-leading PP at the time. It is hypocritical of such people to now condemn the Habs for failing to lock up Streit. That was my point. You can talk all you want about shipping Komi out at the deadline, it was not going to happen in that season. The organization clearly made a decision that it was going to go for broke that year. Period. Did it work? Of course not. What I'm saying is that any individual in Gainey's situation would have done the same thing and not blow up the core, because of the overall fan and ownership context. (Also, if the Habs hold a fire-sale, do we then lure Cammy and the other UFAs? One thing to consider is that perception of your team as a 'playoff team' is important in being deemed an attractive destination on the UFA market). Anyway, again, I'm not saying everything Gainey did on this front was great, just that his record with UFAs and RFAs defies facile condemnation or fawning applause.

Well, I wouldn't argue that Gainey's asset management was above reproach. I thought the case of Souray was understandable because we were in a playoff race, but I still supported trading him at the deadline because that team, even if it had made the playoffs, had no reasonable chance of doing any damage at all. Better to move Souray and reclaim assets. Komisarek would have been ridiculous to trade because there was NO WAY any GM could have blown up a team for the stretch drive during the Habs' 100th anniversary. Tanking simply was not an option that year, no matter what happened. However, Wamsley is correct that in hindsight it would have been wise of Bob to lock up Komi long term when he was RFA. With Streit, the error was not in failing to trade him; in fact we had a real chance of going all the way that year, so trading him would have been irresponsible (just as trading Huet that year was irresponsible and arguably cost us the series against Philly). No, the error with Streit was in failing to lock him up as an RFA and then compounding the mistake by not signing him as a UFA. However, it's worth remembering that there was near-unanimity on this board and elsewhere that Streit was terrible defensively and not worth signing, sort of an early version of MAB. Anyone can be a genius (and criticize others) with hindsight. Gainey's failing may have been an unduly rigid approach to RFA signings. He did seem to have a philosophy of not locking up RFAs. This was a reasonable, principled philosophy, because if you sign a player too soon in his career, you risk getting burned by paying for potential that never materializes (Higgins, the Kostitsyns, Ryder and even Komisarek are all object lessons here); and the player risks locking for the long term below value (Kesler). Nonetheless, you also need to make exceptions where warranted. Had we locked up Streit as an RFA we'd now be laughing our heads off. It's a mixed record, but that's why anybody who makes blanket declarations that Gainey was either a genius or an idiot in managing RFA/UFA assets is off-target. Whether Bob did more good than harm in this respect is a complicated question calling for balanced judgement.

Your point is valid of course. But then again, do we really wish that Gainey had locked in Higgins, Ryder, and Kostitsyn for 5 years at (say) $4 mil per? As for Pleks, do you think he would have signed for significant term coming off an awful season like that when he was massively undervalued? (Streit and Komi, on the other hand, would have been nice signings). On balance, I'd say while Gainey's approach was costly in some cases, in others it saved us from locking in several promising players who turned out to be pieces of crap. Part of his reticence may have been a dawning awareness that many of the key cogs in the rebuild were not the diamond stuff of which winners can be made.

No question Kesler's better - I see lots of Canucks too - but if he got $5 mil as an RFA, presumably he could have gotten substantially more as a UFA especially after the season he had. If he were on the open market this summer, he'd bag $6 mil easy. $5.5 for Pleks in that context does make some sort of comprehensible sense. It's just sheer luck that the Canucks got to lock up Kesler while he was still improving, while the Habs faced the dilemma of a Pleks who had scored 39 points last summer and couldn't possibly have locked him up under those circumstances. Timing is all.