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The Chicoutimi Cucumber

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Everything posted by The Chicoutimi Cucumber

  1. It would have to be a trade and sign, no? Or maybe one of those trades where the idea is to win the player over and have them re-sign in short order. Geez, then I make the trade lickety-split.
  2. Mittelstadt wants to get paid what he is worth. I never quarrel with a player who takes that stand. Any team acquiring him will need to shill out. In terms of the Habs' interest, everything would depend on how they see the team's window. Acquiring Mittelstadt means we will not have benefitted from any of his years of cap value. That's a move you make if you expect to contend within a couple of years, I'd think. I wish he were a couple of years younger. Assuming we're interested, what would get it done? Our 1st round pick plus - ?
  3. I'm not a huge Todd fan, but he makes a good point here regarding the Slaf pick. I was worried that HuGo were outsmarting themselves by not making the obvious choice, but it seems they were crazy like a fox. Slaf's progression this year has been impressive. The conventional choice would have been the favourite, Shane Wright. Going outside the box earned Hughes and the Canadiens a death stare from the immature Wright — but Slafkovský’s week-to-week improvement this season has him leading his entire draft class in games played with 89, in goals with 13 and in points with 32. Today Wright, who dropped to fourth in the draft, is tied for 43rd in the AHL in scoring with 32 points and tied for 12th in goals with 18. There are others, from the 2022 draft like Logan Cooley, Cutter Gauthier (who has already blown up on the Flyers without playing in the NHL) and Conor Geekie. We’ll take Slafkovský, thank you very much.
  4. Yes, subject to that important proviso, it seems like a very interesting proposal. And pretty aligned with the HuGo philosophy. I could totally see this happening.
  5. Florian is a 4th rounder who many expected to go later than that. Pencilling him as anything more than a future bottom-6 guy seems fanciful. This reminds me a bit of a discussion on here many years ago where a poster was arguing that Tomas Plekanec would achieve production to rival Pavel Datsyuk. This was based on some parallel between them early in their careers. Well, Pleks was a fine player but he was no Datsyuk. (As a general rule, I’ll bet later picks are more likely to surprise when they are small guys with some skill, like Gallagher, who are overlooked because they’re small. Big guys are way more likely to enjoy a draft premium owing to their size, and consequently less likely to surprise. Or so I’d speculate). Anyway, part of the fun of a rebuilding team is indulging in speculation about what all these kids might become. Time will tell.
  6. Maybe it’s the fact that they’re both Russian defencemen, but the way Sergachev suffered a major injury, came back, and immediately got injured again reminds me of Markov and his knee. So frustrating. Sergachev is a hard guy to like because he plays mean, but nobody deserves what he got here. Ugh.
  7. That’s a really fun overview. Thanks 👍 I am quite glad to see KK apparently topping out as a bottom-6 guy without much offensive upside. When he was here I repeatedly expressed the concern that he would become nothing more than Lars Eller. Right now he seems like even less than that. (Nothing wrong with Eller, but that’s not the result you want from a #3 overall pick). McCarron - a later bloomer, obviously. But at 28, this is the first season he hasn’t bounced from AHL to NHL and he is benefitting from the fact that the Preds are a bad team. He’s basically a marginal NHLer. I used to sort of excuse the pick because, other than Theodore, there didn’t seem to be a lot of quality NHLers coming out of that area of the 2013 draft, but years later, it’s clear that Ryan Hartman, Theodore, and Jason Dickinson were all far better options. Yet another blown pick by MB.
  8. Yes, and as Macguire predicted, Markov was EXPOSED without Komisarek to protect him!!! Exposed as a superlative D-man who carried that POS on his back, that is.
  9. I don't think Byfuglien is a comparable. That guy was a total freak, sui generis. He was also multi-positional. I think the safe money is with Don in the other thread, i.e., WiFi becomes a third-pairing guy. But like some others here, I believe he has top-4 ceiling.
  10. That is interesting...although like the metrics that proved Brett Kulak to be a top-4 D, something feels off in that cumulative assessment. On the other hand, I'm among those who believe WiFi is, or can be, significantly better than his goon typecasting. Names like Souray or Bieksa are those that he brings to mind for me - and both of those guys were similarly framed as nothing but tough guys early in their careers. Sometimes a coach will have an issue with a player that *seems* to go beyond hockey. MSL seems like a wiser man than that, but who knows. My guess is that he set a task for WiFi - "stop taking so many penalties" - and the player's failure to do so has caused Marty to downshift toward a more punitive approach. Who knows, maybe there is something in WiFi's attitude that gets MSL’s back up. But hopefully MSL's approach is principled and fair toward WiFi, as opposed to something like Therrien's subliminally racist and clearly personal bullying of Subban.
  11. None of the other young D we've seen have top-pairing potential. Only Guhle. Sure, maybe Huston will. Maybe he won't. Maybe Reinbacher will. Maybe he won't. Right now, Guhle is it. So yes, no one is untradeable. But of all our D, he is the one who comes closest to untouchable. It'd have to be a home run of a deal. (BTW, we didn't just get burned on Sergachev. We also threw away a top-pairing guy in McDonagh, and before that, a legit #1 in Eric Desjardins, and before that, all-time great Chelios - and every time, it was a trade of high-end young D for FWs. So as far as I'm concerned if we do it AGAIN it had better be for one hell of a player).
  12. I heard Jason Woodley, goalie expert, on the radio talking about Canada's options at G. He went through several names. Monty's was not mentioned even once in the conversation - not even in order to be dismissed. He was simply irrelevant. I'll be honest, I'm a bit surprised by this, because to my mind Monty has built a strong case for himself as a serious NHL starter over the past two seasons. I'm not saying he's a front-runner, just that I'd think he should be in the discussion as a second-tier possibility among people "in the know." It just goes to show how under-the-radar he is...or maybe how we as Habs fans tend to overrate our guys.
  13. Not super keen on re-living the Drouin trade, thanks
  14. A lot of commentary on the Monahan deal has suggested that HuGo will swing for the fences and try to package our picks/D-men for an impact forward. This isn’t just fan speculation, it’s media chatter as well. I think it could well happen, and frankly I suspect WiFi will be part of the return going the other way. Yeah, I had the same thought myself. With certainty on our side comes certainty on theirs. The fear of making the wrong choice is well founded, especially after the Gainey years, when the Habs bet chronically on the wrong horses. However, you ultimately have to trust in your management group. They have a better, more fine-grained understanding of these players than anyone else in hockey. They have to gather all that intel, as well as their sense of what type of human beings they’re dealing with, and make the call. That’s why they’re paid millions.
  15. Gignac seems like a nice story - cut loose by the Devils, signed as an organizational depth move by the Habs, he’s become a late bloomer. Whether he has any meaningful NHL future is another question, but given the Habs’ situation at C, if I’m him, I’m excited. I know I’ll get a chance.
  16. Great write-up 👍 I really appreciated the comment that improvement is coming from the right players - i.e., the big four of Suzuki, Caufield, Slaf, and Guhle. It seems clear that the Habs’ philosophy is to keep seeing small, gradual progression, and at some point the dam will burst and the team will start racking up wins. When they do so, it will probably come as a surprise to a lot of commentators (especially in the absence of a superstar “talisman,” as this well-written article puts it). If, however, the foundation has been carefully lain - instilling in the players the fundamentals, the right mindset, etc. - then once it does arrive, it should prove durable.
  17. I prefer "life's a piece of sh*t, when you look at it" 😁
  18. I feel this image will be appropriate for pretty much every game from here on in:
  19. Based on the discussion on this Forum, it doesn’t sound like swinging another Monahan-type master class in asset management will be imminent. Living outside the Habs’ market, I can attest to the fact that Hughes’s adroitness has been noticed around the league. He’s being cited as a sort of gold standard in managing assets and turning nothing into something. I take anything Blowhard Pierre Macguire says with a grain of salt, but he also praised Hughes for doing what he promised and trading Monahan to a contender. Macguire claimed that that also gets noticed with approval by agents, players, and GMs around the league: Hughes is a man of his word. HuGo’s stock has never been higher.
  20. So tired of this Arizona BS…it’s been a disaster for 30 years straight. Pull the plug and let this wheezing zombie of a franchise finally expire.
  21. I wonder if there is another “damaged goods” C out there that some team will pay us to take off their cap, and yet will help us at C - ? 🤔 Can lightning strike twice?
  22. Yup, we’re looking at a 30-game tank operation, basically.
  23. That's one of the key prisms to understanding that trade, actually. Many critics are seeing Kuzmenko as a "catch" for Calgary. But from Vancouver's side, he was basically a salary dump. On reflection, while I'm happy with the 1st and not outraged by the deal, I do think more should have been expected. Maybe not much more - e.g., an unconditional third or fourth. But something. Monahan is an excellent player who brings all those "intangibles" GMs are always having orgasms about. Hughes probably could have done at least marginally better if he'd been patient and waited for a bidding war.
  24. It's a good return. Problem is, the Lindholm deal sort of primed me to expect more. That's not HuGo's fault, though! This is very sound asset management by the Habs. Keeping in mind our earlier discussions, we should keep our eyes peeled for the possibility of this pick eventually being flipped for a player in the 20-23 age range, as this seems to be the preferred target given where we are in the rebuild.
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