hab29RETIRED

100% agree. Only thing that surprises me is that we are ahead of the Sens on the standings.

I don’t get the constant playoff talk everytime we string a few wins together. We are not close to be being a playoff team. East has been lousy and our loser points make it seem we are closer to a wildcard than we actually will be in another month. I said at the start of this year, we don’t have the D to be a playoff team, and I haven’t seen anything to change my mind. The D has score more than I thought they would have (while the forwards have scored less than I thought they would). Unless Hutson and Reinbacher suddenly are suddenly playing like Makar and Seider in their first years, we probably aren’t a playoff team next year either. 25-26 is the year we should be targeting for the playoffs. we have a young team with an extremely young D. It’s going to take time. Wifi isn’t going to make us better, and either is Kovacavec.

As well as the cost to resign him. I’d love to add him if both were right, but I’m pretty sure Anaheim is going to be looking for a PLD type deal. We dodged that bullet, and as much as I’d love to add a guy like Zegras, I wouldn’t want to pay the price Anaheim will be looking for.

He’s no Tremblay. I think he will probably be a good coach. Just don’t think he picked a very good team for his comeback.

Agreed. I thought for sure Ottawa would hire him. Sens were dumb bringing back Martin as a tempo coach I nstead.

Agreed. But it won’t be a reasonable price if the price LAK paid for PLD is what ANA things it can get for Zegras.

I’m sinking it is reference of a large part of the fan base wanting to overpay for PLD - who so far has been a bust in LA.

Let’s not forget that this mgmt team does seem to have a development plan, rather than expecting guys like Mete to be a top pairing right away - or putting them into that position because they have zero depth.

I’m okay with that. I also think that Lekhonan would have been a better player to play with Suzuki or Dach during their development, and would have been a guy that could have been moved later. He is a guy who actually did work his ass of every shift and want the big elusive unicorn the habs have been chasing forever.

IF Reimbacher is a top pairing D (a legit top pairing guy (not a guy playing here out of necessity), we made the right choice. However if he is a 2nd pairing Dman, we made the wrong choice. i wouldn’t have felt so strongly that we make the wrong pick, if it wasn’t for the overall consensus that this was a draft with a lot of elite forwards, but not really a one with elite high-end dmen. D was already the strength of our prospect pool, so unless we get a legit top pairing RHD, we made a mistake. Just like we made a mistake taking KK, instead of Hughes or Tkachuk because we had no centres and MB stated many times you can’t trade for higher end top centres (which HuGo proved wrong at two successive drafts).

100% agree. He is a guy who can score on a hot streak, but really isn’t an offensive guy. He is effective when physical and he is skating and playing hard. However, he takes far too many nights off, and at times he looks like he needs to go see the wizard for a heart, a brain, and despite his size - courage. He would have been a decent resigning for $2m (number I said how how we should have gone about Jennie was a UFA), and a great to have at around $1.5m to $1.75m. I wish we had let him walk and resigned Lekhonan to the same contract, but that ship sailed a long time ago. Typical MB and his size fetish. 100% agree that we can’t move him without eating 50% of his salary and even than may need a 3rd team to eat 25%. If we could get a decent pick to eat 50% for this year and next, I’d make that deal in a heartbeat - even if it means we lose our last retention spot.

If his timing is/was good off because of his shoulder, and he’s back to normal, I can see him going in a year where he scores 20 goals in the second half.

Thats why I wanted is to take Michkov or Leonard at the last draft. Michkov could have been a Kane type of winger, while Leonard could have given us two lines with big wingers.

If I had a dollar for every time someone brought up that Armia is on a 20 goal pace, I’d be making more more than he is🙄

Two useless players signed for too much money. Monohan looked good against McDavid. PK can be taught. Don’t need to spend $8m on two PK specialists, when with the right coaching, I’m sure Evans can do just fine - certainly not worse. I’d say coaching and systems, and not personnel is the issue.

There are some players that can make their linemates rise up to their levels Armia’s specialty is making his linemates disappear with him. Too bad Roy’s first NHL game had to be with that stiff.

His issues most likely resulted by not being able to live up to the pressure he faced. When he was in Tampa, and was sent down, or wasn’t getting ice time, he pouted. Than MB made one of his many bonehead mistakes of handing a guy who hadn’t proven anything a long term deal - which Drouin was never able to live up to.

He seems to have the entitled Drouin syndrome.

And there were guys here wanting to give him $9m🙄

Maybe Marty thought he had Patrick Roy out there against McDavid.

Should be swapping Ylonen and Armia. Or better yet, send Armia down and bring up Andersson

With rumours that Montreal was offered Cutter Gauthier at the draft for the 5th pick, is that a move we should have made? having passed on Gauthier at the draft, could we have gotten him for a Barron+Harris type package?

The GA is horrible. Looks like Tampas’s farm team is rolling right along.

I guess we will have to wait and see. If Tampa can give up what they did for Jeannot - who admittedly is a younger (who they intended on reigning),and different type of player, but wasn’t one that was used in the top 6, I can see teams overpaying for a guy who can not only add to their team with his ability to fit in anywhere in the lineup, be insurance for top 6 in case of injury, and at worst be a solid 3rd line player at a very low cap hit.

Guys like Lindholm and Henrique are not only going to cost more, but will require more cap room. I agree there are only going to be so many 1st rounders available for the draft and potentially even 2025, but with the number of picks we have and the number of prospects in our system, we should be trying to get more picks 2026-2028. We will hopefully be picking later and could use more picks at that time - either to restock the cupboards, or to use as capital to add players for our own future playoff runs.