illWill

Every single coach, trainer, GM, water boy, teammate, administrator and girlfriend screwed him over. If only everybody didn't handle him the way they did, he would be a solidified #1 center by now. He deserves zero blame for where he is. I would love the Habs to try to trade for a perennial 30+ goal scorer with a below average cap hit.......oh wait

Anisimov would be a savvy pickup and wouldn't cost near as much as a Duchene would.

So we are just going to blame the GM and the coach for Galchenyuk not making it as a center on a center-starved team? It almost seems crazy to type that. Machine makes a good point about it being a defense first system. So what do we do when a team is all playing a certain way and a player doesn't follow suit?

Don't let that distract you from the fact Montreal needed to score more in order to go on a deep run. I agree with this all of this. Sometimes a series comes down to who is hot at the right time, and often times that is a goaltender. At this point I think we can lock Price in as being a top level goalie during a series, but if the opposition's goalie gets hot, then it's moot. Another big factor in determining the outcome of a series is the match up. A team built from the goalie out may be better suited against a run and gun team for example, whereas if they match up against a similar opponent they might not. I think in the Rangers series both teams were similar in style but the difference was that Lundqvist played as good as he played all season. Otherwise I believe Montreal would have pulled out the win.

I actually don't mind that, although Bennett regressed a bit this year.

Of course Plekanec's decline was predictable but not to the extent that it was one year to the next, no one could predict that. There's no being "allowed" to play center, players earn their spot in the lineup. The way that he surprisingly made the NHL at 18, that's earning a spot. Montreal had no choice but to keep him up with the big club. He has had countless chances to play center dating back years now and he hasn't stuck there. At what point do we say maybe it's the player? It's perfectly okay for a player that was drafted as a center to be more suited for the wing, it happens all of the time. But to blame a GM for his inability to develop as the #1 center he was supposed to be is unfair.

I am on board with the fact he did not acquire help at center since he's been here. What I'm saying is that he drafted Galchenyuk who made the NHL the very first year he was eligible to do so 5 years ago. So, in theory he should have been able to transition to center from the wing in those 5 years. He also had Plekanec 5 years ago who was one of the better 2nd line centers in the league, and up until this year was a fine #2. So my only beef per say was him not filling a hole in the top 6 before Galchenyuk was supposed to develop. I put the blame mostly on Galchenyuk for not being the center he was supposed to be by now. I agree there is a level of blame on the coaches for dicking him around, but there's a point where you have to look at the player himself.

Just because the team lost doesn't mean it was the wrong thing to do...He could have put him as the first line center and they could have been swept . It's easy to say they lost because of that coaching decision, they lost because of the lack of scoring acquisitions at the deadline, they lost because they can't develop talent, they lost because Subban is awesome and better than Weber. They simply lost as a team. They were right there in every game and had a chance to win but they didn't get it done, plain and simple.

Maybe Julian is still secretly working for the Bruins and is trying to sabotage the Habs by playing Galchenyuk as a 4th line winger. Orrrrr, maybe he is trying to do his job to win hockey games and he thought that they had a better chance of winning by doing that. It's one or the other

You mean the team that missed the playoffs completely the year before Weber got here? Yes I know you are comparing it to the team 2 years ago but that doesn't hold weight because there were far more of the same players on the 16 team than the 15 team. You can't just say the 16 Habs didn't exist But yes, I'd love to keep the topic of the thread to what it was intended to be. You can thank your buddy 29 for bringing up the trade, as it seems to creep into every conversation on this board for some reason

Because Weber played great and was in the Norris conversation for most of the year? 50 cents on the dollar? Well that's quite the fleece job. Subban is twice the player that Weber is apparently. There are 4 years between them, not 14. And the reason Nashville made the trade was because they wanted a puck moving defenseman because that's they style they are going for. It was a great trade for them. It doesn't mean it was a bad trade for us. Take a second to breathe and think before you type I agree that it was a lateral move player wise. Both are great defensemen but they were traded for each other because they have different styles that each team coveted. Since Nashville hired Laviolette, they are going for a more up tempo styled game, whereas Montreal wants to be playing a more conservative style. Both players fit into their organizations better than their previous ones. I don't get why that's so hard to understand. We will all miss the Subby Doos, low fives and hospital donation, but don't let that cloud your judgement about what each player does on the ice and what they mean to their team.

Boo hoo is the theme of 99% of the posts that you make, always complaining about something. So I find it funny that you use that to describe someone who is generally positive. I tend to pick on the things you say because they are quite often very outlandish and illogical. It's like you just spew out a bunch of words without thinking about it whatsoever. Somewhere in the rants are little pieces of things that make some sense and can be considered as factual, but it's hard to sift through it all to get to that. Case in point: " I would be happy to trade a player for 10 cents on the dollar". Really? Is that what you really think or is it all for dramatic effect? Because as a reader it's hard to take you seriously. " I was happy that they traded Subban for a player in decline because I felt slighted at an event" Really? I've only posted hundreds of times about that damn trade, and if that's what it is you get from everything I've wrote, then your reading comprehension needs work. To summarize: I was pissed off Subban got traded, then I grew to learn more about Shea Weber. And then I got excited about how he would fit in, and I still am happy with how the trade effected the team this season. I referenced an event I attended specifically to see Subban where he was a dick head because at the time the thread was talking about his personality.

Perhaps my line of thinking has been wrong this whole time. If only Bergevin was able to acquire the mighty Martin Hanzel this team would be still playing and on it's way to the Cup. His 1 point in the playoffs could have been the difference against the Rangers. And it would have only cost a 1st, 2nd, a conditional pick and a prospect for him and his buddy Ryan White. http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/minnesota-wild-owner-wishes-team-didnt-make-martin-hanzal-trade/

Trades are easy, you can magically acquire whoever you want for whatever crap you want to give. Drafting is even easier, predicting the future on a kid who has yet to fully grow into a man is no problem. Only the Montreal Canadiens are entitled to win the Cup each year, if they don't, it's a huge upset. Regular season results mean nothing, who cares about all of those happy moments in your life when they won and how good it felt to be leading the division all season. I want a Cup and if they don't win it I am going to flip out and trash the team that I love.

Because the Habs made a bad trade in the past to the Rangers involving a young player, that means that all future trades involving a young player to the Rangers will also be bad - 29 Logic A more reasonable response would be something like: I think that Galchenyuk has a higher ceiling and is arguably already the better player right now, so that deal would not make sense for the Habs to make.