huzer

Let’s ignore the optics of the trade for a moment. Drouin-Suzuki showed some promise in the playoffs. Is it beyond the realm of possibility that Drouin could end up around 60pts or so playing with Suzuki for the better part of the season? We know Drouin isn’t the driver of the offense on any given line, but it sure seems he can be a competent winger especially if he’s not expected to be “the guy”.

I guess when the agent said talks had broke off, he just meant for the evening last night. Ha.

Price is going nowhere in the expansion draft. He has a NMC.

Habs finally get some depth. They need to do their best to KEEP that depth.

Armia was on pace last year for roughly a 20/20 season. His playoff pace was the same. Seems quite reasonable for third liner production. I'd say he may be able to improve on those numbers playing with Kotkaniemi for a full season. Drouin-Suzuki-Armia was a solid line, and I didn't feel as though Armia held anyone back. It's nice to have a sudden influx of right handed shots

The Habs are just a Ouellet waive to the AHL from being cap compliant. That doesn’t mean no other moves will be made, just that additional moves are not needed.

He signed for less than his prior cap hit ($4.6M).

Hudon next? Cap space down to under $4M.

The cap hit is flat, doesn’t matter what the salary is. Seems rich for Anderson, but it’s the price to buy UFA years, assuming he is productive.

What stat am I cherry picking? That a team would potentially do worse after they lose their leading scorer? I agree, that's some might fine cherry picking there.

You think that the Habs would've at least maintained a 500 record. I don't. It's that simple. We saw it similarly in the last game of the canceled season, but apparently do not now:

It nearly wasn't the same team that went 500? Thompson, Cousins, Scandella, Kovalchuk out via trade. Kotkaniemi, Mete, Drouin, Tatar out via injury (yes, I know KK was in the AHL at the time). It's not like they were replaced by equivalent talent. Again, if they go 500, they end up in 8th instead of 5th. Whoop-dee-doo. We can agree to disagree, but I don't think the Habs would've played 500 with Tatar missing.

Ok, so they maintain and finish 8th worst in the league. 🙄 If we’re going that route, then this thread and any thread is pretty much worthless. We don’t know how any prospect or any change to the team is going to work out. Given how the team was trending, and injuries, I’d say the outlook was definitely not towards improvement in March. You act like it’s an unreasonable assumption.

There were 5 teams within 5 points of each other, 2 teams behind the Habs had 2 games in hand. Montreal was 8-9-2 starting Feb 1. Take away 4 wins in 5 games to start the month, and that dips to 4-8-2. This team had two 8 game losing streaks. In Feb, there was no Kotkaniemi, Mete, Drouin. It was Folin, Vejdemo, Weise, Hudon. To say they could've dropped from 8th to 5th doesn't take too much imagination, especially considering the season was paused before the typical disastrous west coast swing. Chicago Blackhawks 70 32 30 8 72 28 4 4 16-14-4 16-16-4 212 218 -6 6-4-0 W1 Montreal Canadiens 71 31 31 9 71 27 4 1 14-17-6 17-14-3 212 221 -9 4-5-1 L3 Buffalo Sabres 69 30 31 8 68 28 2 2 20-11-4 10-20-4 195 217 -22 3-7-0 W1 New Jersey Devils 69 28 29 12 68 24 4 6 13-11-10 15-18-2 189 230 -41 6-2-2 L1 Anaheim Ducks 71 29 33 9 67 24 5 1 16-15-5 13-18-4 187 226 -39 5-3-2 L1