Peter Puck

My point is that Dudley is viewed as an elite judge of talent. No we are not hiring him as an amateur scout. But there is a reason Toronto is so worried about him jumping to the Habs before the draft. He has been directly involved with their amateur scouting and has been extensively scouting top amateur prospects. This is why his opinions will be a valuable addition to those of Timmins'. These two guys go back a long way and have a lot of respect for each others' opinions.

http://www.thespec.c...ft-implications Quote: Primarily, Dudley has been deeply enmeshed in Toronto’s draft plans and has extensively scouted all the top prospects, including Nail Yakupov, Mikhail Grigorenko, Alex Galchenyuk and Filip Forsberg.

Yes, I fully understand why Burke wants this. But we're hiring Dudley to help and one of his important skills is evaluation of amateur talent. He could be very useful to us during the draft. Since the league has no rule about this I think Bergevin should try to get Dudley here before the draft.

I agree with this list.

Ottawa didn't trade Chara. They wanted to keep him but both he and Redden were UFAs in 2006 and Chara unlike Redden refused to give Ottawa any home town discount.

This years winner is sakiqc who won with his prediction of 37-34-11 for 85 points. The Habs record was 31-35-16 for 78 points. Honourable mention to Habsfan who correctly predicted that the Habs would score 212 goals this year (including the 5 we were awarded for winning 5 of our 17 shootouts). This was the only exactly correct prediction that anyone made in any of the categories. BCHabnut was close, predicting 211 goals. On one point, sakiqc's crystal ball was overly pessimistic; he foresaw only 205 Habs goals.

Nope even this March 21 prediction of the winner made was too optimistic. We didn't get close to the 90pts illWill had predicted and illWill finished second.

Yes, I will be submitting a final post mortem hopefully later today. Congratulations.

Any chance we give Mayer the start? Leaf fans would be apoplectic.

Yes, Hunter kept SK away from the first line until the last month of the season when he occasionally put the three of them together (and a few games when Gagner was injured he put SK with Kane). Very many high scoring CHL players turn into 50 point or less at the NHL level. This is much more common then coming into the NHL anc continuing as a star. I think his domination at the OHL level was a good indication that he would be a 40-50 point player in the NHL. Yes, SK played the point on the PP and was the PP QB - their standard play to enter the zone on the PP was to give SK the puck behind his own net and let him weave up the full length of the ice and over the blueline and then set up. Their PP was great but not as good as the previous one with Corey Perry et al.

SK played on the 2nd line and rarely played with Kane and Gagner.

I saw Tinordi tonight against Kingston. First time I've seen him live this year. I knew he was having a good year but I cannot believe the improvement in his play since a year ago (when I saw him live 3 times). He wasn't overly physical tonight but he was very effective smothering Kingston (which is not a very good team). He played a lot like Gill; using his reach to shut down the opposition. But I was really surprised by his offensive attempts. He had an end to end rush in the first where beat a couple of players with his speed and reach and then he drove the net, took a backhand shot and then bowled over the Kingston goaltender. A couple of his other rushes led to him getting open looks and wrist shots from the slot. Both shots were right into the crest but still I was surprised to see him weaving around defenders and leading the rush. His hockey sense seemed especially good. Also he didn't get caught out of position at all.

This seems riduculous. How much do we know about most other GMs? How open with the media are management of SJ, St. Louis, etc? I have no idea. Toronto has the most talkative GM in the league. Why is that not a mistake? (based on the relative success of the Leaf's approach vs the rest of the league). I have no problem with the Habs being closed mouthed. My preference is that they putting winning ahead of keeping the media and fans informed of what goes on behind closed doors. Regarding Markov's injury, I think things would have been much worse if they had given a new "expected to start" date every 6 weeks.

Yes, Philly traded Carter. They had their reasons, not all having to do with Carter. Do you think its possible they made a mistake? He's not working out in Columbus. Again they are looking to trade him (and Nash) at least partially because they are going to do a major rebuild. If we can't get a number 1 centre when they are at low value we'll never get one. I just remembered why we don't have to worry about the Habs giving up Plex in a deal for Carter. There is no way that Plekanec waives his NTC to go to Columbus.

I think Carter is the guy to go after. His contract is long but not really too high. In 6 years that amount won't even be unusual. I do agree we need to keep Plex though. I wouldn't mind giving up our first unless it ends up being top 2, which I don't think it will.

Gomez is owed 10 million over the next two seasons but his cap hit is 14.7 million. Thus a team can get 14.7 million cap relief while only spending 10 million. If a rebuilding team wants to be near the cap floor they can save their owner 4.7 million over two years by taking Gomez. They maybe also get a prospect or pick(s) from us for doing this. This could be a lot better than adding two 2.5 million players during a rebuilding phase.

For my beer: Hall Gill to Pittsburgh for a 2nd round pick (I hope they have their 2nd still).

I hope you're not suggesting Budaj has more offensive skills than Price.

Woo - first view and first reply. Go Habs Go!!!

Okay but anyone entering after 3 games will lose all tiebreakers.

I predict 47-27-8 = 102 points 3rd in the East 5th overall 233 goals.

6th annual HabsWorld points prediction contest. Hall of Fame: 2006-2007 Jean won with a prediction of 92 points when the Habs finished the year with 90 pts. If only we could have won that last game. 2007-2008 Adirondack Bud exactly predicted our final total of 104 pts. 2008-2009 Zowpeb won by predicting a strong start followed by a slower 2nd half ending with 99 points. The Habs finished the season in 8th place with 93 points. On September 22, 2008 Zowpeb predicted "I think we'll see a rough patch just past the mid-year point..." Wow! 2009-2010 Joelassister correctly predicted the Habs would finish with 88 points. Honourable mention to kaos who predicted a season record of 39-34-9 (87 pts) while the Habs finished 39-33-10. 2010-2011 Chips produced the all time best prediction. His preseason prediction of 44-30-8 for 96 pts 6th in the East, 14th in the NHL was exactly correct in every aspect. That amazing feat will be hard to duplicate. Honourable mentions went to Seb whose excellent prediction of 44-30-8 for 96 pts. 5th in east, 13th in NHL came up just short; and to Peter Puck who also correctly predicted the Habs would finish with 96 points. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This year we'll use a point system. Predict a) what the Habs regular season record will be; b) in what place in the East the Habs will finish c) in what place in the league overall the Habs will finish d) the total number of goals the Habs will score this season (including 1 goal per shootout win). 1 point will be awarded for getting the correct number of wins. 1 point will be awarded for getting the correct number of loses. 1 point will be awarded for getting the correct number of OT loses. 2 bonus points for getting the entire record correct. 3 points will be awarded for getting the Habs final point total correct. 1 point for correctly predicting the Habs finish in the East 1 point for correctly predicting the Habs finish overall. The total number of goals the Habs will score will be used as a tiebreaker, if necessary. Make you predictions before the beginning of Thursday's season opener. Good Luck. Its going to be a great season!

I think Phoenix is going to want a centre back. I think Turris' value is pretty close to Eller's but slightly higher. Maybe Eller + 2nd. In my view Turris and Eller are too close in value for it to be worth the risk for us to make that trade.

They could easily decide to sign 3 of the invitees to the rookie camp. I'd rather they do that than use those contracts for a questionable veteran.

How many contracts do the Habs have now?