Peter Puck

Calgary losing Toffoli for very little means the draft pick they owe us is getting better and better.

To me, the key here is that we will have a read on Newhook's abilities sooner than whomever we could have taken with the 31st and 37th picks. We can't afford to keep piling up good but not great players. We don't have room for them all. If the coaches can bring Newhook to his ceiling (or close) we will have another solid top 6 forward. If not we can move on in a couple of years.

How happy will you be from 1-10 if one of these are picked at 5: Michkov: 10/10 Smith: 9/10 Benson: 8.5/10 Leonard: 8.5/10 Reinbacher: 4/10 Dvorsky: 2.5/10 If we want either Reinbacher or Dvorsky we need to trade back.

It is not as bad as the Bruins trading us Ken Dryden for 2 busts. Dryden cost the Bruins 4 Stanley cups.

Florida this year seems like a copy of the 2021 Habs. They finished last in the East, overcame a 3-1 deficit in the first round, then won 2 series fairly easily to make the finals. They are relying on their goalie and when his level of play drops in the final they fade. Will they also lose the final in 5 games?

I've always liked Y's intangibles. X just isn't reliable. I will be furious if Y drops to us and we end up taking X (probably just because of a size bias).

What a goal by Theodore!

It is silly to complain that the year we made it to the finals is somehow tainted because of the realignment that year due to covid. It was unusual but we still won 3 rounds and got to the cup finals. We were outplayed by the Lightning but we still had a chance to win it all. Was Tampa's cup that year also tainted because of the unusual circumstances? We played very well in the playoffs - probably better than any team other than Tampa and possibly the Islanders. It was a great run and the fact that we relied on Price and Weber is no discredit.

Anybody see what happened in the final minute of the game? The game summary shows Owen Beck getting a 5 minute match penalty for a slew foot.

Quebec City just makes no sense at all. I would say Houston or Salt Lake City.

Okay, so you think Claude Lemieux was clutch and show that by comparing his goal scoring in the playoffs with the regular season. There were 14 NHL seasons in which Lemieux played in the playoffs. During 8 of those seasons he scored at a higher rate in the playoffs than the regular season. In the other 6 his regular season scoring rate was higher. Maybe Lemieux was clutch but I don't his scoring rate as proof. The playoffs are shorter and so some players will do better in the playoffs and some worse just by randomness. We like to declare those in the former group are clutch and those in the latter chokers, but it could easily be just randomness. If some players are clutch they should be clutch (almost) every year. Were the 2019 Lightning chokers? Were the 2020 Lightening clutch?

I haven't given this a lot of thought so there are probably some unintended consequences but I think I would consider a rule that any player on LTIR for any time after the trade deadline is not eligible for the playoffs.

The problem here is that that are 30 or so teams. So we should expect several to be outliers. You found 4 at 1.5 times the average and 3 at about 0.5 times the average. I'd have to do the computation but I am fairly certain these results are not statistically significant. Furthermore, we would have to account for variations in draft power which will spead the results away from the average. If we conclude that the results are not due to chance, then the conclusion seems to be that Anaheim, Carolina, LA, and Pittsburgh are the teams with the secret to drafting.

This is a mistake. It isn't obvious that a team with an unusually large number of hits is doing something right. The randomness of the draft means that some teams will have more hits than expected and some will have less. Whether the Bruins are an outlier due to some strategy they use or due to pure randomness is unclear. Assuming it is due to some special sauce the Bruins use can lead to bad mistakes if it is really due to random fluctuations.

Okay the season is over. Habs finish with 68 points leading to a 4 way tie in Habsworld predictions. Caufield scored 26 regular season goals plus 2 shoot out goals for a total of 28 goals. The winner is.... . . . . . . .. . . . . . alfredoh2009

Well collectively this is the best year Habsworld has had at predicting the Canadiens regular season. Almost everyone came pretty close. In particular tonight's game will settle which of the following will be this year's winner. The Habs currently have 68 points and will finish with 68, 69 or 70 points. Really impressive that 7 of you have come so close with a number of others just off. DalHabs 27-42-6-7 = 67 points 8th, 29th, 31 goals by Caufield DutchHabsFan 25-40-10-7 = 67 points 6th, 27th, 25 goals hab29RETIRED 28-43-8-3 = 67 points 8th, 2th, 39 goals alfredoh2009 29-44-5-4 = 67 points 7th, 29th, 29 goals ------- DON 29-40-8-5 = 71 points 28th, 8th, 37 goals PMAC 28-39-11-5 = 71 points 29th, 8th, 30 goals

Arizona ahead 3-1 halfway through the second. Anaheim making a late push for Bedard - this will be their 10th straight regulation loss. Edit: now 3-2 with 8 minutes left in the 2nd. The Arizona announcer just mentioned the 3-1 lead was the first 2 goal lead held by the Coyotes in the past 10 games.

I really don't know why the NHL should care. The concern should be that Arizona hasn't been competitive. But if we compare them with Buffalo over the past 10-12 years, the Coyotes have been slightly better than the Sabres. Many teams have had 10 year periods with no playoffs. Clearly Arizona is rebuilding and have arena troubles. If they can arrange the new arena I think they will be fine. If not maybe they move.

Trading Mailloux now would be a big mistake. The Habs have invested more in this player than any other of their prospects. They risked a lot taking him and so far that risk seems to be paying off. Trading him we will get less than his hockey value. Over time it will become more about his hockey value but now we would still be paying a penalty. He is an excellent prospect playing a position where our prospect pool is weak. Keep him and help him to continue to improve.

I think St. Louis was trying to lose the shoot out or at least didn't care if we did.

I too have higher hopes for the Dmen. I think Mailloux will probably end up being the best of the four. I think there is a good chance he becomes a top pairing defenceman. He's the first round pick and who knows how much of a setback he suffers due to missing so many games. But I think he can overcome that. Predicting Hutson's future seems like making wild guesses. I think the most likely outcome for him is something like Mete. I guess Roy will end up as a solid 3rd line player and Kidney will be a bottom 6 player if he makes it.

As far as I can see, all this discussion about ruining players by rushing them into the NHL is just conformation bias. Every player who doesn't spend time in the minors and then doesn't meet expectations is declared to have been ruined by being rushed. Maybe these guys were just destined to fail. How do we know that players who don't meet expectations after years in the minors weren't ruined by being denied the opportunity to play early in the NHL? Even players like Chara, Thornton, and Carey Price who succeed after being "rushed" are ignored in the analysis. Maybe some of these players only succeeded because they were "rushed".

Mailloux served a 1 game suspension for his actions in and around a scrum at the end of the previous game.

How many times can we fumble the puck away in our own end?

That's Mailloux's 20th OHL goal in 54 OHL games. I think that may be the fastest ever to 20 by a Dman in the OHL.