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THN 07-08 Season Projections


lazy26

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Even with Souray the guy was not going to score 19 PP goals again. Add to the fact that teams would do to Montreal what they did to Toronto and take away the point. Was he a great weapon to have? YES, but there are other ways to score on the PP then blasting away from the point. Hamrlik and Markov are both smart players and a precision pass is just as effective as a booming shot. Add to the maturation of a young team. Adjustments will be made.

Great teams are made 5 on 5. Special teams are important but the Habs proved last year that having great special teams alone will have you on the outside looking in.

Not only did Souray score from the point, but the very fact that teams did over compensate on him in the second half made it much easier for the rest to the PP unit to score. The down low play was quite effective last year while the PK unit was swarming Souray. :)

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Not only did Souray score from the point, but the very fact that teams did over compensate on him in the second half made it much easier for the rest to the PP unit to score. The down low play was quite effective last year while the PK unit was swarming Souray. :)

It is obviously going to be a loss for the PP. But the Habs never designed a play like the Leafs did with Tucker and Wellwood to cause teams to abandon overloading the point. I was hoping Kovalev off the half boards would be it, but Kovalev mailed in half his games.

I am more excited about having 3-4 puck moving defensemen and a team that can play solid 5 on 5 D then concerned about a drop in PP production.

The media is piling on like crazy and giving the Habs no respect. When is the media ever right?

Geez, Look who makes up the majority of so called Hockey Experts on TSN and Sportsnet.

Pierre Maguire (Souray and Huet cannot play in the new NHL, both 2007 All-Stars)

Glen Healey (in 2006 called the Habs as having no chance to make the playoffs)

of course the opinions are slanted look at the The Former Maple Leaf All-Stars in

Bill Watters

Gord Stellick

Nick Kypreos

Tie Domi

Talk is cheap. Games are played on the ice, not paper. Let them say what they want. Buffalo and Carolina were listed as the 2 worst teams in the East 2 years ago and since then one has won a Cup and the other has won a President's trophy.

Edited by Wamsley01
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Aren't we so greedy? I'm a greedy Habs fan myself. Losing is unacceptable to us. We want Gainey to make that trade now. We want to march in the streets and say we got the new player who'll show 'em all.

We are Habs fans :hlogo:

Unfortunately in the real world of 2007 and not 1977, only certain teams wish to or may consider trading certain players. Some want a "Marleau" or a "Arnott" but I suspect Gainey is getting "sideways move" offers only. I believe that Gainey will only make a trade that helps the club. He lost the gamble on Ribs for Niinimaa, but in general he will only trade for improvement.

I ma very happy with the nucleus and the dynamic aspects of our club. I do believe Gainey will be able to manufacture a good trade eventually this season.

Patience. Eventually a system that has quality and quantity in their farm system is bound to be able sell some. I predict something will happen.

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Aren't we so greedy? I'm a greedy Habs fan myself. Losing is unacceptable to us. We want Gainey to make that trade now. We want to march in the streets and say we got the new player who'll show 'em all.

We are Habs fans :hlogo:

Unfortunately in the real world of 2007 and not 1977, only certain teams wish to or may consider trading certain players. Some want a "Marleau" or a "Arnott" but I suspect Gainey is getting "sideways move" offers only. I believe that Gainey will only make a trade that helps the club. He lost the gamble on Ribs for Niinimaa, but in general he will only trade for improvement.

I ma very happy with the nucleus and the dynamic aspects of our club. I do believe Gainey will be able to manufacture a good trade eventually this season.

Patience. Eventually a system that has quality and quantity in their farm system is bound to be able sell some. I predict something will happen.

Did he really lose the gamble on Ribiero? I could care less that he is gone, and I could care less that we got nothing but an expiring contract for him. I looked at it then, and I look at it now as a gamble with only upside. If Ninimaa worked out great, if not, I don't have to watch Ribiero and his hair anymore. Congrats Dallas, enjoy :lol:

BTW, I agree. When you have 3 good prospects you hope they all turn out to be players. When you have 15 you know that 3 will become good players and 2-3 may become great players.

Sooner or later the flowers will bloom. When they do we can become the arrogant habs fans we used to be ^_^

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Did he really lose the gamble on Ribiero? I could care less that he is gone, and I could care less that we got nothing but an expiring contract for him. I looked at it then, and I look at it now as a gamble with only upside. If Ninimaa worked out great, if not, I don't have to watch Ribiero and his hair anymore. Congrats Dallas, enjoy :lol:

we all agree that he should've got way much more in return of ribeiro I'm many of us agree that RIbs had to go.

ok it'll probably sound a bit wierd but I do remeber hearing that in 05, when Latendresse missed a curfew(sp??) in tremblant when he was out partying with theodore, dagenais and ribeiro.

Dagenais was sent down, theodore traded as far as possible. then in september when its obvious that Lats would make the team, ribeiro is traded for an 8th Dman an a weak draft pick.

so thats why I think that there was more than hockey reasons for that trade.

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There is no question he lost on Ribs...

Even if you wanted ribs gone, that was a bad trade. If he even just signed Niinimma outright as a FA at that price, it would be a bad trade.

Imagine if he just applied that cost to his bids last year to a top free agent.. perhaps one of them would have signed. Gainey essentially wasted an asset in Ribs and wasted money is Niinimaa. At least Brisbois is cheap. :)

Ribs had 59 points, leading a very defensive team and with 3rd line minutes. He was also plus 3, so he clearly wasn't a defensive liability.

Pleks (the golden child here, solid number 2 guy, blah blah blah) had 47 points and was plus 10, getting significantly more minutes then Ribs.

While I prefer Pleks as a number 3 center over Ribs in the long term, how people can talk like Pleks is the cat's meow and Ribs is utter garbage is laughable to me. I realize people didn't like his style, off ice behaviour, etc, but he is a solid hockey player and a valuable asset. Dallas fans laughed at that trade all year (I unfortunately had to listen to it :( ).

I realize I will never change the mind of some people (who pathologically hate player X, regardless of objective evidence), but it makes me feel better to rant back. Thanks for the fun. :P

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The Ribs trade didn't work out. But Ninimaa looked like a player with a potentially high upside - he had, after all, been a near all-star for several years and is still relatively young. Ribeiro, meanwhile, is a useful player, but nobody was going to give up a top-4 defenceman for him IMHO. The point being that if Bob was gonna get a 5-6th defenceman, he might as well have gone for Ninimaa because of that high ceiling.

Didn't work out, meh. Wasted asset, yes, but it Pleks - Ribs was a lateral move in hockey terms. And Pleks played better in the second half than Ribeiro has ever done in his NHL career, incidentally.

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Listen, losing the league's best PP point-shot is gonna hurt, no matter how you slice it. But there's so much room for realistic and achievable improvement in so many other areas of the Habs' game, that I don't see that as determinant of their season.

Speaking of the media forecasters: I had better not hear someone like Pierre McGuire, who has been crapping on Souray's head as mediocre for years, using the departure of Souray as a justification for predicting that the Habs are going to suck. That's the sort of thing these 'expert' arseholes do on a regular basis.

The sad thing is that Pierre McGuire is from far my favorite analyst of Montreal Canadien.

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There is no question he lost on Ribs...

Even if you wanted ribs gone, that was a bad trade. If he even just signed Niinimma outright as a FA at that price, it would be a bad trade.

Imagine if he just applied that cost to his bids last year to a top free agent.. perhaps one of them would have signed. Gainey essentially wasted an asset in Ribs and wasted money is Niinimaa. At least Brisbois is cheap. :)

Ribs had 59 points, leading a very defensive team and with 3rd line minutes. He was also plus 3, so he clearly wasn't a defensive liability.

Pleks (the golden child here, solid number 2 guy, blah blah blah) had 47 points and was plus 10, getting significantly more minutes then Ribs.

While I prefer Pleks as a number 3 center over Ribs in the long term, how people can talk like Pleks is the cat's meow and Ribs is utter garbage is laughable to me. I realize people didn't like his style, off ice behaviour, etc, but he is a solid hockey player and a valuable asset. Dallas fans laughed at that trade all year (I unfortunately had to listen to it :( ).

I realize I will never change the mind of some people (who pathologically hate player X, regardless of objective evidence), but it makes me feel better to rant back. Thanks for the fun. :P

Ninimaa is off the cap. Ribeiro is still on the cap. So it wasn't for nothing. The Habs are getting value on whatever they spent that 2.8 Million on. That is the way things work in the new NHL. In the NBA players get traded for expiring contracts all the time.

Maybe Ribeiro was an asset, but what were you expecting on a return for him?

A player better than anything the Habs have on the farm? Ribeiro offers average NHL production so you can expect an average NHLer in return. Plus you compare Plekanec to Ribeiro but last season Pleks in 1 minute more per game (playing in his second season not his fifth) offered close to the same production for 2 million less, and for 1 Million less this season. All of these money factors are huge in the new NHL. That 1 million this season translates to Latendresse's salary or possibly Carey Price's salary.

If Ninimaa was on a 2 year contract then I might agree with you. But what would Ribeiro have changed last season?

With Ribeiro between Kovalev and Samsonov would the Habs have made the playoffs? And if they did sneak in would it be worth it if Lapierre or Plekanec did not get the playing time they did last season?

I stand by what I said. I don't think they lost a thing in trading Ribeiro. Money factors in to every trade now. This will not be the last time in the new NHL where a guy is dumped for nothing.

Oh and BTW Ribeiro was +3 on a team that allowed 115 even strength goals. Plekanec was a +10 on a team that gave up 162 even strength goals. So you call it hate on my part, I call it love on your part.

Edited by Wamsley01
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N

Oh and BTW Ribeiro was +3 on a team that allowed 115 even strength goals. Plekanec was a +10 on a team that gave up 162 even strength goals. So you call it hate on my part, I call it love on your part.

I call mine analysis, not love or hate. :)

In any case, I don't mind the analysis that you just did, but you basically showed it to be a wash at least. My main point was that people on this board often act like Ribs was complete garbage while their new favorite play is somehow awesome. That is nonsense.

As for your analysis, I would point out that Pleks had an opportunity that Ribs did not. Pleks got the 2nd line center position in his second year with a ton of minutes because we had no choice. He was god aweful in the first half, much better in the 2nd half. So I like the improvement, but I don't compare it to Ribs at that age because the opportunities were differnent. I simply look at what they would have gotten last year. From what I saw, I believe we would have gotten more from Ribs over the course of the year then we got from Pleks, and if we had both, we would have gotten much more. I don't see what we got from Ninnimaa other then "faint hope". :)

I much prefer the Brisbois gamble that Gainey is taking to the Niinimaa one. He is cheap and we didn't give up a player to get him. :)

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One thing I DO know. Ribeiro could not be counted on the take charge of the offence when Koivu was injured or slumping. We saw Pleks do precisely that for large chunks of the 2nd half last season. That, to me, is the biggest single reason for disliking Ribs as a player - he never seemed to be the type you can rely on to raise his game in a pinch. And I seem to recall Dallas fans saying something similar in the playoffs last season...

I neither love him nor hate him. He's a 'meh.' Yes, it'd have been nice to get a regular player back for him. Bob gambled and lost, big whoop.

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Getting rid of Ribeiro is an addition by subtraction. Yes, he puts up decent numbers but he really isn't worth it. Our team's biggest problem over the past couple of years has been problems in the dressing room. Gainey got rid of Theodore, he got rid of Dagenais, he got rid of Ribeiro and now Samsonov and replaced them all with hardworking players. Imagine if Ribeiro had been our second line centre last season - what kind of influence would he have been on a guy like Latendresse? Plekanec hustles, is a great guy, showed some chemistry with two of our other brightest young players and proved to us that he can be a 2nd line center in the NHL, something that Ribeiro could never do while he was here. If Gainey were to sign a guy like Ribeiro right now people would complain that he's blocking the kids from getting enough icetime; trading him opened up roster spots for Plekanec and Lapierre who are now two of our budding centers for the next few years.

In return for Ribs we got a defenceman at a time where we were desperate for D depth. Niinimaa could have been better than he was but the main purpose of the trade was to get rid of Ribeiro - the next priority was to fill a position of need. If Gainey just wanted an depth defenceman he could have got one without giving up a roster player - but he used Ribs because he wanted him gone.

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I have to agree with Cucumber. Ribeiro really left me feeling Meh as well.

I do believe somewhat that it was a final cleansing of the Three Amigos and there was some benefits of ridding themselves of him.

He is just not a good enough player to elicit hatred from me. I just hated the amount of conversations that revolved around a 3rd line center.

I guess that is being a habs fan though. I still think when all is said and done not only will Pleks fit the habs mold better, but I think he will be

a more productive offensive player.

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I was a real big Ribeiro fan...at least a big 2003-04 Ribeiro fan. It wasn't just that he led the team in scoring that year, or that he made Pierre Dagenais a goal-scoring threat, it was that he was so exciting to watch - he was doing stuff that nobody had ever done before, a kind of a hockey genius. The Niinimaa trade was disappointing because I saw the 2003-04 Ribeiro disappear and what turned out to be a mediocre defenseman take his place. I felt Ribeiro was more valuable than that.

But even when he was on fire in 2003-04, the rest of the NHL didn't take much notice of him (except as a player who supposedly feigned an injury in the playoffs - thanks, Don Cherry), and when Gainey decided he needed to move him last September, it was the post-lockout, speed-encumbered Ribeiro that he had to trade, not the one I had appreciated a few years before. The Dallas GM may have realized Ribeiro's value, but if no one else was interested in him, there was no need to pay a fair price. Plekanec had shown flashes of brilliance in 05-06, and needed Ribeiro's spot; Ribeiro needed to be gone; and Gainey needed a defenseman who wasn't Patrick Traverse. In sum, it probably hurt to have to eat some of Ribeiro's just trade value, but the trade was better made than unmade, even if the other GM won big (cf. the recent Samsonov trade, which half this board will be lamenting by November 30th, despite it being a good trade).

Also, what a lot of people forget is that without Niinimaa - or some comparable competent defenseman - the early season could have been disastrous for the Habs rather than the spectacular success that it was. When Dandenault went down with Bouillon still on the DL, Niinimaa was there so that Traverse didn't have to be.

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Exactly, Oleg, it was a good trade for both teams which is probably better than a trade where we win and the other team gets ripped off. If our trades screw over the other teams than they will think twice about trading with Gainey next time. It doesn't make a difference to us if we're trading with a team like Dallas, that we meet so rarely, anyway.

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Oh please Ribs is a joke. He will never live up to his potential at all, he'll just be a disappointment after disappointment where ever he goes. Plus he's a jerk and he's full of himself. He's the J.D. Drew of Hockey.

In my opinion he was a black hole that had to be removed or we'd be stuck forever paying some huge contract to him further down the line. He was not worth the money he was making nor the money he'd eventually ask for. Over priced and over valued.

Same with Souray, he was completely overrated when it came to the PP power play. Wow yeah he had a lot of PP goals but where the hell was he the rest of the night. His power play "skills" had more to do to the fact that he could slap a puck really fast then actual "abilities" which were severely lacking. (cement legs on D for one). Whenever I saw him on tv and in person, he was freaking clueless at times.

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Oh please Ribs is a joke. He will never live up to his potential at all, he'll just be a disappointment after disappointment where ever he goes. Plus he's a jerk and he's full of himself. He's the J.D. Drew of Hockey.

In my opinion he was a black hole that had to be removed or we'd be stuck forever paying some huge contract to him further down the line. He was not worth the money he was making nor the money he'd eventually ask for. Over priced and over valued.

Same with Souray, he was completely overrated when it came to the PP power play. Wow yeah he had a lot of PP goals but where the hell was he the rest of the night. His power play "skills" had more to do to the fact that he could slap a puck really fast then actual "abilities" which were severely lacking. (cement legs on D for one). Whenever I saw him on tv and in person, he was freaking clueless at times.

:glare:

Post of the year? Anyone? ;)

Dags, Ribs and Theo?

Exactly.

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I saw on another board someone in Montreal posted they had purchased McKeen's Hockey Pool Yearbook. It was available for me today so I bought it. I like what they say in some respects.

Top 120 Skaters.

CHI Toews 1

STL Erik Johnson

LAK Jack Johnson (AC'S NOTE: GOOD JOB HURRICANES :lol: )

CHI Kane

PHO Turris 5

WAS Nicklas Backstrom

NYR Marc Staal

CBJ Jakub Voracek

WAS Karl Alzner

PHI James van Reimsdyk 10

CBJ Derrick Brassard

STL T.J. Oshie

NYR Cherepanov

PHX Peter Mueller

ANA Bobby Ryan 15

COL Shattenkirk

PHI Downie

PIT Letang

VAN Bourdon

ATL Bryan Little 20

MTL McDonagh :hlogo:

NYI Okposo

EDM Sam Gagner

SJS Devin Setoguchi

MTL Chipchura :hlogo: 25

CGY Dustin Boyd

MIN Sheppard

MTL A. Kostitsyn :hlogo:

FLA Frolik

CBJ Kris Russell 30

I'm not typing all 120. Go buy the darned thing :P

Pacioretty 56

Fischer 78

S. Kostitsyn 81

Maxwell 84

Ryan White 99

Grabovski 108

Top 30 Goalies:

MTL Price

BOS Rask

VAN Schneider

LAK Bernier

ATL Pavelec

CGY Irving

STL Varlamov

:puke: Pogge

MIN Harding

SUMMARY BY TEAM:

Skaters Goalies = S/G

ANA 2/0

ATL 3/1

BOS 6/1

BUF 4/0

CGY 4/3

CAR 1/1

CHI 7/1

COL 4/0

CBJ 3/2

DAL 5/0

DET 4/1

EDM 5/1

FLA 4/0

LAK 5/2

MIN 4/1

:hlogo: 9/1 :clap:

NSH 2/1

NJD 1/1

NYI 2/0

NYR 7/1

OTT 3/1

PHI 4/0

PHX 6/0

PIT 3/1

STL 6/2

SJS 4/2

TBL 0/2

TOR :puke: 3/1

VAN 5/1

WSH 4/2

GOOD WORK GAINEY SAVARD TIMMONS GAUTHIER AND ALL. AND THANK YOU.

I have always respected McKeen's more than THN.

PS. I couldn't decide if this was a Habs prospect post but since it is in the poolie yearbook and since some featured Habs will play in Montreal this year I decided to post here. And, the thread is about a magazine(THN). Anyway, no point 2nd guessing now

Edited by Athlétique.Canadien
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I saw on another board someone in Montreal posted they had purchased McKeen's Hockey Pool Yearbook. It was available for me today so I bought it. I like what they say in some respects.

Top 120 Skaters.

CHI Toews 1

STL Erik Johnson

LAK Jack Johnson (AC'S NOTE: GOOD JOB HURRICANES :lol: )

CHI Kane

PHO Turris 5

WAS Nicklas Backstrom

NYR Marc Staal

CBJ Jakub Voracek

WAS Karl Alzner

PHI James van Reimsdyk 10

CBJ Derrick Brassard

STL T.J. Oshie

NYR Cherepanov

PHX Peter Mueller

ANA Bobby Ryan 15

COL Shattenkirk

PHI Downie

PIT Letang

VAN Bourdon

ATL Bryan Little 20

MTL McDonagh :hlogo:

NYI Okposo

EDM Sam Gagner

SJS Devin Setoguchi

MTL Chipchura :hlogo: 25

CGY Dustin Boyd

MIN Sheppard

MTL A. Kostitsyn :hlogo:

FLA Frolik

CBJ Kris Russell 30

I'm not typing all 120. Go buy the darned thing :P

Pacioretty 56

Fischer 78

S. Kostitsyn 81

Maxwell 84

Ryan White 99

Grabovski 108

Top 30 Goalies:

MTL Price

BOS Rask

VAN Schneider

LAK Bernier

ATL Pavelec

CGY Irving

STL Varlamov

:puke: Pogge

MIN Harding

SUMMARY BY TEAM:

Skaters Goalies = S/G

ANA 2/0

ATL 3/1

BOS 6/1

BUF 4/0

CGY 4/3

CAR 1/1

CHI 7/1

COL 4/0

CBJ 3/2

DAL 5/0

DET 4/1

EDM 5/1

FLA 4/0

LAK 5/2

MIN 4/1

:hlogo: 9/1 :clap:

NSH 2/1

NJD 1/1

NYI 2/0

NYR 7/1

OTT 3/1

PHI 4/0

PHX 6/0

PIT 3/1

STL 6/2

SJS 4/2

TBL 0/2

TOR :puke: 3/1

VAN 5/1

WSH 4/2

GOOD WORK GAINEY SAVARD TIMMONS GAUTHIER AND ALL. AND THANK YOU.

I have always respected McKeen's more than THN.

PS. I couldn't decide if this was a Habs prospect post but since it is in the poolie yearbook and since some featured Habs will play in Montreal this year I decided to post here. And, the thread is about a magazine(THN). Anyway, no point 2nd guessing now

Thanks for that, greatly appreciated! :clap:

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I'll comment on the goalies:

Schneider & Pogge are overrated on there, while Irving & Harding are underrated. Varlamov is a WSH prospect, BTW, not a STL one. I'm assuming Schwarz (STL's top goalie prospect) was not amongst the top. Varlamov is a bit overrated IMHO on there as he's quite raw.... Neuvirth (another WSH goalie prospect from same draft) is probably further along than him at this point. Montoya isn't a godsend, but he's probably better than Pogge & Varlamov... and close to even with Schneider.

I want to pick up the McKeen's yearbook, but haven't seen it yet. Maybe I'll have to go to a specialized magazine store.

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McKeen's is the only forecaster worth a damn IMHO.

I just bought THN regardless, and I have to say that I find it amusing. They attack our D as shallow and untalented, but neglect to make the same criticism of (say) Boston's seemingly dismal blueline. Presumably this is because Boston has a Big Star in Chara (one man = six defencemen, apparently; damn, but I get sick of 'experts' who confuse reputation and big names with team success). They also suggest we might be 'forced' to bring up Grabovski and use him as our 2nd line C because we're so darn weak up front - apparently forgetting all about their qualified praise of Plekanec and what they describe as Smolinski's 'steady offence.' They go on to slate Higgins for a breakout season but neglect to consider what that might mean for their overall team assessment. The same is true, incidentally, for their praise of Hamrlik, Markov, and Komisarek. So the comments on individual players fail to cohere with the general remarks about the team. This is probably because different people wrote the different sections. The only point where they make any sense at all is in their analysis of Kovy and his incompatibility with Carbo's coaching style. Anyway, I don't say the Habs are a powerhouse but this particular analysis - and I'm talking less about their assessment of individual players than their general statements about the team as a whole - is total garbage.

Edited by The Chicoutimi Cucumber
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Basically, McKeen's is what you get when you want a detailed, in-depth, professional look into the upcoming season. THN is what you get when you need something to read for 5 minutes while you're on the crapper.

Thats why I just get both. But their assessment of the Avs (THN's that is) is garbage as well. We get a C while the Flames somehow still have an A-.

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