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Habs acquire Robert Lang and re-sign Brisebois


Peter Puck

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buhbye Mats !!

I'm not overjoyed but he's a big right handed centerman with offensive left in him.

a second rounder in 2010 is a fair price for him.

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For a 2nd? That's a very fair price, I'd say, and the very reason why I thought he was a better option than Marleau or Carter or anyone else that's been rumoured.

I don't think this means the end of Sundin, as I believe he'll sign here in middle of the season. For now it means we now have 3 #1A-2 centers. It's hard to say exactly who's best out of Lang, Plekanec and Koivu but I think Lang can easily outscore the other two if given the right linemates - it just depends who Carbo decides to give the icetime to.

On a sad note, this probably means that Chipchura is missing the team once again.

Going into a Cup year, we've addressed our biggest need. Now, name a weakness with our team. Unexperienced goaltending? Whether you're a fan of Lang or not, this is a solid move for the Habs - our attack is truly 3 lines deep and it keeps other useful players like Kostopoulos, Lapierre, Chipchura, Begin, D'agostini and Laraque sqaubbling for spots on the 4th line and the fourth line only.

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it's Grabovsky's pick... so we got a huge ass Dman AND Robert Lang for a smurfish dynamo center who had the Oleg Petrov syndrome... :P

Lang was my center option like 4 years ago... it was quite time we got him... if Gainey had waited a bit more, he'd have retired :P

Good Job, once again. I expect a good 50 pts to come out of him as well as "some" leadership. a BIG improvement over Smokes :D

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Plekanec won't have it easy. That puts pressure on him to keep progressing. Maybe not a bad thing for him.

But my guess is we'll see Lang and Kovalev play together at some point, giving the history between the two. Carbo might go with 5 or 6 lines combination with Kovalev playing 2/3 of its time with Plekanec and 1/3 with Lang

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I'll be the first:

Kostitsyn-Plekanec-Kovalev

Tanguay-Koivu-Higgins

Latendresse-Lang-Kostitsyn

Laraque-Lapierre-Kostopoulos (Begin, Chipchura, ...)

Throw in Sundin in middle of the season... :blink:

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I'll be the first:

Kostitsyn-Plekanec-Kovalev

Tanguay-Koivu-Higgins

Latendresse-Lang-Kostitsyn

Laraque-Lapierre-Kostopoulos (Begin, Chipchura, ...)

Throw in Sundin in middle of the season... :blink:

Why not Lang with Kovalev? I believe those two along with Straka were a unit on the Penguins back in the day, during Kovalev's best season.

A.Kost-Lang-Kovalev

Tanguay-Koivu-S.Kost

Higgins-Plekanec-Tender

Laraque-Laps-Kosto

Either way, we are officially 3 lines DEEP.

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On the surface, it's not entirely clear this move was necessary.

One may speculate that:

1- When Mats met with Gainey earlier in the week, he said I'm not coming to Montreal AND

2- Someone else was sniffing around for Lang

There's something that's not being reported here. I would have been quite happy with the team we had right now. Something must have tipped Gainey off.

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Why not Lang with Kovalev? I believe those two along with Straka were a unit on the Penguins back in the day, during Kovalev's best season.

A.Kost-Lang-Kovalev

Tanguay-Koivu-S.Kost

Higgins-Plekanec-Tender

Laraque-Laps-Kosto

Either way, we are officially 3 lines DEEP.

Because I would keep the Kostitsyn-Plekanec-Kovalev line together. But if we're using those two together than I would change more than that and go with:

Latendresse-Lang-Kovalev

Tanguay-Koivu-Sergei

Higgins-Plekanec-Andrei

That brings Kovalev and Lang together and gives them another big guy in Latendresse but I'm not sure he can keep up with them. On the 2nd, Koivu gets a guy he can work with in Tanguay and then a guy he's played well with last year. On the 3rd, we bring back the old Higgins-Plekanec-Kostitsyn line that was our best at the end of the 06-07 season. Once Paccioretty, Sundin and Chipchura join us midseason things start to change though... ^_^

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at first i would say WTF!!!

But then as BTH makes it very clear in his first post in this thread, that makes sence...

Though i dont like such an old addition, we have some experienced guys, dont need another. He's too old and pretty much on the downhill to make a impression, i thought no more Smoke like addition. Well only time will tell and i hope he proves me wrong. But still a cheap depth addition.

Real Sad for Chips...

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at first i would say WTF!!!

But then as BTH makes it very clear in his first post in this thread, that makes sence...

Though i dont like such an old addition, we have some experienced guys, dont need another. He's too old and pretty much on the downhill to make a impression, i thought no more Smoke like addition. Well only time will tell and i hope he proves me wrong. But still a cheap depth addition.

Real Sad for Chips...

He is no Smoke. I'll have to look up Lang's numbers but I believe he had 29 goals and over 70 points last year. He can still help us offensively.

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I'd guess that Lang might end up alongside Kovalev at some point. Not overly impressed, hope he has some still left in the tank. Still, it's a fairly low-risk move, and the biggest cost is probably the 4M of cap space he'll eat up. Better to get him now than at the deadline when he'd be ridiculously over-valued. Plus, the Habs couldn't wait for the Sundin drama forever. He's a big centre with decent offensive skills (although he doesn't exactly play anything near a physical game), so he's not a bad Plan B.

He is no Smoke. I'll have to look up Lang's numbers but I believe he had 29 goals and over 70 points last year. He can still help us offensively.

Those days are a few years behind him, it's more like 21 goals and 54 points.

Edited by smon
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more around 50 points as they say on NHL.com.

Yeah i know he's much more of a goalscorer than Smokes, but Smokes couldnt get his level anymore, so i dont think Lang cant anymore. And he got quite a few points last year playing with some great players(those upcoming Hawk stars), and a lot of ice time cuz they didnt have many other great players....i dont think he gets those chances here

Edited by Dutch_Habs_Fan
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more around 50 points as they say on NHL.com.

Yeah i know he's much more of a goalscorer than Smokes, but Smokes couldnt get his level anymore, so i dont think Lang cant anymore. And he got quite a few points last year playing with some great players(those upcoming Hawk stars), and a lot of ice time cuz they didnt have much other great players....i dont think he gets those chances here

Quoted from a poster on hf.

I like. Montreal is going to use Plekanec and Koivu against top lines, not Lang. Lang is really the "second-line" center. Koivu is more the third-line center, but he is the Rod Brind-Amour type third-line center -- he's not out there just to check.

Like I usually do, I went on behindthenet.ca to view his even-strength performance. Like Tanguay, I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. Lang has a fairly neutral quality of competition metric -- he was a second-line center, basically -- but he does have a very positive Corsi number, indicating that while he was facing second lines, he did very well against them in terms of shots for/against. He was also productive. 0.77 goals/60 mins would put him a bit below Chris Higgins, but his 2.13 PTS/60 at ES would put him third on the Habs. He had 14 even-strength goals and 37 even-strength points, both of which would put him near the top of the Hab roster,and was a +9 . And all those stats were accrued in the "more defensive" West. He even has good faceoff stats.

He didn't do so well on the power play. But the Habs either don't care, or can fix that.

He is a strong even-strength performer, like Tanguay (but not to the same degree), and he has size. He fills a need nicely. He is no Mats Sundin, of this there can be no doubt. But he is an extremely credible plan B.

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Good Points you come up there with, makes this trade very good/interesting. But you can also always finds points to make a trade look good are make it look bad. We just have to wait for it....(i was kinda satisfied with the team we had already) I just hope Lang doesnt block a youngster (like maybe Chips) BUt he's a cheap addition!

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