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Habs UFA Thread


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Fanpuck's got it right, Gill is filler for the developing players. He will see very limited time and PK duty. He is crap, we'll have to cover him and try to conceal his weaknesses. Why Bob wouldn't pitch Beauchemin for a bit more I'll never know. Maybe they are sold on the kids on the farm, Weber, Subban, Emelin (ever coming?), Carle, Fischer...D is looking like a school for young players: Mr. Markov will teach skating, Mr. Hamrlik will teach zone coverage, Mr. Spacek will teach passing, Mr. Gill will teach hitting...maybe O'Byrne might learn something this year? (or package him and plex and halak for a young, two-way 2nd-line ctr???)

Top line looks small but deadly. But so overpaid for so long...and if it is Gomez and Plex down the middle, wow. Who is our second line now? Latendresse-Plex-A Kost? Uh-oh. Still, I'm looking forward to seeing that top trio light it up for a couple of seasons.

So much now hinges on Martin and his system.

Perhaps Bob believes the cap is going up? Or that the Molson's have convinced Gary to implement the NBA luxury tax? But give Bob some credit for one thing: he wanted to change the culture of the team, and my Christ he has changed it, top to bottom.

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Well, if Koivu is your favourite player of all time, you must be pretty young. IMO, Koivu is certainly the least talented 1st centerman the Habs have had for a long time. He sure had a great heart, played injured and had to fight cancer. It tells a lot about this man. But the hockey player was not great. Look at his stats. He has not even reached the 200 goals level!

I am sorry, but I won't miss the hockey player. In fact, I have been saying for years that the Habs should have traded him earlier. He was taking too much ice time for the quality of his play. He was also an average playmaker (and I am very polite here). I used to say that his line was the real "doughnut line" (the former one was the Shutt-Mahovlich-Lafleur's one). There was a hole in the centre, so no wonder that the puck was never coming from there.

JMO

Yes JC i am young , I am 19, and ever since i started watching hockey, around 6 years old, Koivu was my guy, I dont care what people say about him. Just imagine your fav player leaving its not always easy. Koivu may not be the most talented guy but man he gave his heart and soul to the city, and i respect him for that. I think for us Canadian boys we want to see passion, grit, heart, and the desire to win and i think Saku had those components. God Bless.

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Agreed. We used to laugh at Gill when he was with the Leafies. Is he supposed to be any better at 34 years of age?? I seriously doubt it!

Gill was miscast on the Leafs with top 4 minutes. If the Canadiens limit his ice time to the 3rd pairing and give him a lot of PK

minutes then he can be useful. The PK is all about clogging passing lanes and Gill is great at that.

I am not a fan, but if he is offered the proper support in a limited role he can be effective.

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So this is how Koivu's tenure with the team ends?? I don't really like it. He NEVER got to play with a 48 goal scorer like Gionta, or a two-way, go to the net Gomez. I'd trade Plex, free up some cap space, and let Koivu finish his career here, with a reduced role.

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Gill on the powerplay. You've GOT to be kidding. The man has one powerplay point in his entire NHL career. He shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the powerplay.

He is definitely taking Komi's role of shut-down guy, it's what he did in Pittsburgh. What made things easier for him, though, was Pittsburgh's skill players up front. Gill has said himself that all he had to do was flip the puck up to his skill guys and he was fine. Montreal forwards are terrible at helping their D-men out, though, that is something Martin will hopefully fix.

Don't get me wrong, I think he's a good signing also, but for different reasons. I think he's a decent temporary filler while our youngsters develop. I think Gill will be asked to play too many minutes and is going to take a lot of crap from fans because of his movement and puck moving. The benefit of being 6'7, though, is that you take up a lot of space, so even as a pilon, he's still tough to get around.

Dont worry, we have almost changed half of all our forwards from last season.

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Dont worry, we have almost changed half of all our forwards from last season.

Yeah, but based on the comments from Bob, all three of the new guys will be playing together, leaving 3/4 lines similar to last year.

So this is how Koivu's tenure with the team ends?? I don't really like it. He NEVER got to play with a 48 goal scorer like Gionta, or a two-way, go to the net Gomez. I'd trade Plex, free up some cap space, and let Koivu finish his career here, with a reduced role.

They did bring in Kovalev (44 goal season) and they didn't get along and almost never played together. BG did get Koivu a big time talented winger, but it didn't work out for Saku. Also, that 48 goal season was a fluke. Gionta hasn't even surpassed 25 goals in the three seasons since then. He was a guy who fit perfectly into the "new" NHL right away, but teams adapted and have kept him quiet since that first year. I agree it's sad that there's so little made of Koivu leaving, but after being captain for 9 seasons of disappointment, it's time to move on.

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Yes JC i am young , I am 19, and ever since i started watching hockey, around 6 years old, Koivu was my guy, I dont care what people say about him. Just imagine your fav player leaving its not always easy. Koivu may not be the most talented guy but man he gave his heart and soul to the city, and i respect him for that. I think for us Canadian boys we want to see passion, grit, heart, and the desire to win and i think Saku had those components. God Bless.

I understand and respect your point of view, young man. Well, I sure wish I still had your age, but at least I have the memories of the truly great teams of the '60s and '70s to make up for the lost years. If you had seen Beliveau, Rousseau, Cournoyer, Robinson, Tardif, Lemaire, Lafleur, Shutt, Frank and Pete Mahovlich, Lambert, Gainey, Savard, Lapointe, Risebrough, Tremblay, Dick Duff, Ralph Backstrom, and later on Damphousse, Richer, Smith, Chelios, Desjardins, Carbo and many others, Koivu would figure very low on your list.

I hope better years are ahead. I still believe that Carey Price has real potential to become an all-time favourite. But I crave to see P.K. Subban in the Sainte-Flanelle. I think he has the potential to see his sweater raised over the ice.

JMHO

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Yeah, but based on the comments from Bob, all three of the new guys will be playing together, leaving 3/4 lines similar to last year.

Son of a, I sure hope that isnt true. How many games into the season will it be this year before Cammy or Gionty get Tang'd? Having 3 small guys on 1 line forces 1 of them to go into the corners often where they will be highly susceptible to getting crunched by the many way larger dmen out there. It is a recipe for a disaster waiting to happen.

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Alex stream, you can't be serious about the D. Let me break it down for you.

Specek Gil, 6 mill. Spacek by himeslf outscored Dandy, Brisby, Bouillon and Komi, those 4 salaries were 6 mill. Komi didn't even want to be a habs. Gil and Spacek did. They are a significant upgrade to last years bunch. Which i'll remind you was bottom 5 in the league, no question.

Gil was brought in to Pk, Spacek for the PP. Both are physically tough, i have no idea where people are gettng things on Spacek, he was the Sabres best Damn.

I agree, I have no idea which of my post you are replying too, so I can't know what I said that made you think otherwise.

when you want to reply to a post, hit the REPLY button at the bottom right corner of that post :P;)

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Not sure if this has been posted elsewhere, but how did we resign Kovalev at $4.5mp.a. for two years and it not get picked up by major news outlets?

http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=432992

I mean, if it's on NHL.com, it must be legit, right? Those guys don't mess around...

HockeysFuture (the poor man's KK) says two years for $4.4m per annum.

Twitter says the agent is meeting with Gainey today, but that the Caps have made an offer...

In other news, my fake George Gillette Twitter account has finally been suspended :(

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I am sure that Martin will have a big impact on this too. Imagine having the forwards actually support the Dmen instead of racing towards the opponents blueline.

Your point is key to all this. It was the biggest weakness last year, and it is how Martin teaches. Look at Hossa and Havlat. Both use that great skill on the backcheck as well.

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Not sure if this has been posted elsewhere, but how did we resign Kovalev at $4.5mp.a. for two years and it not get picked up by major news outlets?

http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=432992

I mean, if it's on NHL.com, it must be legit, right? Those guys don't mess around...

HockeysFuture (the poor man's KK) says two years for $4.4m per annum.

Twitter says the agent is meeting with Gainey today, but that the Caps have made an offer...

In other news, my fake George Gillette Twitter account has finally been suspended :(

That report is dated for the 1st of july at 2:30 P:M.

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They didn't resign Melanson because he couldn't help Price

on the other hand, Halak is somewhat a product of Melanson

so... there is a pretty good hint there. ^_^

A hint at ... something. A better goalie coach may be able to significantly improve either Price or Halak, or both. I think they both have the talent, but the mental side is huge, and the right coach might be able to make that happen.

As I said, I don't think you can really improve the goaltending for the $900K that we're paying Halak this year. And depending on which one of the two is helped more by the coaching change, we could even end up having a bargain on our hands in Halak.

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A hint at ... something. A better goalie coach may be able to significantly improve either Price or Halak, or both. I think they both have the talent, but the mental side is huge, and the right coach might be able to make that happen.

As I said, I don't think you can really improve the goaltending for the $900K that we're paying Halak this year. And depending on which one of the two is helped more by the coaching change, we could even end up having a bargain on our hands in Halak.

nah, I was replying to Revvv (asking who we'd trade between Halak and Prince) and I was hinting that Rollie failed with Price, but was good for Halak.

If we intended to keep Halak, we'd have kept Rollie. Since Rollie didn't fit with Price and Rollie left, I'm sure (I was sure before that anyways) that it's because they still believe in the Price.

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nah, I was replying to Revvv (asking who we'd trade between Halak and Prince) and I was hinting that Rollie failed with Price, but was good for Halak.

If we intended to keep Halak, we'd have kept Rollie. Since Rollie didn't fit with Price and Rollie left, I'm sure (I was sure before that anyways) that it's because they still believe in the Price.

I really don't think that makes a lot of sense. You want a coach who can help all of your goalies, not just one. Melanson has a good history of developing goalies to the NHL level, but once they hit the NHL, he tends to lose guys. Many of our goalies have started out very well and then gone down hill. Garon looked at times like the future of the team and never amounted to a solid #1, Theodore was amazing early and now can't re-establish himself as a #1, Price came up like a ball of fire and collapsed. I think the team simply wants a guy who can do more than get a guy to the NHL, but a guy who can help goalies continually improve. I never really saw that in any of his proteges. What makes the most sense is to hire a guy to help all of your goalies.

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If he had bothered speaking a little more French, more people would bother missing him a little.

of all the f**king BS that I have just waded through that is absolutely the worst.

You are talking about a guy who came back from stomach cancer to lead the team and was nothing but class his entire time and that's the best you can say?!

Au revoir Saku, you deserved better :hlogo:

Edited by PMAC
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http://canadiens.nhl.com/team/app?articlei...mp;service=page

Holy crap! Bob brought back some of our UFAs! ^_^

Alex Henry and Mike Glumac are back for another year. And McGill grad Mathieu Darche is joining them in Hamilton.

Chad Anderson re-signed as well while tough guy Eric Neilson also joins the Habs (Bulldogs), all on two-way contracts.

http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=61457 (Neilson)

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of all the f**king BS that I have just waded through that is absolutely the worst.

You are talking about a guy who came back from stomach cancer to lead the team and was nothing but class his entire time and that's the best you can say?!

Au revoir Saku, you deserved better :hlogo:

PMAC, don't worry!! That's simply not the feelings from the average fan here in Montreal. Give it some time, everything happened so fast yesterday. I heard more than once today, " Koivu's returning, right?"

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I really don't think that makes a lot of sense. You want a coach who can help all of your goalies, not just one. Melanson has a good history of developing goalies to the NHL level, but once they hit the NHL, he tends to lose guys. Many of our goalies have started out very well and then gone down hill. Garon looked at times like the future of the team and never amounted to a solid #1, Theodore was amazing early and now can't re-establish himself as a #1, Price came up like a ball of fire and collapsed. I think the team simply wants a guy who can do more than get a guy to the NHL, but a guy who can help goalies continually improve. I never really saw that in any of his proteges. What makes the most sense is to hire a guy to help all of your goalies.

yeah, it doesn't make sense that Melanson crafted Garon, Theodore, helped Hackett get his game to a higher level, crafted Huet, crafted Halak, etc.

it doesn't make sense that at the one up he does, it happens to be our "Franchise goalie"

Melanson really is a terrific goalie coach and is recognized as such.

His failure to help Price costed him job.

If you can't understand that, I don't know what "does make sense" to you.

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yeah, it doesn't make sense that Melanson crafted Garon, Theodore, helped Hackett get his game to a higher level, crafted Huet, crafted Halak, etc.

it doesn't make sense that at the one up he does, it happens to be our "Franchise goalie"

Melanson really is a terrific goalie coach and is recognized as such.

His failure to help Price costed him job.

If you can't understand that, I don't know what "does make sense" to you.

You missed my entire point. I really don't know how I can be any clearer: Melanson helps guys become NHL ready, but then has trouble helping them maintain a high calibre and improve once at the NHL level. It's happened with many of our goalies who came in, had great success at first, then diminished. It was a pattern, just not a one time failure with Price. The idea that he got fired simply because of Price is ridiculous. If Rollie were helping all our goalies except for Price, then who should be the one taking the blame? Then again, Bob did show last year his desire to place the franchise squarely on Price's shoulders, so I guess nothing should shock me when it comes to Gainey and Price.

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of all the f**king BS that I have just waded through that is absolutely the worst.

You are talking about a guy who came back from stomach cancer to lead the team and was nothing but class his entire time and that's the best you can say?!

Au revoir Saku, you deserved better :hlogo:

Nice job missing my entire point.

When someone like Bob says "We had the chance to change the face of our team, starting by Saku Koivu", and he doesnt even bother make him an offer; you know he couldnt wait to get rid of him. Probably has too much class to say why.

At last: The Koivu Era is Dead.

Finally!

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