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I am watching these playoffs and can't help to think


Habsfan1989

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What a waste it was. if we had better play making centres on our team that could set up our goal scorers, and we had more mobile d, we would of made the cup finals this year. Not saying we would of won the cup. But man our team is better then these teams. We are wasting prices good years.

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3 hours ago, Commandant said:

Bergevin's three trade deadline forwards.... 50 GP 1 goal 1 assist, 2 points.... COMBINED> 

Similar to Bergevin's actual stats as a player. There might be something there...

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I had this thought as well at the end of the game last night. The Ottawa Senators have won 10 out of the 16 required games to win the Cup....it could have easily been us. Ottawa plays a defensive game like we do, they don't have any great centers, and I think the Habs would have beat them in the second round. I put the blame on the players for not performing up to their expectations and I'm sure they are blaming themselves as well, not Bergevin for failing to acquire B level scoring at the deadline. 

 

 

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Quite the collaboration of Bergevin haters placing blame, a lot of GM's won't claim a cup this year as well, 29 of them who couldn't secure the pieces to win it all at the deadline.

 

 Bergevin did what he could in his opinion, for the long term, and I for one don't think Duschene or Vrbata et al, at a kings ransome would have got the Habs anywhere.... especially if it cost Sergachev or similar... We as laymen can second guess him all day, who here knows what it's really like to be in an NHL GM's shoes? Nobody.

 

Hard to blame the coach, goalie, or players like the bottom 3 players on the roster, when the top 3 forwards couldn't muster a goal against the Rangers.

 

Patch, Chucky and Pleks could shoulder some responsibility for the Habs lack of playoff success this season.

 

Bergevin bet on his players to come through, and they didn't, it happens, we move on to next year... ask the Blackhawks fans.

 

I believe if we had of beat the Rangers, we had a shot to go deep, but you can't when your leading scorers can't score...

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Guest Stogey24
1 hour ago, illWill said:

I had this thought as well at the end of the game last night. The Ottawa Senators have won 10 out of the 16 required games to win the Cup....it could have easily been us. Ottawa plays a defensive game like we do, they don't have any great centers, and I think the Habs would have beat them in the second round. I put the blame on the players for not performing up to their expectations and I'm sure they are blaming themselves as well, not Bergevin for failing to acquire B level scoring at the deadline. 

 

 

You do realize it's the g.m's job to fix issues with a roster, right? 

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1 hour ago, illWill said:

I had this thought as well at the end of the game last night. The Ottawa Senators have won 10 out of the 16 required games to win the Cup....it could have easily been us. Ottawa plays a defensive game like we do, they don't have any great centers, and I think the Habs would have beat them in the second round. I put the blame on the players for not performing up to their expectations and I'm sure they are blaming themselves as well, not Bergevin for failing to acquire B level scoring at the deadline. 

 

 

 

We'd kill for a centre as good as Kyle Turris right now. 

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56 minutes ago, Stogey24 said:

You do realize it's the g.m's job to fix issues with a roster, right? 

You-Dont-Say.jpg

 

Just like you realize it's up to the players themselves to perform on the ice, right?

 

 

40 minutes ago, Commandant said:

 

We'd kill for a centre as good as Kyle Turris right now. 

 

We have one and his name is Alex Galchenyuk. Unfortunately for him and for us he played his way out of the center position when we needed him the most. And I don't recall any centers as good as Kyle Turris being available at the trade deadline. 

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I think the biggest reason our season ended early and it's not solely on them but Alex Galchenyuk and Nathan Beaulieu. We needed those two guys to step into the roles that they were primed to play, they came up short and we exited the playoffs in the first round.

 

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No one showed up, No one.

 

Price was good, if you can't score, you can't win period. 

 

MB trade deadline players had the same amount of goals in the playoffs as the habs top LW and C. Tough to blame 4th liners for lack of scoring, not what they are paid to do. 

 

 

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The issue is less what MB did and didn't do at the deadline, and more about serious roster holes that he has failed to address over an extended period of time. E.g., he took so long to address the weaknesses on the wing (Radulov) that by the time he got around to it, Pleks had decayed into a bottom-6 player - which meant that adding Radu was something like a lateral move rather than the coup it should have been. He has done NOTHING - and I mean, absolutely nothing - to bolster our top-6 at C over his entire tenure. Philip Danault has been his big answer. Meanwhile, Galy rots on the 4th line or plays on W because the team has no idea how to develop players. The situation at C is ridiculous and 100% Bergevin's responsibility.

 

As for the struggles of Pacioretty - which is what people are really talking about when they say 'no one showed up' - I maintain that he needs secondary offence in order to free him up to do damage. He is not a guy who can power through playoff checking and single-handedly carry an offence on his back. Until teams find they have to worry about more than two Habs' forwards (Patches and Radu), the team will not get the production it needs. And this comes back to the C problem. I guarantee you that if you add some quality C, Patches will start doing better in the crunch; not just because he'd be getting better feeds, but because teams would have to start spreading their defensive attention around.

 

Beyond his comical inability to build a FW corps worth mentioning, there is also the troubling question of Bergevin's overall vision for the team. His organization, as a whole, does seem to have an affinity for bigger, stronger, slower 'character' players (Weber, all those deadline acquisitions) over more mobile, faster, skilled players (Subban, Galy on the 4th line, etc.). It's as though MB wants to build a team in the image of what he himself was as a player. But there is the nagging suspicion that you can't win the Cup in 2017 with teams built along the 1995 New Jersey Devils model. I've been of the opinion that MB should have doubled down on what used to be the team's identity - speed, quick transition, balanced three-line attack - instead of blowing that up in favour of size and 'character.' His team is in danger of inhabiting that treacherous limbo: not fast/mobile enough to kill teams with speed, not big and gritty enough to intimidate teams with toughness, even assuming this to be a valid model in 2017 (which I doubt).

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1 hour ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

The issue is less what MB did and didn't do at the deadline, and more about serious roster holes that he has failed to address over an extended period of time. E.g., he took so long to address the weaknesses on the wing (Radulov) that by the time he got around to it, Pleks had decayed into a bottom-6 player - which meant that adding Radu was something like a lateral move rather than the coup it should have been. He has done NOTHING - and I mean, absolutely nothing - to bolster our top-6 at C over his entire tenure. Philip Danault has been his big answer. Meanwhile, Galy rots on the 4th line or plays on W because the team has no idea how to develop players. The situation at C is ridiculous and 100% Bergevin's responsibility.

 

As for the struggles of Pacioretty - which is what people are really talking about when they say 'no one showed up' - I maintain that he needs secondary offence in order to free him up to do damage. He is not a guy who can power through playoff checking and single-handedly carry an offence on his back. Until teams find they have to worry about more than two Habs' forwards (Patches and Radu), the team will not get the production it needs. And this comes back to the C problem. I guarantee you that if you add some quality C, Patches will start doing better in the crunch; not just because he'd be getting better feeds, but because teams would have to start spreading their defensive attention around.

 

Beyond his comical inability to build a FW corps worth mentioning, there is also the troubling question of Bergevin's overall vision for the team. His organization, as a whole, does seem to have an affinity for bigger, stronger, slower 'character' players (Weber, all those deadline acquisitions) over more mobile, faster, skilled players (Subban, Galy on the 4th line, etc.). It's as though MB wants to build a team in the image of what he himself was as a player. But there is the nagging suspicion that you can't win the Cup in 2017 with teams built along the 1995 New Jersey Devils model. I've been of the opinion that MB should have doubled down on what used to be the team's identity - speed, quick transition, balanced three-line attack - instead of blowing that up in favour of size and 'character.' His team is in danger of inhabiting that treacherous limbo: not fast/mobile enough to kill teams with speed, not big and gritty enough to intimidate teams with toughness, even assuming this to be a valid model in 2017 (which I doubt).

 

Heading into the season he had Galchenyuk as the #1, Plekanec/Danault as #2 and #3 and Mitchell as a solid #4. If Galchenyuk was able to stay on the same page as the coach and Plekanec didn't unexpectedly fall off a cliff offensively, we wouldn't be having this conversation. I don't see why it's so hard to see that. His hands were tied that late into the season unless he sold the farm to pick up a quality center like Duchene. Martin Hanzel was not going to save the day. Nobody expeced Galchenyuk to move away from center after his hot start to the season. Two coaches both concurred that he was better suited on the wing, we can't blame this on Therrien anymore. Plekanec is getting up there in age but nobody predicted the mess of a season he had. So I just wonder what everybody who criticizes him, what they wanted him to do. This team won the frigging division and was looking great for most of the season. Trade Sergachev? There'd be complaints about that. Tell us because up until the end of the season it wasn't much of a problem. 

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Heading into the season he had Danault playing LW on the fourth line, and Desharnais centring the third. 

 

So no, I don't buy the argument that he knew what he had in Danault. 

 

Danault being a surprise, and his development being quicker than expected mitigated (somewhat) Plekanec and Desharnais falls.  But it still wasn't enough. 

 

As for blaming chuck on therrien.  Still fair game.  You don't develop the kid to play the role of a centre and then you wonder why he can't do it?  Should have put him there years ago, and developed him, and let him learn through the mistakes. 

 

 

Also, the deadline was March 1st.  This team (goals per game) was the lowest scoring team in the entire NHL in the month of February.  A blind man could see they needed scoring. 

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24 minutes ago, Commandant said:

Heading into the season he had Danault playing LW on the fourth line, and Desharnais centring the third. 

 

So no, I don't buy the argument that he knew what he had in Danault. 

 

Danault being a surprise, and his development being quicker than expected mitigated (somewhat) Plekanec and Desharnais falls.  But it still wasn't enough. 

 

As for blaming chuck on therrien.  Still fair game.  You don't develop the kid to play the role of a centre and then you wonder why he can't do it?  Should have put him there years ago, and developed him, and let him learn through the mistakes. 

 

 

Also, the deadline was March 1st.  This team (goals per game) was the lowest scoring team in the entire NHL in the month of February.  A blind man could see they needed scoring. 

Amen. 

 

Will, your right players didn't perform, but Beregvin took zero blame in his season ending presser. 

 

As to what Cc said, there was no secondary scoring to take some of the pressure off of the select few who can bury on this team.

 

 

People seem to over look the fact that adding legit pieces at the deadline is a giant  morale booster. New chemistry can recharge a line up in a hurry. 

 

 

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16 hours ago, Commandant said:

Bergevin's three trade deadline forwards.... 50 GP 1 goal 1 assist, 2 points.... COMBINED> 

Trades are hard. Drafting is hard. Developing is hard. Not everyone can win. This isn't a videogame you know. Not everyone gets a chance at the Cup. Be happy with regular season results. They will soon be putting division winner banners up in the rafters to celebrate this team.

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2 hours ago, Commandant said:

Heading into the season he had Danault playing LW on the fourth line, and Desharnais centring the third. 

 

So no, I don't buy the argument that he knew what he had in Danault. 

 

Danault being a surprise, and his development being quicker than expected mitigated (somewhat) Plekanec and Desharnais falls.  But it still wasn't enough. 

 

As for blaming chuck on therrien.  Still fair game.  You don't develop the kid to play the role of a centre and then you wonder why he can't do it?  Should have put him there years ago, and developed him, and let him learn through the mistakes. 

 

 

Also, the deadline was March 1st.  This team (goals per game) was the lowest scoring team in the entire NHL in the month of February.  A blind man could see they needed scoring. 

 

My apologies, he had Desharnais as the third line center and Plekanec as the second, with Galchenyuk as the first. That's not too bad at all assuming previous production from those guys. He spent money on scoring by acquiring Radulov which worked out very well, so I don't see the problem coming into the year. 

 

Therrien, like any other coach in the NHL are paid to win games, they aren't paid to "develop" players. The Habs have been competitive since Galchenyuk has been in the league minus last year, so he has been trying to win games. Last year he finally got a chance to play center everyday when they were already out of the playoff race and it looked like he finally turned a corner. 

 

Yes, most teams would have liked more scoring and there wasn't much out there. A bad February leading up to the deadline doesn't necessarily mean that trend is going to continue, just like an October where they were lighting it up doesn't mean anything. 

 

This is on the players 

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The "Bad February doesn't mean anything" doesn't hold water when the habs issue for 3-4 years running has been not having enough scoring.  It shows that October was the mirage, not vice versay.  2014 they didn't have enough scoring and brought in Vanek.  2015 were eliminated because of lack of scoring 2016 their offence blew chunks for everything but october/november.  so the 2017 has a month where they can't score... its not a small sample size, its an issue with this group not having enough depth. 

 

And as I've gone over many times.  there was scoring depth traded at the deadline.  Eaves, Vanek, Iginla, all scored with their teams. Vrbata cost a second per freidmann and lebrun. 

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What I've gathered from this thread is that the outcome of our season is the fault of both the players as well as management.

 

Both parties are arguing the same thing. 

 

The first side says it's up to the players to perform. The issue with that is that management should provide the players with the actual ability to perform. If we had better players, the team would have performed better. That's on management and the way the team has been built. On the other hand, some players on the squad underperformed this year (Gal(l)y Squared) while two definitely exceeded expectations (Danault, Byron).

 

The other side blames management. Acquiring people at the deadline can be a real boost to the team and we didn't do enough. Yet the truth is that Bergevin acquired more players than most teams. We can quote their stats but no anyone would have predicted that the 3 players acquired would have combined for the same amount of points that Bergevin had himself in his 98-99 season with the Blues. He's the most active GM we've had since Savard and many long before that. The pickings were slim at the deadline and anyone who thinks that any single one of the players who were acquired would have built us into an immediate contender is not arguing a fact. Who did we want who is still in the playoffs and were acquired at the deadline? Burrows? Eaves? Stalberg? Streit? Hainsey? We're still out with any one of those forward players. Then other teams are being quoted as having been "helped" by Hanzal and Vanek and Stafford and yet those teams are out. Did we really need just a little less help than every other team?

 

As for previous seasons, Bergevin has acquired plenty of high end talented forwards who have been able to put the puck in the back of the net in general throughout their careers. Ryder, Vanek, Semin, Briere, Fleischmann, Sekac, Radulov, PA Parenreau (if you don't like that one, you Nashville fans picked him up at the deadline). One can use those names as ammunition against Bergevin but the point is that he has previously gone the route most people are complaining about and more often than not, he got burned. The only one on that list that an overwhelming majority of fans didn't like at the time was the Briere deal. 

 

I am am not a Bergevin defender. He has made mistakes. But what I see is a man going a different route as a result of learning from personal experience and people are ready to torch him 12 months into this transition. At least bring up some solid reasons. Even the people are arguing it have two different thesis statements going.

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"We can quote their stats but no anyone would have predicted that the 3 players acquired would have combined for the same amount of points that Bergevin had himself in his 98-99 season with the Blues."

 

There were many people who stated on trade deadline day that he didn't get a scoring winger.  It wasn't a huge surprise that Steve Ott and Andreas Martinsen, and Dwight King didn't score a lot of points.  Many people said that on deadline day he didn't get scoring. 

 

"Did we really need just a little less help than every other team?"

 

We scored 1 less goal (non empty net) than the New York Rangers in our series.  Yes it wouldn't have taken much to put us over them. 

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I love the logic.

 

You have to look at what other teams traded for and decide if Bergevin could have done the same deal. Then you have to decide if it was a player Bergevin even needed. Then you have to believe there wasn't anyone else available he could have acquired, because nobody else acquired them, even though not every team has the same needs and assets to acquire.

 

And if it's a player Bergevin wouldn't have needed, he did his job by not acquiring them (even though he acquired four players at the deadline the Habs didn't need). But if it's a player he did need, he didn't acquire them because he didn't have the assets or it was a division rival or the price was too high for him or whatever excuse. 

 

I honestly think at this point the only reason anyone could be confident about the Habs right now is that they look at the Senators up 2-1 and think, "Hey, we don't have to be a Stanley Cup contender, we just have to be marginally better than the Sens!" 

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5 hours ago, xXx..CK..xXx said:

What I've gathered from this thread is that the outcome of our season is the fault of both the players as well as management.

 

Both parties are arguing the same thing. 

 

The first side says it's up to the players to perform. The issue with that is that management should provide the players with the actual ability to perform. If we had better players, the team would have performed better. That's on management and the way the team has been built. On the other hand, some players on the squad underperformed this year (Gal(l)y Squared) while two definitely exceeded expectations (Danault, Byron).

 

The other side blames management. Acquiring people at the deadline can be a real boost to the team and we didn't do enough. Yet the truth is that Bergevin acquired more players than most teams. We can quote their stats but no anyone would have predicted that the 3 players acquired would have combined for the same amount of points that Bergevin had himself in his 98-99 season with the Blues. He's the most active GM we've had since Savard and many long before that. The pickings were slim at the deadline and anyone who thinks that any single one of the players who were acquired would have built us into an immediate contender is not arguing a fact. Who did we want who is still in the playoffs and were acquired at the deadline? Burrows? Eaves? Stalberg? Streit? Hainsey? We're still out with any one of those forward players. Then other teams are being quoted as having been "helped" by Hanzal and Vanek and Stafford and yet those teams are out. Did we really need just a little less help than every other team?

 

As for previous seasons, Bergevin has acquired plenty of high end talented forwards who have been able to put the puck in the back of the net in general throughout their careers. Ryder, Vanek, Semin, Briere, Fleischmann, Sekac, Radulov, PA Parenreau (if you don't like that one, you Nashville fans picked him up at the deadline). One can use those names as ammunition against Bergevin but the point is that he has previously gone the route most people are complaining about and more often than not, he got burned. The only one on that list that an overwhelming majority of fans didn't like at the time was the Briere deal. 

 

I am am not a Bergevin defender. He has made mistakes. But what I see is a man going a different route as a result of learning from personal experience and people are ready to torch him 12 months into this transition. At least bring up some solid reasons. Even the people are arguing it have two different thesis statements going.

Savard may have been active, but he went out and made bold moves for core players like Damphousse, bellows, Courtnell, bobby smith, turgeon.  He didn't just trade for junk.  In fact he traded junk like kordic for a front liner like courtnell.  

He had mistakes like trading chelios and Lemieux, but the only really big blockbuster trade that MB made in his 5 years was a mistake. 

 

He also had a steady stream of guys he drafted that came into the NHL lineup.  Other than galchenyuk, who has MB drafted that is a regular?  Saverd was ruthless with his coaches, he didn't keep his mediocre foxhole buddies around that can't develop players (MT and lefebve).

 

i don't get the hate for galachenyuk.  They play the guy as a winger for over three years and are surprised he can't play centre???   Idiots!!!!

 

and sorry, yeas we could have predicted that his deadline pickups were useless (as was his signing of a washed up briere)- because most here said as as much.  He brought in ostriches, and you are surprised that they didn't fly???

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13 minutes ago, Machine of Loving Grace said:

I love the logic.

 

You have to look at what other teams traded for and decide if Bergevin could have done the same deal. Then you have to decide if it was a player Bergevin even needed. Then you have to believe there wasn't anyone else available he could have acquired, because nobody else acquired them, even though not every team has the same needs and assets to acquire.

 

And if it's a player Bergevin wouldn't have needed, he did his job by not acquiring them (even though he acquired four players at the deadline the Habs didn't need). But if it's a player he did need, he didn't acquire them because he didn't have the assets or it was a division rival or the price was too high for him or whatever excuse. 

 

I honestly think at this point the only reason anyone could be confident about the Habs right now is that they look at the Senators up 2-1 and think, "Hey, we don't have to be a Stanley Cup contender, we just have to be marginally better than the Sens!" 

Ottawa is winning because of their coaching.

I know you don't like Boucher, but he was a better coach the day he was born than MT will ever be and he's the guy I wanted Montreal to hire last April.  Instead MB kept his bum buddy and traded away Subban 

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Just now, hab29RETIRED said:

Ottawa is winning because of their coaching.

I know you don't like Boucher, but he was a better coach the day he was born that MT will ever be and he's the guy I wanted Montreal to hire last April.

 

I don't like Boucher, but he's better than Therrien. And Julien.

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2 hours ago, hab29RETIRED said:

Savaged may have been active, but he went out and made bold moves for core players like Damphousse, bellows, Courtnell, bobby smith, turgeon.  He didn't just trade for junk.  In fact he traded junk like kordic for a front liner like courtnell.  

He had mistakes like trading chelios and Lemieux, but the only really big blockbuster trade that MB made in his 5 years was a mistake. 

 

He also had a steady stream of guys he drafted that came into the NHL lineup.  Other than galchenyuk, who has MB drafted that is a regular?  Saverd was ruthless with his coaches, he didn't keep his mediocre foxhole buddies around that can't develop players (MT and lefebve).

 

i don't get the hate for galachenyuk.  They play the guy as a winger for over three years and are surprised he can't play centre???   Idiots!!!!

 

and sorry, yeas we could have predicted that his deadline pickups were useless (as was his signing of a washed up briere)- because most here said as as much.  He brought in ostriches, and you are surprised that they didn't fly???

 

 You're wise to remind us how much of a handicap this team's drafting/development incompetence has become. The appropriate criticism of MB goes way beyond this year's deadline. 

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Nashville is getting this done with a legit #1 C in Johansen, but.... their #2 C in Fisher has 0 points in the playoffs, and their #3 C in Jarkrok has 2 points in the playoffs.

 

Which makes me think that a centre group of

Galchenyuk

XXXXXXXX

Danault

 

Is not that bad and is better 1-3 than Nashville is rolling out (but obviously won't have Nashville's D)

 

The acquisition doesn't even have to be that great, but it still needs to be made. 

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