Lefebvre will be Laval Rocket's 1st Coach

[The Chicoutimi Cucumber]

Just now, Habsfan1989 said:

Toronto during that time in the 90's I believe made the final four 4 times just could never get into the finals. In the 8 years only missed the playoffs once. The leafs in the 80's were very bad and no direction. The leafs in the 90's traded away the young guys and there draft picks because they always believed they were 1 player away. Just like the habs now. That is why people keep comparing the 2 teams.

 

Right. Whenever I make the comparison, it's always with those 1990s teams. That's exactly what the habs today look like.

[Neech]

32 minutes ago, xXx..CK..xXx said:

Tired of hearing the Leafs comparisons. We ice a more competitive team every year outside of 2 seasons in recent memory than they did throughout the compared era. We are not like the Leafs. 

 

We are not like the Oilers who didn't make the playoffs for a decade. We are not Calgary who never has the goaltending to get over the hump. We are not Winnipeg who no one ever really believes has a chance. We are not Ottawa who were more of a Cinderella story than we would have been last season. And we are not yet Vancouver who seems to rely on an even older core than ours.

 

We are closest to the Vancouver that made the final with Luongo than any other comparison out there of recent Canadian teams. For years, I felt as though Vancouver and Montreal were the cream of Canadian teams and in fact they seem to have fallen harder than us in recent years.

 

Ironically, many of those teams (Vancouver, Ottawa, Edmonton, Calgary) have gone further than the Habs in the 21st century but the Leafs haven't and if we have anything on each of those teams it IS consistency in icing a competitive team most years. I hope for a cup next season but if and when we lose in say the conference final next year, we can just forget that 27 teams did worse than us and complain because we are the proud and special Montreal Canadiens and "deserve more" than the other kids. 

 

The idea is that we're turning into the Leafs; this is about the future, not the past.  We pretty much have to win now or we'll be back where we were 10-15 years ago, clawing for the 8th seed and needing a miracle to make the second round.

 

The best Ottawa and Vancouver teams of the recent era were President's Trophy caliber, and were unlucky to emerge Cup-less from a talent boom.  Our talent boom hasn't been on that level, and now the window is closing on it.  

 

 

[PMAC]

3 hours ago, Machine of Loving Grace said:

 

Neither do I. It's more that the Montreal Canadiens... THE MONTREAL CANADIENS... THE COUNT 24 STANLEY CUPS, CITY ON THE CUP MORE TIMES THAN ANY OTHER CITY, THE MONTREAL CANADIENS... waited for Sylvain Lefebvre to try to find a new job elsewhere, and then happily re-signed him after his past five years of performances, to handle their AHL organization. 

 

This team waited patiently for mediocrity. 

Exactly, as I said in a previous post, if the development isn't fixed and soon it could and should and eventually will cost Bergevin his job.Friends or not, continuing with Lefebvre is a big risk and I can't believe Bergevin went with it because I don't see any upside to this move. The only possible good is that Larry Carriere as the GM will see Lefebvre in action and can him sooner rather than later.

[The Chicoutimi Cucumber]

1 minute ago, PMAC said:

Exactly, as I said in a previous post, if the development isn't fixed and soon it could and should and eventually will cost Bergevin his job.Friends or not, continuing with Lefebvre is a big risk and I can't believe Bergevin went with it because I don't see any upside to this move. The only possible good is that Larry Carriere as the GM will see Lefebvre in action and can him sooner rather than later.

 

The best case scenario (other than MB being fired along with his precious entourage of bum buddies) is that Lefebvre has learned from his five disastrous years and emerges as a capable developmental coach. Were this to happen, we'd have sacrificed five years of player development for the sake of his personal growth, but at least the next wave of prospects would be competently developed.

 

Not saying it'll happen, of course - especially since, as far as we can see, his boss supports him no matter how much of a blithering donkey he is, which does not exactly speak to an organizational culture of excellence.

[Guest Stogey24]

11 minutes ago, PMAC said:

Exactly, as I said in a previous post, if the development isn't fixed and soon it could and should and eventually will cost Bergevin his job.Friends or not, continuing with Lefebvre is a big risk and I can't believe Bergevin went with it because I don't see any upside to this move. The only possible good is that Larry Carriere as the GM will see Lefebvre in action and can him sooner rather than later.

Can carriere do it without going through Bergevin 

[PMAC]

2 minutes ago, Stogey24 said:

Can carriere do it without going through Bergevin 

I live in hope 

[Machine of Loving Grace]

Carriere will fire Lefebvre to make his son the coach. 

[dlbalr]

A disappointing, yet unsurprising outcome.  Lefebvre hasn't had the horses to work with and is far from the only guilty party when it comes to the lack of success the teams have had under his tenure.  Bergevin has refused to supply him with the level of supplemental talent required to have successful AHL teams and did so supposedly in the name of development.

 

My frustration with Lefebvre over the years has been what he has chosen to do with that mantra which is basically put the journeyman plugs they sign to fill out the roster ahead of the actual prospects on the depth chart.  Zack Stortini routinely played ahead of Louis Leblanc and saw PP time ahead of him.  While Leblanc probably wouldn't have made it anyway, that still makes no sense if you're trying to develop players.  Even some of the good veterans that were added were miscast - the diminutive Martin St. Pierre, a top scorer at that level, got deployed as a checker for a good chunk of his one season under Lefebvre.  At 30 years old and a whopping 5'9, this is not how to use your veteran talent.  (There's plenty more of these but I'll digress.) 

 

For a more recent example of curious development, consider Markus Eisenschmid.  While on an AHL deal, he was playing ahead of prospects like Jeremy Gregoire which again goes against the idea of letting the prospects play.  Eisenschmid signed an entry-level contract back in January and was immediately bumped down the depth chart to the point where he started to become a regular scratch.  But hey, the no-good career minor league goon in David Broll still had a spot in the lineup for most of the year (and a contract extension to boot).

 

I was hoping they'd use the move as a chance to start fresh behind the bench.  Failing that, here's hoping for a bit of a change from Bergevin's philosophy and that he'll start to supply them with better supplemental depth.  Somehow I'm not holding my breath there.

 

1 hour ago, PMAC said:

Exactly, as I said in a previous post, if the development isn't fixed and soon it could and should and eventually will cost Bergevin his job.Friends or not, continuing with Lefebvre is a big risk and I can't believe Bergevin went with it because I don't see any upside to this move. The only possible good is that Larry Carriere as the GM will see Lefebvre in action and can him sooner rather than later.

 

Unfortunately Carriere will lack a bit of objectivity when it comes to Lefebvre.  His son, Nick Carriere, was hired to be an assistant coach a couple of years ago despite having a losing record over a decade of coaching at a low-level Division III college.  Any 'failure' attributed to Lefebvre will inherently be attributed to his son as well and he probably wouldn't want that.

[The Chicoutimi Cucumber]

1 hour ago, dlbalr said:

 

 

Unfortunately Carriere will lack a bit of objectivity when it comes to Lefebvre.  His son, Nick Carriere, was hired to be an assistant coach a couple of years ago despite having a losing record over a decade of coaching at a low-level Division III college.  Any 'failure' attributed to Lefebvre will inherently be attributed to his son as well and he probably wouldn't want that.

 

Wow, the nepotism knows no bounds with this gang. A sure-fire recipe for success

[Lovett's Magnatones]

3 hours ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

 

The best case scenario (other than MB being fired along with his precious entourage of bum buddies) 

 

That's going to be a great day for Le Antichambre. They can just hire all those guys on the spot and fire the last crop of loser Habs coaches. 

 

What's really costly about the development issues is all of a sudden you have to trade for David Schemko and 380 year old Andre Markov has the team over a barrell-without an agent! How the hell does this happen to a team that drafts four dmen in the first round out of 6 drafts!

 

I have noticed that Bergevin has dropped his excuse about building through the draft. Now he's down to one excuse, which is that his job is hard, lol.

[DON]

2 hours ago, dlbalr said:

A disappointing, yet unsurprising outcome.  Lefebvre hasn't had the horses to work with and is far from the only guilty party when it comes to the lack of success the teams have had under his tenure.  Bergevin has refused to supply him with the level of supplemental talent required to have successful AHL teams and did so supposedly in the name of development.

 

My frustration with Lefebvre over the years has been what he has chosen to do with that mantra which is basically put the journeyman plugs they sign to fill out the roster ahead of the actual prospects on the depth chart.  Zack Stortini routinely played ahead of Louis Leblanc and saw PP time ahead of him.  While Leblanc probably wouldn't have made it anyway, that still makes no sense if you're trying to develop players.  Even some of the good veterans that were added were miscast - the diminutive Martin St. Pierre, a top scorer at that level, got deployed as a checker for a good chunk of his one season under Lefebvre.  At 30 years old and a whopping 5'9, this is not how to use your veteran talent.  (There's plenty more of these but I'll digress.) 

 

For a more recent example of curious development, consider Markus Eisenschmid.  While on an AHL deal, he was playing ahead of prospects like Jeremy Gregoire which again goes against the idea of letting the prospects play.  Eisenschmid signed an entry-level contract back in January and was immediately bumped down the depth chart to the point where he started to become a regular scratch.  But hey, the no-good career minor league goon in David Broll still had a spot in the lineup for most of the year (and a contract extension to boot).

 

I was hoping they'd use the move as a chance to start fresh behind the bench.  Failing that, here's hoping for a bit of a change from Bergevin's philosophy and that he'll start to supply them with better supplemental depth.  Somehow I'm not holding my breath there.

 

 

Unfortunately Carriere will lack a bit of objectivity when it comes to Lefebvre.  His son, Nick Carriere, was hired to be an assistant coach a couple of years ago despite having a losing record over a decade of coaching at a low-level Division III college.  Any 'failure' attributed to Lefebvre will inherently be attributed to his son as well and he probably wouldn't want that.

 

[xXx..CK..xXx]

I had a post written out quoting habs29, Habsfan & Neech before my device passed away so this won't do it justice but to sum up:

 

1) Kiprusoff was great but outside of him they only had Iginla. The comparison is decent but they haven't had the longevity. Habs have been competitive on a more consistent basis than Calgary and any other Canadian team. That's what the point of my post was. It could be argued that other Canadian teams have had a better season than the Habs but the Habs have had competitive teams more consistently in general.

 

2) I didn't follow the Leafs closely enough in the 90s but if we're comparing our team to a squad that had hall of fame caliber players such as Sundin, Wendell Clarke and even CuJo, then I can see why they would have thought they were maybe only a player away and I may have thought so as well as a Leafs fan.

 

3) Many Habs fans may argue that we haven't had a chance in recent years but from my perspective there have been 2 seasons in the recent past where I believed we had a shot. 2010 we were lucky to get past the first two rounds I admit but once we did, I thought we had a chance. Cammalleri was something special, Halak was a stop sign and we had a core of Devils players who had done it before.

 

A few years ago when we faced the Rangers in the conference final, I also believed we had a shot and still think we would have had a chance against the favored Kings if Price didn't get injured.

 

In the first situation, credit should be given to Gainey for assembling the core after blowing up the team and in the latter example credit should be given to Bergevin for trying to put us over the top with acquisitions like Vanek.

 

If we're talking not about the past and the future like you (Neech) alluded to then yes we have a ticking clock with these players but I actually think we'll either be a contender this season or more than one piece away. Hopefully it's the former. 

 

Keep Galchenyuk, resign Radulov and Markov, and acquire a top 6 center and we're contenders. I'd like to add a top 4 defenseman into that list but I think if we tick the boxes on offense we may be able to overcome our defensive deficiencies.

 

On the other hand, those are a lot of things that have to line up so there's also a chance we're more than a piece away. I don't see how we're the Leafs of the past.

 

We'll have a better idea come free agency.

 

As for the Lefebvre and the topic of this thread, I won't say I'm particularly pleased. I wouldn't have a reason to be.

[Habsfan1989]

1 hour ago, xXx..CK..xXx said:

I had a post written out quoting habs29, Habsfan & Neech before my device passed away so this won't do it justice but to sum up:

 

1) Kiprusoff was great but outside of him they only had Iginla. The comparison is decent but they haven't had the longevity. Habs have been competitive on a more consistent basis than Calgary and any other Canadian team. That's what the point of my post was. It could be argued that other Canadian teams have had a better season than the Habs but the Habs have had competitive teams more consistently in general.

 

2) I didn't follow the Leafs closely enough in the 90s but if we're comparing our team to a squad that had hall of fame caliber players such as Sundin, Wendell Clarke and even CuJo, then I can see why they would have thought they were maybe only a player away and I may have thought so as well as a Leafs fan.

 

3) Many Habs fans may argue that we haven't had a chance in recent years but from my perspective there have been 2 seasons in the recent past where I believed we had a shot. 2010 we were lucky to get past the first two rounds I admit but once we did, I thought we had a chance. Cammalleri was something special, Halak was a stop sign and we had a core of Devils players who had done it before.

 

A few years ago when we faced the Rangers in the conference final, I also believed we had a shot and still think we would have had a chance against the favored Kings if Price didn't get injured.

 

In the first situation, credit should be given to Gainey for assembling the core after blowing up the team and in the latter example credit should be given to Bergevin for trying to put us over the top with acquisitions like Vanek.

 

If we're talking not about the past and the future like you (Neech) alluded to then yes we have a ticking clock with these players but I actually think we'll either be a contender this season or more than one piece away. Hopefully it's the former. 

 

Keep Galchenyuk, resign Radulov and Markov, and acquire a top 6 center and we're contenders. I'd like to add a top 4 defenseman into that list but I think if we tick the boxes on offense we may be able to overcome our defensive deficiencies.

 

On the other hand, those are a lot of things that have to line up so there's also a chance we're more than a piece away. I don't see how we're the Leafs of the past.

 

We'll have a better idea come free agency.

 

As for the Lefebvre and the topic of this thread, I won't say I'm particularly pleased. I wouldn't have a reason to be.

We are comparing them as to how they were built. Trade away young players and draft picks for gritty older players.  Not caring about drafting and developing players. Plus when they're careers are done price, Weber, will be in the hall of fame.

[xXx..CK..xXx]

I'm confused as to how we can have it both ways. Some are complaining that we may not have the team to win now despite an ageing core of players because we are not going for it and then others are saying we are not looking at the future because we are going after win now veterans all the while losing our prospects.

 

I think the plan was legitimately to build through the draft under this regime but years pass by and one has to be able to adapt. 

 

We're saying the same thing in a different way tough. I don't have confidence yet in the Edmontons and Torontos of the league. I think they are young and will have to go through some growing pains before they achieve their goal. I mentioned that the Habs have been more consistently competitive than other Canadian teams and as a result, we haven't had the privilege of drafting the McDavids and Matthews of the league. Those teams are able to build through the draft because of their continual bad seasons.

 

Our highest pick has been Galchenyuk and while people are questioning his development, the first overall pick that year was Nail Yakupov. If you want to know the truth, one could argue that Edmonton has done a terrible

job of developing its players. They've drafted players like Hall, Eberle, Nugent-Hopkins and Yakupov and may end up without any of those players ever having achieved a thing wearing their jersey.

 

I'd like some better talent in the pipeline but I do think part of our developmental issues have to do partly with the fact that more than half the teams have generally had higher picks than the Habs.

[Link67]

 

 

This was all i could think of when i saw the news

[The Chicoutimi Cucumber]

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

I'm confused as to how we can have it both ways. Some are complaining that we may not have the team to win now despite an ageing core of players because we are not going for it and then others are saying we are not looking at the future because we are going after win now veterans all the while losing our prospects.

 

I think the plan was legitimately to build through the draft under this regime but years pass by and one has to be able to adapt. 

 

We're saying the same thing in a different way tough. I don't have confidence yet in the Edmontons and Torontos of the league. I think they are young and will have to go through some growing pains before they achieve their goal. I mentioned that the Habs have been more consistently competitive than other Canadian teams and as a result, we haven't had the privilege of drafting the McDavids and Matthews of the league. Those teams are able to build through the draft because of their continual bad seasons.

 

Our highest pick has been Galchenyuk and while people are questioning his development, the first overall pick that year was Nail Yakupov. If you want to know the truth, one could argue that Edmonton has done a terrible

job of developing its players. They've drafted players like Hall, Eberle, Nugent-Hopkins and Yakupov and may end up without any of those players ever having achieved a thing wearing their jersey.

 

I'd like some better talent in the pipeline but I do think part of our developmental issues have to do partly with the fact that more than half the teams have generally had higher picks than the Habs.

 

We all wanted to see the Habs build a team properly - i.e., through the draft. For a while, it looked as though they were on course, with a strong internally developed core. (Price, PK, Patches, Pleks, Gallagher, Galy, etc.). Then two things happened. First, they irrationally decided to make themselves almost four years older at a key position (#1 D), narrowing the Cup window by 3-4 years. Second, it became apparent that this regime is one of the worst in the league at player development. Not a single core piece besides Galy (who was basically gifted to them) and maybe Lehkonen (who was developed in Europe, thank God) has been developed by this group in five frigging years. The team has to add expensive UFAs (Shaw, maybe Alzner) to fill roles that should have been filled by cheap young talent. It's got a veteran, aging core with nothing worth a wet fart in the pipeline. This is why a lot of us are arguing that we have to go 'all in.' This core has maybe 3-4 years left, and, as Bob Dylan sings, 'beyond here lies nothin'.' Exactly like the Leafs in the late 1990s.

 

I don't buy the 'poor draft position' excuse. Nashville has drafted and developed major pieces while having a similar profile. It's the difference between good and inept management.

 

Link, what "news" are you talking about???

[dlbalr]

1 hour ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

Link, what "news" are you talking about???

 

Considering the topic we're in, I'm assuming it was the news that Lefebvre's re-hiring (on a two year deal) was made official.

[hab29RETIRED]

1 minute ago, dlbalr said:

 

Considering the topic we're in, I'm assuming it was the news that Lefebvre's re-hiring (on a two year deal) was made official.

Have we gotten a bit of topic again?