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Feb. 6, Ducks vs Habs, 7 PM


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7 hours ago, Commandant said:

 

Our focus needs to be on getting 2 points each and every game.... 

 

1 game at a time.

 

You can't do anything other than win 1 game at a time.  

Rather than trying to win 5 home games in a row (or whatever it is), just win the next one, and when that game is over then you move to the next one after that. 

I'm not even sure how the team would go about improving the home record, in any other way.

 

“We have to play way better at home. We have to win those.” 

 

- Ilya Kovalchuk

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2 hours ago, alfredoh2009 said:

Couldn’t watch the game. I am interested in knowing if Suzuki is solidifying his spot as the teams 2C and if he may be a potential 1C ( progression and ceiling)

Also, is Domi committing to what coaching wants from him as a center or is he still kind of a while card at that position and playing himself out of center toward wing.

Maybe too much to tell from one game, but that would have been what I would have been checking. 
 

Thx

http://www.habsworld.net/2020/02/habs-keep-rolling-with-win-against-ducks/

here is all need to know

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

 

“We have to play way better at home. We have to win those.” 

 

- Ilya Kovalchuk

 

"Cliche" - NHL Hockey Player in any interview.

 

Doesnt change what i said.  There isnt a strategy they can put together to win the next 5 home games.  A team cant look ahead like that.  They just have to win the next one.

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7 hours ago, Trizzak said:

The Calder trophy is going to go to one of Hughes or Makar, but Suzuki deserves to be on the ballot considering the rookie forwards closest to him in point production are both 24 year olds.

 

Ilya samsonov and Adam Fox are likely still ahead of him today.

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2 hours ago, Commandant said:

 

"Cliche" - NHL Hockey Player in any interview.

 

Doesnt change what i said.  There isnt a strategy they can put together to win the next 5 home games.  A team cant look ahead like that.  They just have to win the next one.


It’s not cliche when it’s an accurate statement relative to your team.
 

In fact, “take it 1 game at a time” is as cliche as it gets, and doesn’t really help the Habs do any better when saying that. 
 

Do you think Jakubek Voracek of Philadelphia would say, “we need to be better at home”? No, he wouldn’t, because it would not make sense with Philadelphia being stellar at home.

 

Kovalchuk was right. The Habs need to obtain better results at home. No one said anything about focusing 5 games ahead. That was a narrative created out of thin air. 
 

The Habs can focus one game at a time at taking care of business in their barn, as most professional teams should.

 

Your hypothesis that there’s nothing one can do to obtain better results at home is being short sighted and why we have better qualified people behind the bench than you and I. It doesn’t take an adult hockey fan to understand that coaching is important on home ice, for instance.
 

Here’s an example: Yesterday, Anaheim’s 4th line was on the ice and our 4th line was matched against them. Anaheim put the puck in the net and their coaches rewarded them with taking the face-off at center ice. Seeing this while having second line change, our coach put out the Danault line to have a mismatch on the ice in our favour. One can argue whether it was “bad” coaching to not have tried to take advantage of a mismatch earlier (I would not argue that), or one could note that it was clever to put our 1st line out there again their 4th afterward. This debate is irrelevant however because the point is that coaching is an important factor during home games.

 

If I’m the coach of the Habs, I’m telling my players the “cliche” things like “don’t squeeze your stick too tightly”, or “Keep it simple like we do on the road” before games at home. That’s all one can really do to help the players be their normal selves whether on the road, or at home.  
 

If I’m anyone on the coaching staff, or management, I’m saying “fix this issue because it’s a glaring hole. And statistically we are missing the playoffs because of our lackadaisical home record.”

 

Thats where systems and strategy become important, and I believe they can differ based on being the home team. It’s the coach’s duty to make these systems become mostly subconscious amongst the players as well as make some subtle conscious tweaks based on the adversary.
 

If the coaching staff has been trying to figure this out, that’s all one can ask but I often place home results on the coaching staff. If they haven’t been paying attention to this, they and all the fans are the ones coming up with “cliche” reasons why the home record doesn’t matter.  

 

 

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We all.agree we need to do better at home.

 

My question is this.

 

What strategy can be put in place to.do.better at home?  The answer of course is that there isnt one.

 

A strong road record and weak home one is just an anomaly.  There is not some strategy you can put in place to.fix it.  You just have to go win the next game and the one after that.  There is no magic remedy that improves a home record.

 

You talk about systems and strategy... but these arent different at home vs on the road.  So if they are working on the road, there is nothing to do but keep using them and look to win games at home and that record will turn.  Either that or the road record is the anomaly and you arent that good and those.games become losses.

 

There is no secret here.  There is no explanation to being good on the road and bad at home other than its just an anomaly and will revert to.the mean if the team keeps playing hard 

 

I dont believe in narratives.. and i dont believe a coach needs to remind his players to.focus at home and not squeeze their sticks and not to be overconfident at home or whatever you want the pregame speech to be.  I dont think those speeches make a lick of.difference.

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Actually, I believe the 2 biggest differences from road vs home games is rather simple.

The team team tends to "roll the lines" on the road because they dont have the ability to match up and hence "over coach". Also, sometimes the team tends to open up at home to put on a show at home not neccessarily squeezing sticks but more thinking about blowing the roof off the Bell Center then keeping shots on Price to the perimeter if you get what I'm saying. This often times ends with blown leads and high scoring affairs. I would not doubt  a significant difference in scoring for and against between the 2... but, I am to lazy to check!

 

 

The biggest keys to the habs right now I would think is the coming out party of Suzuki, the rebirth of Ilya Kovalchuk and especially as well as most importantly Price's .937 SV %!

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I might speak for myself only here, but I'm still convinced that at home,  CJ is coaching (building his lines and matching lines) with a clear objective of neutralizing other team's offense instead of the objective that I'd pursue : Outscoring the other teams and win games.

 

Want to shuffle the cards at some point instead of watching this "anomaly" go on and on and on  weeks after weeks after months.

 

Instead of ALWAYS playing  Tatar - Danault - Gallagher  against  the top offensive line, why not try  Lehkonen - Thompson - Gallagher (for example) to shut down the top line and play Danault and Tatar with Cousins  against a much weaker 4th line.   Don't have to do it all game long, but shuffling the cards a bit during the game.

 

Sure, opponent's top line might score here and there,  but by playing your best defensive players against them,  you will most likely use your primary offensive weapons against 3rd and 4th lines  way more than you actually do and, maybe, outscoring the other team more than you actually do.

 

It feels like  CJ  will only change his lines during the game to try spark something when we're down 1 or 2 goals.  I'd like him to try this right from the start, when the game is 0-0.  Not only reacting to what the game is, but to set the tone.

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27 minutes ago, JoeLassister said:

   Don't have to do it all game long, but shuffling the cards a bit during the game.

Ahh, the good old Blender!

In the past many fans hated that tactic as much as any other.

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43 minutes ago, DON said:

Ahh, the good old Blender!

In the past many fans hated that tactic as much as any other.

What I mean is more  trying to surprise the other coach  by  switching your combinations from time to time during the game.  
Not simply because things don't work out  and you're down by a few goals.

We don't have a McDavid or a Ovechkin  that we could try to double shift against weaker opponents,  so I'm just trying to find some twists that the coach could try in order to improve the record at home.

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The record seems fine on the road without doing those types of twists.  Thus supporting the theory that one of the records is an anomaly. 

 

Either its the home record and it should revert to the mean by simply continuing the same systems.

or its the road record, and our team is overachieving the amount of talent we have... so little coaching tricks aren't what we need, its a talent issue. 

 

One of those two things is true, so I don't think there is a magic cure for the home record other than patience. 

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My opinion is that  they don't seem to care that much about giving up goals on the road and play a more loose/aggressive game.

I know they had big scores at home as well (the 6-5 collapse vs NYR and a 5-4 game vs Bruins come in mind), but my feeling is that they're trying to keep the score as low as possible at home, they focus too much on defense and matching lines  and it didn't serve them well this season so far.


Again,  maybe it's just a feeling and maybe the stats won't back this up,  but I tend to remember more 3+ goals games on the road than at home this season.

And I kinda see it in their game as well.   When you match lines, you shouldn't have to use the dump and chase that much.  Well… IMHO.

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A couple of fluky wins against bottom feeders doesn't change my outlook for this team.  We need to add another blue-chipper in June and we're less likely to hit big at 12-15 than at 7-9.  Losses help us more than wins at this point.  Hopefully we can cash in on Kovalchuk and a couple other guys at the deadline.  

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Yea, my fear is the team stays close and instead of MB looking to move players he doesn't do anything

 

Petry and Tatar's value will never be higher than right now, both have had very good years 

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2 hours ago, JoeLassister said:

We don't have a McDavid or a Ovechkin  that we could try to double shift against weaker opponents, 

We have a Suzuki who seems to be getting more comfortable every week and i am all for giving him lots of icetime.

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2 hours ago, Neech said:

A couple of fluky wins against bottom feeders doesn't change my outlook for this team.  We need to add another blue-chipper in June and we're less likely to hit big at 12-15 than at 7-9.  Losses help us more than wins at this point.  Hopefully we can cash in on Kovalchuk and a couple other guys at the deadline.  

 

Looking at all teams drafting over the last 30 years... there is no meaningful difference in getting a star at 7 vs 12. 

 

According to Pierre Lebrun, no teams are offering a 2nd rounder for Kovalchuk right now.  The highest offer has been a third.  I'd rather just re-sign him and have his 20 goals or so next season than have another 3rd rounder in a draft where we already have 11 picks.

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32 minutes ago, Chris said:

Take the 3rd and move on, 

 

If he wants to be a hab, he can resign July 1st

 

Nope, no way. The CH already has too many 3rd-round type of players in the system

 

Sign the Man! and move on

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2 hours ago, Commandant said:

 

Looking at all teams drafting over the last 30 years... there is no meaningful difference in getting a star at 7 vs 12. 

 

According to Pierre Lebrun, no teams are offering a 2nd rounder for Kovalchuk right now.  The highest offer has been a third.  I'd rather just re-sign him and have his 20 goals or so next season than have another 3rd rounder in a draft where we already have 11 picks.

Everybody is posturing. It's 2 and a half weeks to the deadline. We'll see what the offers are when teams get a bit more desperate for some offense going into the playoffs.

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Posturing is right. I honestly think he might fetch a 1st rounder if he keeps this up. 
 

The guy is an absolute beast. What’s hardly mentioned is that because of the respect he gets from his opponents he manages to open up the ice for everyone else. 

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2 hours ago, Trizzak said:

Everybody is posturing. It's 2 and a half weeks to the deadline. We'll see what the offers are when teams get a bit more desperate for some offense going into the playoffs.

 

Sure 

 

And on the athletic podcast with Basu and Gagnon they are saying Bergevin is torn between trading him and trying to re-sign him.

 

The issue is if Kovy wants to re-sign.  He is also a bit torn.  And its not money and its not chasing a cup either.  He loves it in Montreal but also has 4 kids and the oldest wants to finish high school in California and doesnt want to move to montreal.  That said, the teams in california all suck now.

 

Also kovalchuk wants to be a top 6 player.  He doesnt want to be a pp specialist somewhere.  He wants to be important to his team and montreal can offer that.  Its why hes fit so well..

 

They also relayed a story where Boom Boom visited the Thrashers locker room when Kovy was a rookie and he absolutely lit up with excitement.  Lots of russian teenagers wouldnt have known who this person was.  But kovalchuk understood his place in hockey history and he understands what it means to be a Hab and that is a draw to him too.  They think of by some miracle the habs win like 6 of 8 going into the deadline, he will re-sign to be part of this longer.

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17 hours ago, Commandant said:

 

Looking at all teams drafting over the last 30 years... there is no meaningful difference in getting a star at 7 vs 12. 

 

According to Pierre Lebrun, no teams are offering a 2nd rounder for Kovalchuk right now.  The highest offer has been a third.  I'd rather just re-sign him and have his 20 goals or so next season than have another 3rd rounder in a draft where we already have 11 picks.

 

Love this post.

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17 hours ago, Commandant said:

 

 The highest offer has been a third.  I'd rather just re-sign him and have his 20 goals or so next season than have another 3rd rounder in a draft where we already have 11 picks.

 

I'd rather keep him for the rest of the season and he walks as a UFA, then to trade him for a 3rd. 

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19 hours ago, Chris said:

Yea, my fear is the team stays close and instead of MB looking to move players he doesn't do anything

 

Petry and Tatar's value will never be higher than right now, both have had very good years 

 

True, Petry and Tatar are having great years and would fetch a high return, but would also leave big holes in the roster.  What to do?

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