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Habs Playoff Debrief


Trizzak

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Not trade. Offer sheet. Chicago has only $7M in cap space with no goalies signed, and four other RFAs. If Seabrook comes back for next season (and it seems that he will) that will use up their remaining cap space already. And then there is Shaw, who may also be back.

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1 hour ago, tomh009 said:

Not trade. Offer sheet. Chicago has only $7M in cap space with no goalies signed, and four other RFAs. If Seabrook comes back for next season (and it seems that he will) that will use up their remaining cap space already. And then there is Shaw, who may also be back.

 

Seabrook and Andrew Shaw are already accounted for in the Hawks projected $74,146,795 cap hit for 20/21 ... if either of them don't play the potential available cap space goes up (i.e. able to exceed the cap by up to the amount of that player's cap hit) ... even if not, the Hawks will move other players rather than letting Kubilak, their second leading goal scorer (only 3 behind Kane and 9 more than #3 Saad) leave ... I also doubt that MB would offer sheet a player with one year of NHL experience ... bit riskier than going after a more proven product like Aho (24, 29 and 30 in his three years before last summer's offer sheet). 

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3 hours ago, tomh009 said:

 

Kubalik (CHI), Barzal (NYI), Strome (CHI) or Dubois (CBJ)? All three teams are pretty close to the cap with players remaining to be signed.

 

Admittedly I don't know any of them in detail though.

 

Discussed Kubilak above.

 

Strome is not worth an offer sheet ... no better than what habs already have.

 

Barzal is a very good player, but suddenly Habs need is not at centre, same for Dubois ... unless a deal is cooking to move one of KK, NS or PD ... a trashy rumour site suggested KK for the #1 overall

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Like many, I was impressed with Kotkaniemi and Suzuki. I liked the physical play of KK, and for me, Suzuki is the first player in a while that I have an excitement of expectation every time he was on the ice. I also liked Evans, as I didn't really expect much from him.

 

Overall, I went into the "resume to play" with minimal expectations. While I subscribe to the anything can happen thought process to an extent, ultimately talent wins out over the course of multiple playoff series. The team as currently constructed is not deep enough, and cannot afford any passengers, slumps, or injuries. The team needs top down talent, not bottom up. 

 

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55 minutes ago, huzer said:

... The team needs top down talent, not bottom up. 

 

Good description

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46 minutes ago, GHT120 said:

 

Good description

Sorry for repeating myself this 20 times now;

Habs haven't had an All-Star forward since that goofy 100 yr celebration gong show. I think Kovalev was it.

And Naslund was last top ten scorer...34 years ago.

 

This is what has to change, need elite forward or two for 1st time in loooonnng time.

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9 minutes ago, Commandant said:

To be fair, with the number of goals he scored, the fact that Pacioretty was never an all-star is a crime.

 

Haven't you heard? He's Patio-ready 🙄

 

Looking at his numbers, his career consistency is amazing. As long as he's healthy, the guy is a guaranteed 30+ goal-scorer good for 65 points. Every single season. And apart from one horrible playoff, his post-season results are solid too.

 

I'd have to go and look at who beat him out at LW to determine whether an injustice was committed. We know Ovi has one spot sewn up...

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2 minutes ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

 

Haven't you heard? He's Patio-ready 🙄

 

Looking at his numbers, his career consistency is amazing. As long as he's healthy, the guy is a guaranteed 30+ goal-scorer good for 65 points. Every single season. And apart from one horrible playoff, his post-season results are solid too.

 

I'd have to go and look at who beat him out at LW to determine whether an injustice was committed. We know Ovi has one spot sewn up...

 

The issue is the stupid... every team gets one all-star rule.... so the Habs would get Carey Price or PK Subban and then every other team would get their one guy and there would be no room left for Pacioretty to be added. 

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3 hours ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

 

Haven't you heard? He's Patio-ready 🙄

 

Looking at his numbers, his career consistency is amazing. As long as he's healthy, the guy is a guaranteed 30+ goal-scorer good for 65 points. Every single season. And apart from one horrible playoff, his post-season results are solid too.

 

I'd have to go and look at who beat him out at LW to determine whether an injustice was committed. We know Ovi has one spot sewn up...

He had three problems. First he was made captain and was a captain on a team that was crappy fast (not his fault).  Second he was  not a centre and the biggest hole this team has had since trading away Turgeon is having depth and strength at centre.  Thirdly, he was an English captain and if you aren’t winning that certain elements of the media will sour on you like they did with Koivu.  Lastly, he was on a poorly constructed team where the GM did a crap job in getting actual talent in his first three years.  There was a good foundation and other than going for it moves like Vanek and Petry, the team constructed around Maxpac was crap and consisted of garbage pickups in the first 3 or 4 years like Douglas “I play hockey but skate slower than most 4 year olds” Murrey, Parros, Prust, and washed up and going through the trash heap roll the dice moves like Semin, Briere, Streit to fill major holes. It want maxpac daily that the team around him got worse and he never played with a truly elite centre.  I blame MB for wasting a core that included Price, Markov, maxpac, Subban, Pleks and draftee Gallagher and failing to get that centre.  We finally may have found two now, but it took 6 frggin years.  First thing Nill did in Dallas was get a centre.  
 

maxpac was a great player and one of the guys who wore his heart on his sleeve.  He was just playing for a mediocre team that occasionally over achieved, but for the most part did not enough talent.  Not much different then Koivu.  Can you you imagine Koivu if he had some of the support his brother had in Minnesota?   Same thing with Maxpac.  He would have been a regular 40+ scorer with a better centre.

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3 hours ago, Commandant said:

 

The issue is the stupid... every team gets one all-star rule.... 

 

Agree ... unless he meant the YEAR-END all-star teams.

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25 minutes ago, hab29RETIRED said:

He had three problems. First he was made captain and was a captain on a team that was crappy fast (not his fault).  Second he was  not a centre and the biggest hole this team has had since trading away Turgeon is having depth and strength at centre.  Thirdly, he was an English captain and if you aren’t winning that certain elements of the media will sour on you like they did with Koivu.  Lastly, he was on a poorly constructed team where the GM did a crap job in getting actual talent in his first three years.  There was a good foundation and other than going for it moves like Vanek and Petry, the team constructed around Maxpac was crap and consisted of garbage pickups in the first 3 or 4 years like Douglas “I play hockey but skate slower than most 4 year olds” Murrey, Parros, Prust, and washed up and going through the trash heap roll the dice moves like Semin, Briere, Streit to fill major holes. It want maxpac daily that the team around him got worse and he never played with a truly elite centre.  I blame MB for wasting a core that included Price, Markov, maxpac, Subban, Pleks and draftee Gallagher and failing to get that centre.  We finally may have found two now, but it took 6 frggin years.  First thing Nill did in Dallas was get a centre.  
 

maxpac was a great player and one of the guys who wore his heart on his sleeve.  He was just playing for a mediocre team that occasionally over achieved, but for the most part did not enough talent.  Not much different then Koivu.  Can you you imagine Koivu if he had some of the support his brother had in Minnesota?   Same thing with Maxpac.  He would have been a regular 40+ scorer with a better centre.

 

Yep, I pretty much agree with all of this. When Pleks aged out, that team collapsed and MB had nothing to offer, except to dismantle it. Everything hinged on one rapidly-aging Czech, while MB put his head in the sand and denied that "windows" are a thing.

 

The MaxPac Habs were structurally flawed, partly because he was expected to drive their offence. That worked great when he was on a hot streak, but being streaky like all goal scorers, it meant the team really struggled whenever he did, and playoff success was disproportionately dependent on whether or not he was "on." And for an inherently streaky guy to be C did not help matters. None of this is a knock on Max. It's not his fault the team was constructed with him as the lynchpin at FW.

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6 hours ago, Commandant said:

To be fair, with the number of goals he scored, the fact that Pacioretty was never an all-star is a crime.

Voting may be goofy, but still, Pacioretty would be like the 4th or 5th best LWer (in overall offense) in the NHL and just not near 1st team all-star or top ten in scoring type, you know what i mean, an elite player.  

A 1.0> point per game kid (how high is Caufield's ceiling...Patrick Kane-lite?:pray:). 

 

Will Suzuki be a 82+point player?

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34 minutes ago, DON said:

Voting may be goofy, but still, Pacioretty would be like the 4th or 5th best LWer (in overall offense) in the NHL and just not near 1st team all-star or top ten in scoring type, you know what i mean, an elite player.  

A 1.0> point per game kid (how high is Caufield's ceiling...Patrick Kane-lite?:pray:). 

 

Will Suzuki be a 82+point player?

I sure the hell hope so.  I’m hoping both Suzuki and KK can be consistent PPG In a couple of years and after Koivu blew out his knees in the 90’a there isn’t any jab player I thought could do that.  We did have the one magical year by Kovolev (saying it was magical is pretty pathetic actually and indicative if the patchwork and makeshift pop gun and mostly impotent offence we’ve had the past 25 years.

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11 hours ago, hab29RETIRED said:

I sure the hell hope so.  I’m hoping both Suzuki and KK can be consistent PPG In a couple of years and after Koivu blew out his knees in the 90’a there isn’t any jab player I thought could do that.  We did have the one magical year by Kovolev (saying it was magical is pretty pathetic actually and indicative if the patchwork and makeshift pop gun and mostly impotent offence we’ve had the past 25 years.

Koivu was never a PPG player but for 50 games in his 2nd year. To blame his knee injury even so he he played 17 more seasons after that is bull. Maybe if we blamed it on a porous team and inferior linemates then OK.  Maybe with a better lineup  he could of reached  more potential. Especially considering the year he went down we had players like Damphouse and recchi rucinsky richer savage to name a few.

 But that is not the case. He played at less then  a PPG... stats don't lie

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17 minutes ago, IN THE HEARTS OF MEN said:

Koivu was never a PPG player but for 50 games in his 2nd year. To blame his knee injury even so he he played 17 more seasons after that is bull. Maybe if we blamed it on a porous team and inferior linemates then OK.  Maybe with a better lineup  he could of reached  more potential. Especially considering the year he went down we had players like Damphouse and recchi rucinsky richer savage to name a few.

 But that is not the case. He played at less then  a PPG... stats don't lie

He did. But what the stats don’t show is that he had no where near the speed he had before he went down. Still had the skill, still had the grid and bull dog, never quit  attitude, but that explosive speed want there.  I agree that had he been surrounded by better players like even his brother wa in Minnesota, he would have put up better numbers.  Hell, the same way Markov made his partners rich, Koivu made his line mates like Savage or Higgins better.  But you can’t discount the effect that knee injury and later cancer and a hab finally almost being blinded on a non-call in the playoffs had on his numbers.

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I dont doubt koivu was a great player, one of the very best Habs I've been able to watch... im merely stating he wasn't a PPG player. Which is fact. The what ifs and maybe this or maybe that doesn't change that for almost 2 decades he fell short of a PPG. Personally, I would blame that difference in production to talent around him and not his knee at all. His unwillingness to remove the DonJoy brace on his left knee after it was fully healed for safety/fear and then adding another to his right is probably why he was less mobile on the ice. Countless players reconstruct there knee and are able to return to play, most even stronger especially if using their semi tendenosis for reconstruction.

I for one can attest. Obviously at the amateur level (which makes it all the more difficult). I recall playing with my brace my first season back. I shed the brace the following season and haven't looked back ever since. So I refuse to accept his knee as an excuse or crutch to his play. What I will do is blame Houle and co. for trading away Turgeon early that year and dismantling a strong team around him that would have shielded him and allowed him to flourish even more so.

 

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Excuse me, but Koivu was a dominant, top-5 NHL player for those 50 games before suffering a catastrophic knee injury. I watched him before and after and he was never the same. 

 

He would have been a high-end all star without that injury.

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19 minutes ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

Excuse me, but Koivu was a dominant, top-5 NHL player for those 50 games before suffering a catastrophic knee injury. I watched him before and after and he was never the same. 

 

He would have been a high-end all star without that injury.

 

I remember that injury well, he was having a phenomenal season when it happened. He was never as good after. 

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dominant top 5 nhl player for 50 games? he actually was the NHL leading scorer before going down. but it was a 30 game sample size. lets just ignore the other 1,150 games he played.  i dont want to tarnish the guy because hes one of my all time favourite habs... but, keep in mind he returned that very same season from that "catatrophic injury" and finished the season as well as played in the playoffs. he didnt play 50 games and get injured. he played i think +30 games and returned to finish the season and put up points in the devils series that we were completely outmatched in. 

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Wasn’t Galchenyuk at ppg pace for about 30 games as well and didn’t Domi do it for about 70 in his first season with the Habs?

Not to knock Koivu but a small sample size makes it easy to see elite where it may not always be.

Without looking up these stats it appears from comments above that Koivu was a ppg player for about 0.5% of his career.

Regardless of why, that’s what history reflects.

Cam Neely was a goal per game player In one season  before knee issues and we aren’t talking about him being a ppg level player.

Lots of examples of short term successes.

But the results speak for themselves.

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