2015 NHL Offseason Thread

[Machine of Loving Grace]

Zubrus. One of the top Habs in the worst Habs team I've ever witnessed in my life: 99-00.

They actually had more points than the year after, but they also maintained the lowest goals against that year in their division and the second lowest of the conference because Hackett and Theodore played their asses off.

They had such little skill and everyone was getting injured. But they were also huge throughout the lineup with grit and tenacity. And it hardly got them anything.

It was like we weren't the Habs anymore.

[habs rule]

Zubrus. One of the top Habs in the worst Habs team I've ever witnessed in my life: 99-00.

They actually had more points than the year after, but they also maintained the lowest goals against that year in their division and the second lowest of the conference because Hackett and Theodore played their asses off.

They had such little skill and everyone was getting injured. But they were also huge throughout the lineup with grit and tenacity. And it hardly got them anything.

It was like we weren't the Habs anymore.

Sad days indeed.

[The Chicoutimi Cucumber]

We got Zubrus for Mark Recchi, I believe. In my mind, at least, he is one of the prototypical cases of a 'young player with impressive skills who never really lived up to his early billing' - a good example of why I learned to be reluctant to put much stock in a young guy's 'potential' until he actually starts to deliver results night in and night out (others burned that lesson into my brain, including Kjell Dhallin, Gilbert Dionne, Stephane Lebeau, Brain Savage, and later Zednik and even Bulis). This isn't to say that Zubrus didn't have a long and solid NHL career, but I think when we got him the idiots running the club thought he'd be more than a 2nd-/3rd-line forward, and certainly you'd expect more for that in return for a legitimate top-line guy in Recchi. I had faith in his potential to be something excellent for a while. Then I learned that he'd never be more than what he already was.

That period was probably the historical nadir for the Montreal Canadiens (although they stunk it up pretty good in the late 30s, too, when the Maroons closed up shop). Remember those vague rumours the team might leave town? Terrible ownership, terrible league economic structure, terrible dead-puck-era hockey, terrible management, terrible players. Even the building seemed terrible at the time, after the glorious atmosphere of the Forum. The only thing that wasn't terrible around that time was coaching. I thought Alain Vigneault did a hell of a job with a pathetic line-up, and was always surprised that it took him so long to get re-hired. His success since then has demonstrated that he was ONE decision that damned gibbering ape Houle got right.

[habs rule]

We got Zubrus for Mark Recchi, I believe. In my mind, at least, he is one of the prototypical cases of a 'young player with impressive skills who never really lived up to his early billing' - a good example of why I learned to be reluctant to put much stock in a young guy's 'potential' until he actually starts to deliver results night in and night out (others burned that lesson into my brain, including Kjell Dhallin, Gilbert Dionne, Stephane Lebeau, Brain Savage, and later Zednik and even Bulis). This isn't to say that Zubrus didn't have a long and solid NHL career, but I think when we got him the idiots running the club thought he'd be more than a 2nd-/3rd-line forward, and certainly you'd expect more for that in return for a legitimate top-line guy in Recchi. I had faith in his potential to be something excellent for a while. Then I learned that he'd never be more than what he already was.

That period was probably the historical nadir for the Montreal Canadiens (although they stunk it up pretty good in the late 30s, too, when the Maroons closed up shop). Remember those vague rumours the team might leave town? Terrible ownership, terrible league economic structure, terrible dead-puck-era hockey, terrible management, terrible players. Even the building seemed terrible at the time, after the glorious atmosphere of the Forum. The only thing that wasn't terrible around that time was coaching. I thought Alain Vigneault did a hell of a job with a pathetic line-up, and was always surprised that it took him so long to get re-hired. His success since then has demonstrated that he was ONE decision that damned gibbering ape Houle got right.

Yeah the team was for sale and nobody wanted it. Quite a change from today.

[Machine of Loving Grace]

Poor Rejean.

Imagine Geoff Molson called you up and said Bergevin was fired and he wanted to replace him with you, despite you having zero management experience. Are you going to say no to the team you are loyal to?

I hated him for the Roy trade for years until getting older and learning more details:

- It was Ronald Corey that demanded Roy was traded, as Roy came to apologize to him the next day and Corey told him he was no longer a Hab (despite it being four more days before the deal was completed)

- Serge Savard also tried to trade Roy the year prior to the Quebec Nordiques for Stephane Fiset and Owen Nolan

- Mario Tremblay was the reason this all happened. Him and Roy hated each other, Tremblay used to rip Roy on Quebec radio and even fired a wrist shot at Roy's throat in a practice. Him and Roy got in a fight in Long Island only weeks before Tremblay became head coach.

- It was Ronald Corey who chose Tremblay as the next head coach. Houle went with it because Tremblay was a friend and wasn't going to say no to a former fellow dynasty Hab.

Neither Tremblay or Houle had experience in their respective positions. They were complete rookies. Houle was just a good soldier. Tremblay got in altercations with his own players to the point where they had to get traded (Roy, Brashear, Tucker). Serge Savard was also the one who dismantled most of the Habs Cup winning team before Houle got there. Roy was just the biggest piece to move.

Houle made a lot of disastrous trades and his scouting staff was full of imbeciles but I still don't blame him as much as Corey or Tremblay. Neither do the Habs as he's the only one back in the organization as head of the ambassador group. He's the only one who shows remorse for those years and has cried in interviews about how he only tried his best. You can see it in some of his trades.

The Roy trade I always say is the perfect "Internet GM" trade. Houle got back an early 20s forward with top six potential, a former first round pick goaltender with starter potential and a 25 year old budding power forward. It was all dependent on the returns becoming superstars. People talk about trying to acquire guys like Yakupov and Drouin and Huberdeau all the time, young guys who haven't shown their full potential yet. Imagine if in 2007, the Habs traded Carey Price, Tomas Plekanec and Max Pacioretty to the Anaheim Ducks for J.S. Giguere. Sounds insane hearing it like that, but that would be an equivalent to the Roy trade: potential power forward, skilled top six forward, Top 10 draft pick goalie for a recent Stanley Cup and Conn Smythe trophy goaltender heading into his 30s. Thibault looked like when he was drafted he could be just as good as Martin Brodeur. He ended up no longer a starter after six seasons.

TL:DR I don't hate Houle. I hate Corey and Tremblay

[lazy26]

Great post, MoLG!

[The Chicoutimi Cucumber]

Yep, Houle is indeed something of a tragic, pathetic figure. If you read Dryden's The Game, you'd know how much it had to cost him psychologically to be such a failure. The Houle Dryden sketches is a humble, somewhat insecure kid from a hardscrabble background who worked very hard to be successful and deeply needed the affirmation it gave him. What a huge reversion to all his deepest fears and anxieties his failure must have inflicted.

(By contrast, you take a guy like Gainey - no doubt he burned to win, but I never got the sense that his core self-esteem was at issue in whether the teams he GM'd succeeded or flopped. He knew there were things that mattered more, and in any case, Bob was and always will be a winner no matter how you slice it. Something similar is true, incidentally, of Bergevin. You never doubt their desire to succeed, but you can never imagine these guys crying over horrible GMing results. They'd curse, then shrug and move forward).

None of this stops me from calling Houle a 'gibbering ape,' since I'm less forgiving of what Houle's decisions - however well meant - did to our team. That said, I was glad he wasn't booed, as he was afraid of, in the 2009 celebration. He was by all accounts a good man hurled into a situation for which he was simply ill-equipped. Tremblay, on the other hand, can be run over by a bus for all I care, because he allowed his own damned ego to contribute heavily to the destruction of the team. And Corey? The mystery is how he could have done such a fine job overseeing the Savard rebuild and then proceed to do such a catastrophically horrendous job the second time. What a jackass.

Machine, I LOVE your analogy with the Roy trade and internet deals. Spot on.

I agree that Savard had dismantled a lot of the 93 team, but notwithstanding the disastrous Leclair trade, it needed to be dismantled because the top line got real old, real fast - almost overnight. My view is that Savard left the organization in pretty good shape, with Damphousse, Turgeon, Recchi, Roy, and Koivu and several good young players coming up, etc.. Houle ended up squandering a solid hand. (Now whether Savard would himself have squandered it is another question - that Fiset trade NOT have been good news. You don't trade a Patrick Roy, unless he's 38 and at the end of his string. You just don't).

[habs rule]

Yep, Houle is indeed something of a tragic, pathetic figure. If you read Dryden's The Game, you'd know how much it had to cost him psychologically to be such a failure. The Houle Dryden sketches is a humble, somewhat insecure kid from a hardscrabble background who worked very hard to be successful and deeply needed the affirmation it gave him. What a huge reversion to all his deepest fears and anxieties his failure must have inflicted.

(By contrast, you take a guy like Gainey - no doubt he burned to win, but I never got the sense that his core self-esteem was at issue in whether the teams he GM'd succeeded or flopped. He knew there were things that mattered more, and in any case, Bob was and always will be a winner no matter how you slice it. Something similar is true, incidentally, of Bergevin. You never doubt their desire to succeed, but you can never imagine these guys crying over horrible GMing results. They'd curse, then shrug and move forward).

None of this stops me from calling Houle a 'gibbering ape,' since I'm less forgiving of what Houle's decisions - however well meant - did to our team. That said, I was glad he wasn't booed, as he was afraid of, in the 2009 celebration. He was by all accounts a good man hurled into a situation for which he was simply ill-equipped. Tremblay, on the other hand, can be run over by a bus for all I care, because he allowed his own damned ego to contribute heavily to the destruction of the team. And Corey? The mystery is how he could have done such a fine job overseeing the Savard rebuild and then proceed to do such a catastrophically horrendous job the second time. What a jackass.

Machine, I LOVE your analogy with the Roy trade and internet deals. Spot on.

I agree that Savard had dismantled a lot of the 93 team, but notwithstanding the disastrous Leclair trade, it needed to be dismantled because the top line got real old, real fast - almost overnight. My view is that Savard left the organization in pretty good shape, with Damphousse, Turgeon, Recchi, Roy, and Koivu and several good young players coming up, etc.. Houle ended up squandering a solid hand. (Now whether Savard would himself have squandered it is another question - that Fiset trade NOT have been good news. You don't trade a Patrick Roy, unless he's 38 and at the end of his string. You just don't).

The only thing I would add to this is that St Patrick, one of my hero's, was not the easiest guy to deal with. He was the defacto leader, captain and virtually thought of himself as the coach. There is not now nor was there then any shortage of ego in Mr Roy. I love him but he did not make life easy for any coach or GM. Now as to Tremblay well just don't get me started, him I would hang by his dick and beat his balls with a teaspoon.

[Machine of Loving Grace]

The problem with Savard's moves wasn't his additions of Turgeon and Recchi so much as he gave up Chris Chelios, Eric Desjardins and Mathieu Schneider and in return the only top four defenceman to replace was Vladimir Malakhov. By 97 the only D-Man from the Cup left was Brisebois.

Even worse was that Habs draft picks for defensemen were guys like David Wilke. That's on Savard and Houle but there's no way Montreal was going to get far with a first unit of Malakhov and Brisebois.

[The Chicoutimi Cucumber]

The only thing I would add to this is that St Patrick, one of my hero's, was not the easiest guy to deal with. He was the defacto leader, captain and virtually thought of himself as the coach. There is not now nor was there then any shortage of ego in Mr Roy. I love him but he did not make life easy for any coach or GM. Now as to Tremblay well just don't get me started, him I would hang by his dick and beat his balls with a teaspoon.

The problem with Savard's moves wasn't his additions of Turgeon and Recchi so much as he gave up Chris Chelios, Eric Desjardins and Mathieu Schneider and in return the only top four defenceman to replace was Vladimir Malakhov. By 97 the only D-Man from the Cup left was Brisebois.

Even worse was that Habs draft picks for defensemen were guys like David Wilke. That's on Savard and Houle but there's no way Montreal was going to get far with a first unit of Malakhov and Brisebois.

I agree, and I think the challenge for a GM in that period would have been to translate some of the other assets into defencemen. But I see that as a manageable challenge that a good GM would have been able to execute. It was a work in progress, but well underway. Instead, of course, Houle proceeded to strip the organization bare (to the point where Andre Savard, asked about the first item on his agenda, replied, 'to get some players.' Oy).

[nihilz]

I agree with all of you. Great reads.

Turgeon for Corson.

That was indeed a horrible stretch. RIP to that era.

[Machine of Loving Grace]

I agree with all of you. Great reads.

Turgeon for Corson.

That was indeed a horrible stretch. RIP to that era.

I honestly hated that trade more than the Roy trade because with the Roy trade, at least there was hope. There was no hope in that deal. We gave up the better player (Turgeon) and the better prospects (Conroy and Fitzpatrick) for a guy we laughed our way to the bank when we sent him to Edmonton for Vincent Damphousse. And Murray Baron. Murray Baron!

Saying "Turgeon trade was worse than Roy trade" makes people cock their eye at you but honestly, Roy trade was a team destroying failure with some redeeming value (Rucinsky was good), the Turgeon trade was a pure unmitigated failure. We were still a good team in 95-96. After Turgeon was dealt, we barely made the playoffs then plummeted.

What angered me the most was at the time it was argued that Turgeon needed to be moved because he was a centre and the team wanted to go with Koivu and Damphousse down the middle. But Turgeon on the wing was fantastic and could have kept playing there. Or they could have just put Damphousse back at his natural left wing. Nope, had to move him for SHAYNE GODDAMN CORSON SKLGSK;SG;;KLGSL;KGKLS;

Sorry.

[The Chicoutimi Cucumber]

Yes, the Turgeon trade was particularly painful because it was so unnecessary. He wanted to be C; he was a proven producer at C; so fine, move Damphousse back to the wing, what on earth is the problem? Instead it was, "oh, we have to trade Turgeon because we have no room for him in the top-6." Completely moronic, and I suspect a lot of it had to do with Tremblay's ego. He felt like a genius because he had moved Damphousse to C and it had worked out well. So by definition there could be no turning back in order to get the most out of a bloody PPG player.

GRRRRRR

To make matters worse, Houle performed another one of his patented "throw ins," a la Mike Keane - giving away Conroy, who became a highly successful NHL C, in order to "sweeten" a deal that was a rip-off to begin with. This sort of thing is what destroyed the organization.

Final thought here. The Turgeon trade meant that the team was dependent on Saku Koivu. This was fine in principle, because young Koivu was a superstar in the making, a legitimate top-5 NHL talent. Sadly, however, he soon went down to the catastrophic knee injury that left him a shadow of himself, such that he would never again be the franchise player he was destined to be. This wasn't Houle's fault, but it made our failure to get high-end return for Turgeon all the more painful. The destruction of Koivu's knee was the final event that sent the Habs careening to the bottom of the league for years. We had no further assets available with which to make moves that might have averted disaster.

[habs rule]

Subban is training with Ben Johnson, I hope it is all about training and not about stereos.

[dlbalr]

Philly signs Jakub Voracek to an eight year, $66 million extension that kicks in following the 2015-16 season. Based on what he did last year, that's market value but prior to last season, his career high in points was only 62. Clearly, they believe his 81 point campaign is a sign of things to come. If that's not the case, this could be an albatross deal in a hurry.

[Machine of Loving Grace]

Philly signs Jakub Voracek to an eight year, $66 million extension that kicks in following the 2015-16 season. Based on what he did last year, that's market value but prior to last season, his career high in points was only 62. Clearly, they believe his 81 point campaign is a sign of things to come. If that's not the case, this could be an albatross deal in a hurry.

He's phenomenal. I think the Flyers will be fine with him and Giroux making big money.

[DON]

Deal will likely be a flop and for sure wont be a Flyer when deal ends.

[Meller93]

He's phenomenal. I think the Flyers will be fine with him and Giroux making big money.

In today's game it wouldn't be an albatross even if he just kept putting up 70 a year. It woul just be a little overpay. I wouldn't be suprised for it to turn out a little like that. Consistency is key to how people look at a contract

[illWill]

Deal will likely be a flop and for sure wont be a Flyer when deal ends.

It's not characteristic of the Flyers to hand out bad deals. Hopefully my sarcasm came through there

[nihilz]

SKLGSK;SG;;KLGSL;KGKLS;

GRRRRRR

Exactly.. 'Nuff said!

edit: ..imo after trading Turgeon & Recchi the organization fell into the abyss of illegitimacy. Thank baby jeebus for Trevor Timmins. He should be Vice-President by now! Or shares. He should own 10% just out of longevity.

[Machine of Loving Grace]

Exactly.. 'Nuff said!

I must add one more WHAT WERE THEY THINKING trade that falls under the radar:

Pat Jablonski for J.J. Daigneault

JJ was a veteran D-man who had been a Hab since 1989 and we traded him for a veteran backup in Jabonski who aside from being the platoon goalie for the expansion Tampa Bay Lightning, was never more than a 20 game goalie. We ended up trading Jablonski a year later for... Steve Cheredaryk. Yup. Nobody.

Why was it important? For starters, we never needed a veteran backup. We had Ron Tugnutt, who had some struggles in his first year due to Patrick Roy hating him. We could have put Tugnutt in the AHL but instead we let him go. In two years he turned his whole career around with new confidence. Had we kept Tugnutt, he would have been an excellent platoon with Jocelyn Thibault and his breakout years could have been with us. Instead we tossed him away for nothing.

But more importantly, JJ was another D we traded without getting a D back. Just look at it:

Chris Chelios: Traded for Savard in 90

Sylvain Lefebvre: Traded for a 3rd Round Pick in 92

-----Stanley Cup------

Rob Ramage: Traded for cash in 93

Kevin Haller: Traded for Yves Racine in 94

Eric Deshardins: Traded for Recchi in 95

Mathieu Schneider: Traded for Malakhov in 95

J.J. Daigneault: Traded for Jablonski in 95

Five of our nine D in the 93 Cup were moved by 1995 with a few others like Hill moving due to the expansion draft. And all we had to show for it was Yves Racine and Vladimir Malakhov. But why was J.J. Daigneault important? He was never much of a defensive scorer, but after being traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins in 95-96, he put up 10 points in 11 playoff games. He followed it up in 96-97 with the Mighty Ducks and had 9 points in 11 playoff games there. As a veteran blueliner he was incredibly valuable for those teams and he would have been valuable to the Habs, especially in 95-96 against the Rangers.

Instead? We traded him for a failed backup. It was Houle's first trade.

[nihilz]

Eric Desjardins. smh

MoLG.. you're killing me. It's friday. Chucky is signed. Cmon man! Cmon.

That Voracek contract will look good by year three. Then, it'll be a bargain.

[dlbalr]

There are rumours that Vancouver and Brandon Sutter are working towards what appears to be a 5 year, $22 M extension. Clearly they think he has it in him to be a 2nd line C. I'm not so sure.

Marcus Johansson gets awarded a 1 year, $3.75 M deal from an arbitrator. He wanted $4.75 M, the Caps offered $3 M. We may see a couple more contracts awarded through an arbitrator this weekend in Mike Hoffman and Jonathan Bernier. (Erik Haula too but that one's really not that important...)

[Machine of Loving Grace]

That Sutter contract kills me.

[dlbalr]

The NHL will announce this afternoon that it has signed a 6 year deal with MLB Advanced Media for them to take over the leagues' digital rights. The MLB company will now take over the NHL's website as well as those of all of the teams, mobile apps, and GCL streaming services. It also will move operations of the NHL Network in the US to the MLB Network's studios in New Jersey. (This will have no effect on the Canadian NHL Network which will cease operations at the end of this month.)

http://www.si.com/nhl/2015/08/04/nhl-mlb-advanced-media-partnership-details