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I wonder if the glass is half full and not half empty? For some it all depends on how you look at things. So let me suggest a glass half full scenario with a question/suggestion at the end about the next few years. I agree that losing Radulov is a big deal. But we may have to wait a year to be fully convinced how damaging his loss is. If he continues with the same passion and energy with as good or better results, then a year from now we will all agree that losing him was in fact a bitter pill to swallow. However there have been many players who faded considerably after signing a large contract so I think we have to wait and see. I think there may be some questions about his motives in coming back to the NHL. Was it to be the best or the richest. We'll have a better idea a year from now. I'm making a few assumptions about this coming year. I understand assumptions mean nothing until the results are in but here goes: - I'm assuming Markov will return and our top 4 will not be bad and our bottom 3 will be average. Pittsburgh won without a very strong d this year, more average. - I'm assuming Alex Galchenyuk will have an outstanding bounce back year, to prove MB wrong, and everyone will be saying how fortunate we are that we didn't trade him. - I'm assuming Gallagher will also have a better year. - I'm assuming Jonathan Drouin will soar. I read one writer from Tampa Bay who said he thought Tampa made a big mistake in trading Drouin. If [assumption] Drouin is a Tyler Seguin situation we may be pleasantly surprised. - I'm assuming that Claude Julien, with a full training camp, will make a noticeable difference in how we play. So I think [assumption] that things could perhaps turn out better than what some are expecting. The Future: This is more of a question than a statement. We have some good young players....Drouin, Galchenyuk, Gallagher, Lekonen, and some of the other younger 3d and 4th liners. If we don't exceed what we did last year, seeing that hockey is more of a business now that it was 30 years ago, instead of slowly sliding into mediocrity, could we not get some excellent young players back if a year from now, we decided we had to retool, and traded Max P and Carey Price and even tried to move Weber, and go all in on a youth movement? Besides the return player wise, we would save millions and be able to sign some good free agents next summer. I think the return on Max and Carey would bring back some very good young players. I think our future could still be bright. What do you think?

Oh good the PK/Weber debate.

#### OFF! Posting it once is one thing. Spamming the shit out of the board like you are doing, is being an asshole. It actually makes me hope your podcast fails spectacularly, and does not make me want to listen.

We need to have galchenyuk playing centre and if both galchenyuk and Drouin can become 1a/1b centres would be the ideal situation. Im not a fan of RNH. Too much losing baggage with the oilers. He should be much better offensively and I don't think he will ever realize his potential. my dream is still dumping pleks/Shaw, offer sheeting draisaitl (let the oilers keep RNH) and bringing back the general on a one year deal

Hey there were plenty of people to this day that still say Patrick Roy had to be traded because of how he acted and the only issue they have is with the return. You add Subban's background and non-traditional hockey player personality and demeanor, and I'm not surprised that a lot of habs fans liked the move. having said that two things frustrate me when debating with those that support the trade. 1) arguement that the habs did better this past year. Over-looking the fact that Montreal not only were missing Price, but they were getting among the worst goaltending in the league. You could have had doughty, Weber, Karlsson and Keith on the blue line and we still would have sucked with he goaltending we were getting and how we were coached. 2) prior to the collapse last year, Price was a vezina shoe-in and Subban a Norris favourite. Than the collapse happened and MB cited a lack of leadership as the reason (not goaltending or poor coaching decisions). Yet, even after getting the mountain man leader, the habs collapsed again, this time not as bad - because we still had Price. But than it got to the point where everyone sucked (including Price and Weber), but this time MB finally woke and smelt the coffee beans and fired the idiotic monkey he had behind the bench. Yet, the trade supporters cite Weber as the reason the habs were better. His supposed mythical leadership did squat in preventing or getting the team out from a collapse similar to the previous year. The fact that we actually had NHL goaltending and finally got rid of the monkey behind the bench was the reason we were better this year.

Are you actually going to contribute to this forum in a meaningful way or just spam your podcast as you have in all your posts so far? Asking for a friend.

Boldfaced part: this is exactly what Subban did for Nashville. That's why the trade was so f**king stupid.

A trade of Gallagher for Nuge would be a big win for Montreal. I'm guessing we'd have to add a pick - probably a 2nd. Pacs - Nuge - Drouin Lehk - Danault - Galchenyuk Byron - Pleks - Hemsky

Or you could trade Danault as well Funny how his name never comes up in trade talks for a nice return when he was played higher than Galchenyuk in the lineup last season. Is our team overvaluing him as a player or does he actually have value throughout the league? I get the impression that he doesn't have much value throughout the league. At least not enough to replace what he brings to our squad specifically.

Lots of room if you move Pleks.. I'd love a trade for RNH out of Edmonton top 3 Cs as Galchenyuk (or Drouin?) RNH, Danault

-A really hot goalie - 3 other Dman playing equal to and better on occasion - Johansen battling right through more then 2.5 of 4 rounds with the best of the C's in the west. - did I say a really hot goalie? - arvidson playing like a demon rather then a sophomore - their 4th overall pick foresberg playing WAY better then our 3rd overall pick galchenyuk -a lot of secondary scoring -sissions scoring timely goals... - a rookie gaudreau really blossoming in essentially his first taste of NHL hockey let alone the WCF and SCF after Johansen went down ... -fisher turning back the clock... - a really hot goalie - so many factors to Nashville's SC loss, and I do stress loss. In the end, injury to Johansen did catch up to them. dont get me wrong subban played a huge role as well but let's not make it out like the preds would of been worse off with Weber and we would of scored more with the Subbanator against NYR. the two biggest factors from Nashville losing to SJ last year and LOSING in the final this year is goaltending and secondary scoring.

$8 to 9m left to spend, what will Bergevin do? Sign Markov and Jagr?

Great value for Chuck. I feel like there was at least some discussion about whether or not Galchenyuk will be messed around with or if the team will finally be confident in him. No more freaking out on every defensive mistake. Treat him the same way you treat everyone else. Top six forwards belong in the top six. Montreal is lucky no GM has any spine. He was ripe for an offer sheet. Will be interesting to see if he's treated any differently from Drouin.

I hate the deal, but than Ive been saying that MB will move hin at some point anyways - I just hope he gets fired before he gets the chance.

It will make him a UFA. This is basically a second bridge deal - they buy out one UFA year and then will see if he can take the next step over the next three seasons. Not everyone thinks he has another gear in him and this is probably a sign that the Habs are a bit skeptical themselves about whether he can be a 70+ point player. If they were sure about it, I suspect they'd have been okay going long-term at that range.

I dislike the contract, sending a player to free agency early and buying no years of Free agency during a contract he is poised to really breakout during is not something you want to be doing. that said, i'm not having the wool pulled over my eyes, this signing looks very suspiciously like a ploy to raise Galchenyuk's value on the market. Now not only is he a young player with promise, he also has no uncertain future about him. He is locked up 3 years, and he is now at a very attractive and workable cap hit. Though this contract poses some serious problems in 3 years, I am nearly convinced it won't be our problem, we may hold on to him until the right deal is offered, but I will be pretty surprised if he makes it to next summer as a Hab. Sad as that may be, you can't logically sign a player to this kind of deal if you have any long term plans with him. He better fetch a return that fills a team need without a doubt, this is definitely not a situation we can afford to mismanage.

Hope he realizes he's on a WORK visa.

Lame. Good job stirring the pot.

There's so much to debate here that rather than doing so, just pretend that I ripped this post to shreds.

Of consequence In Drouin Hemsky Alzner Schlemko Out Emelin Beaulieu Radulov Sergachev King Maybe Markov Drouin > Radulov. He's younger with a higher ceiling. I'm sure the 58 points Radulov got last year will be something Drouing brings again. Hemsky > King. Easy here. Alzner >> Emelin, Huge upgrade Schlemko > Beaulieu. Markov is the piece that has to be replaced. We either bring him back or we have 6 million to spend in a trade. Sergachev is the big loss, but its a future loss and he wasn't on the team, so in comparing last year's team vs this year's team he's a non-entity. Of course, His loss hurts for future years as there is no d to replace him... but keep in mind the Drouin vs Radulov comparison. We didn't just replace one year of radulov, we got a 23 year old who will produce effectively for many years and has not hit his prime, so consider that in any "futures analysis". Overall the off-season comes down to that $6 million. Can they use it to bring Markov back or improve at that position. if they can, then Bergevin did well. If they can't, then he didnt.

Around what time would you have been advocating for this? In January when the Habs were a first place team? At the trade deadline where the Habs were a first place team? Or around the draft when negotiating rights are worth nothing? The 'interview period' has all but killed the value of negotiating rights in recent years and it's hard to imagine that many would have been happy if the Habs dealt their second leading scorer midseason. It's easy to say after the fact that they should have dealt him but when exactly was the right time to do so?

When they were able to draft a Norris winner that was a fan of the habs and wanted to be a hab for life, they traded him

We got Weber because the habs brain trust disliked Subban's personality. It had nothing to do with Weber being that guy to "get us over the top". Our turnaround in the standings had nothing to do with Weber and everything to do with Carey Price being healthy. On the flip side, Nashville made really only one significant change - swapping Weber for Subban - and went to the finals.

My apologies, I will post one board every week .

One like that have even won a Norris trophy..albeit was only 1/2 season, so asterisk that one.

Tell your friend that I'm not a robot , I'm a real person and I'm reaching out to you guys , 1 for our podcast to reach true habs fans and 2 to let your voices be heard through our platform .

Hey guys ! Every week I'll be posting a link to our podcast posted on on this Website ,Twitter and on SoundCloud! Follow @HabAListen on Twitter and DM us any topics you'd like discussed. Go HABS Go Episode 2 Below https://m.soundcloud.com/user-340014974/episode-2-hab-a-listen-the-podcast-2017-07-05-933-pm