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Laval's enforcer will be back for next season as Brandon Baddock got a one-year, two-way deal from the Habs. I'm okay with him returning but I was hoping they could convince him to take an AHL contract as there would have to be a ton of injuries for him to get a shot at being recalled. https://www.habsworld.net/2021/06/habs-re-sign-brandon-baddock/

PK has always said how much he loves Montreal. I never heard him say a bad word about anyone other than Therrien… He also garbled KK’s name (although who can blame him?). Part of that may have been disorientation from the environment. He needs some more polish (understandably) but he should have a stellar post-hockey career ahead of him; what this segment reveals is the possibility that he could take on the role of ambassador for NHL hockey to the USA in general and African-American audiences in particular. On the one hand, you can argue that this is unfair to him: just because he’s black, he has to play that role of “outreach” to black America? On the other hand, the deftness with which he made analogies between the Habs’ players and examples which resonate with that audience shows him quite well-suited for this. The other possibility is that he go the more standard route of becoming an conventional analyst/commentator - although whether his exuberance can be properly contained within that format is another question.

I'd put Tatar back in if Evan's cant go. Call me crazy but Tatar/Staal/Perry could be a great 4th line.

Posted part of this on another thread, but seems more appropriate here. We seem like a team of destiny right now - I hope we can FINALLy get #25. The Lightening are the most complete team in the league, but Hedman and Kucherov are hurting (both are top two three in their respective positions in the league). That does help us. I’ll take Weber and Petry hurt, if it also means Hedman is 60-70% his usual self. what terrifies me is our D against their forwards. I’m terrified when we are being hemmed in our zone and can’t get the puck out. It seems we usually have three things happen: 1) the stretch pass (usually by a forward to find a man behind their D 2) we give it away, because we can’t get it out, and have had Price save our ass 3) we ice the puck. Our strengths are: 1) young forwards who are showing they can become stars (Caufield potentially a superstar) 2) forwards who are contributing to the defensive pressure and being responsible 3) scoring being contributions from all the lines. 4) veterans like Perry playing hard and showing they are not dine 5) last, and most importantly friggin MVP performance from Conn Smythe Price. habs in 6 with the first cup win on Bell Centre ice.

Yes, this current system is an absolutely perfect fit for this exact team. Its unarguable that the Habs Dmen have 2 major deficiencies: 1) they're big so they're slow, 2) numerous D are not good puck moving dmen. With this system, the Habs dmen speed is a non factor when they dont have to skate back. Furthermore, the fact the Habs D arent good at 1st passes becomes irrelevant. i.e. the Habs forwards are the ones that are back and the 1st to touch the puck in their own zone. The Forwards are fine at doing the 1st passes.

Yep, thats true.

More like he was trying to save his job by making the French media and habs fan happy by getting a French star on the team. Instead of thinking smart hockey decision he was thinking save my own ass.

Habs beat the Maples in 7 Habs beat the Jets in 4 Habs beat the Knights in 6 what’s missing? Habs beat the Lightning in 5!!!

Yes, the front page of capfriendly has them 18 million over the cap. Let's dig a little deeper though. $7.5 million of that is Marian Gaborik and Anders Nilsson, who played 0 games for them. Who cares about this? $9.5 million of that is Kucherov... He had offseason surgery on his hip. He was legitimately hurt. Also the NHL already faced this situation in 2015 with Patrick Kane and they set the precedent that sitting out the last 2 or 3 games of the season is fine and you can be activated in game 1. If the NHL didn't like that rule, they could have changed it but they didn't even ask for a change in the 2020 CBA negotiations. So meh... they followed the rules. So thats 17 of the 18 million. There are 10 teams over the cap, including the Habs so, meh. Just go beat them now.