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Guys… this has all dragged on too long (the little bout between @Commandantand @WildTurkeyXX) I respect the fact you both have strong opinions and are willing to defend them. But this whole thing is childish, this is a forum to talk hockey not berade each other for character in which neither of you truly learned any of the others. Please drop it so this forum can stay pure hockey. 👍 &nbsp

We fleeced them... badly.

Next season is a stronger draft, but I reiterate if we keep getting good, young talent for picks I’m happy for them to be dealt. I think HuGo have demonstrated that they are looking long term to build a sustainable contender. If they were trading picks for older players I would not be happy unless we were a serious threat to win the Cup

It doesn’t matter how you rank them. Montreal simply has too many draft picks and prospects not to use them in the strategic way that they did in this draft. We need to keep in mind that there is a 50 contract limit. From getting Dobson for Heineman and two picks to giving up picks to get the player they were targeting, HuGo ran a masterclass on leveraging picks and areas of strength to make the team stronger. You say you hope they don’t continue to trade picks. I hope that they do as long as the trades continue to be measured, strategic and bringing back excellent value. Picks are not the end goal. Using picks to build a Stanley Cup contender is the goal and picks and prospects need not always be retained to achieve it.

I expect pretty close, maybe only one zero less!

From Pierre Lebrun's athletic column today Habs GM Kent Hughes is leaving no stone unturned in surveying the forward market and trying to line up potential trade scenarios for this week and perhaps into the summer. The search for a No. 2 center might be too hard this offseason, so a compromise might be a top-six winger with pop. Some of those calls Hughes is making are in that direction. Montreal, armed with the No. 16 and No. 17 picks Friday night, is trying to find a partner who would be interested in a picks/prospects package. But the Canadiens aren’t going to force it. If the price to attain a top-six difference maker is out of their comfort zone and hurts their long-term planning, they’re willing to stay patient, whether that means an in-season trade or even next summer. The No. 1 priority, as Basu wrote, is to become a long-term contender that takes multiple swings at a title over time. The priority is absolutely not about making sure they make a short-term swing just to make the playoffs again next year. The longer-term view wins out.

One of the potentially greatest outcome would be him winning a cup in Montreal!! Not only would we get our 25th cup, but imagine the angst and outrage in Toronto of seeing Tavares win in Montreal - they would be furious at Toronto management and ownership!!

Draisaitl is one of the most clutch players in the NHL. The counter argument seems to be that no one is clutch but only great. From that standpoint, it’s easy to dismiss every statement in regards to him because in reality he is a great player. With that being said, one can be a great player and clutch at the same time. The conversation seems to have taken a specific route into the definition of clutch relating to how someone performs in the regular season versus the playoffs but it’s more than that. It’s the mental state of how someone performs when there are key moments within a specific game. In one sense, all 60 minutes are equally important. In the other sense, there’s the shift where the game is on the line for both teams. There are plenty of good and skillful players who one wouldn’t necessarily want out in those moments. On the other hand, there are also less skillful players who one would want out on the ice because they seem to perform in those moments. To me, it’s not purely about a statistic but more-so a mindset. Because that mindset is not necessarily quantifiable, it’s easy to dismiss that it exists. There are plenty of players who suffer from mental health issues in professional sports, so it’s a lazy argument to state that the world has weeded out the mentally weak once it comes to professional sports and not true because once again, there are many different variables that make up a professional player. One may have the skill but not the mental ability to perform under pressure. One may have skill but lack the tactical and strategic defensive mindset of a clutch player on defense. There’s no one definition of what a clutch player is, but they do definitely exist. In terms of who is clutch, I could see how that is debatable. Here is a list of players who scored important goals this year. “Game ending goals”, “late game winning goals”, “game winning goals”, “late game tying goals”, “game tying goals” were some of the criteria used in determining who was clutch when it came to scoring important goals for their team this year. Are they all great players? Sure. Are players like Wilson, Rossi, Boldy, or even Nick Suzuki top 10 players in the league when it comes to “greatness”? Possibly? Swinging back to Draisaitl. He is at the top of the list. He is a great player but so is McDavid who doesn’t appear. The next player on the list was Marner, and that’s where the debate surrounding what clutch means comes into play because some argue that players like Marner cannot elevate their game in the playoffs, however it turns out that he scored important goals for his team this year, and he also scored an important overtime goal for Canada in the 4 nations cup. McDavid also scored the game winning goal for Canada at the 4 nations vs USA but is he clutch, or was being surrounded by other great players beneficial to both players discussed in this paragraph? I do believe there could be some variance when it comes to clutch related statistics and that it can be a somewhat difficult thing to measure. With that being said, I do believe it exists in sport and denying it is like saying not a single player feels pressure prior to the game. Yes, even professionals feel pressure and while some thrive off of it, others can be impacted. Just off the top of my head, Hellebuyck is an example that comes to mind in the reverse sense of being clutch and handling pressure. Anyway, like you said it’s a topic that has been beaten to death but it all stems from one’s perception of what clutch even means. If it’s based off of a specific mindset, then it exists. There are simply toooooo many circumstances where clutch can be used to deny that it fully exists. Clutch can be elevating your game when the games are more important (playoffs, game 7, etc.). It can be a player who seemingly makes key defensive plays when the game is on the line. It can even be a player who raises their game when the going gets tough, period. While all NHL players are professional athletes, not every single one of them has a growth mindset. A player with a fixed mindset, will think things like “I can’t” whereas a player with a growth mindset will believe “they can”. I already know that the rebuttal will be that all professional athletes have a growth mindset and that’s why they are professionals but considering my profession is being an athlete turned coach, I can say with 100% certainty that it isn’t the case. Most are, but some got where they are with pure skill rather than that elite mindset. If these negative thoughts creep into a professional’s mind, and they do, then the reverse is possible as well.

If Koivu’s 11 is worn why not Subban’s 76?

Is that what that was? Looked to me like he was expressing disappointment, I don't think that's the same as "shitting on management". And even if he was, is that not (at least partially) the point to places like this? Just seemed like some unnecessary antagonism on your part...

Sergachev was in the NHL at 19. Mailloux is struggling defensively in the AHL at 22. They are not the same.

There just arent centres available. Unless we can get Granlund or Roslovic, my plan would be to be strong on the wings and defence. Put Dach and Newhook as your 2/3 C.... wait for a team to decide, we suck, the season is over, lets tank for Gavin McKenna, and then trade them a draft pick or prospect for a top 6 centre around late November or so. Better than overspending on a guy who can't do the job.

Apparently this is not one of the drafting criteria!

Meaningless fan vote from JFresh ranking the top 125 Dmen in the league. Habs look good

I'll take a 50-point/82 game Dach next season

It’s gonna be Dach and he’s gonna have a chip on his shoulder. Barring an injury I think he’s gonna have a monster year.

I dont think its virtue shaming at all. You said what you said and it was responded to. If you are ashamed of what you wrote, thats a you problem, not the responder. You wrote it. So either you stand by it and arent ashamed you wrote it and what the response is, doesnt matter to you.... or you are ashamed of it and its on you to begin with. Either way. You wrote it.

I couldn’t care less about +/-. It’s not accurate or meaningful. Liane’s goals helped us win games. Dach was a disappointment, I’m hopeful, but not optimistic that he will reach his potential this year. Arber was in and out of the lineup because the coaches decided that was the best option because of his deft defensive inconsistency— , I didn’t necessarily agree. I don’t think Liane showed a bad attitude and I think that he will be a much better player after a full offseason to recover from his injuries.

Maybe we will call him Ogie Ogil Thorpe

I think not too aggressive at all. They have not been selling their future but using selected picks to get high-quality young players (not veterans in their 30s) that can play with the team for years. As I said in an earlier post, the prospect pool rankings show that the Habs' pipeline is not emptying out, they continue to have one of the strongest sets of prospects in the league, even with the team being one of the youngest in the NHL (probably top three in the coming season).

No, because the centre market just doesn’t seem to be there anyway. There’s a shortage of top-6 C in the NHL. And as someone or other pointed out, the rising cap + a down draft year meant that most teams want to add NHL talent, not hoard draft picks, as they might have done in past seasons. Everyone thinks they’re “two players away” from their organizational goals (whether those goals be winning the Cup, becoming top-tier contenders, making the playoffs, or being “in the mix”). Besides that: we made the team better overall and now MM becomes a realistic trade chip. So it’s not as simple as “we’ve shot our load and have no more assets to move.”

Laval's site has a player tracker showing who's signed, who is a free agent, and who has left already. A decent summary so far of the state of the team: https://www.rocketlaval.com/en/press-release/portrait-of-the-rocket-lineup-2025-26/

Pezzetta is marginal, but I have to give him kudos for his hard work, which got him another contract. By the end of that one, he'll have earned about US$4.5M--not a lot by NHL standards, but it should hopefully put him in a good position for his post-hockey life.

I think you are going to play Hutson, Matheson, Dobson, Guhle all in your top 4. All of them will get over 20 minutes a game. the 15-16 or so minutes left will go to either Struble/Xhejak on the left and Carrier on the right.

Mailloux probably has a higher ceiling than Bolduc, but Bolduc is already an established NHLer with room to improve. Mailloux's defensive deficiencies might prevent him from ever reaching that level. We moved him at the right time while his value is high and he wasn't too disgruntled with the lack of NHL opportunity. We're not the only team with a hole at centre and it doesn't seem like there are many on the market. We already filled a huge hole on RD.

I feel like there's a Mailloux disconnect. Was he all of a sudden a top 5/can't miss pick? Did anyone watch him play? Granted, St. Louis must value his potential because Bolduc is not a throwaway player. This feels like the Lehkonen/Barron trade, but in reverse.

Do you think Hughes said.... I don't need a centre and not going to try? Do you think they didn't explore the options at C and come to the conclusion that adding a winger was actually the better move right now. As for trade chips. They still have Matheson, they have next year's first, they could move one of Kapanen/Beck, there are options man.

There was no hurry for you ... I'll trust HuGo to better understand the marketplace

YES The pick would be 16 - 32 anyway

Maybe if you go back far enough in history. Definitely not a grandson (or great-grandson), though. On the other hand ... he's heading to Cornell for NCAA hockey in a few months--just 59 years after Dryden did the same. I think that's enough of a legendary connection, even if he's not not related to Yvan.

I’ll be in LA tomorrow! Cant wait!

Another stellar contribution to the discussion.

It doesn’t make much sense to me to move prospects like Kapanan, or Mailloux and our pick, to only move up 2 or 3 spots in a draft where there isn’t enough separating players in the 12 to 16 range. We not only may end up drafting a player at 13 or 14 that isn’t as good as the guy we would have taken at 13, or 14, but those picks may not even turn out to be better than Kapanan or Mailloux. It doesn’t seem like it’s worth giving up Mailloux/Kapanan type prospects unless we could get into the 6-8 range. Last year, I would have mov d wither or both as part of a package to draft Buium or Parekh, but I don’t see those types of prospects in the 9-12 range this year. id rather move prospects like them or save prospects like them as part of package to fill the 2C hole.

Cap hit percentage is starting to get looked at a lot more now as it allows for an apples to apples comparison. If a player signed four years ago for $8M, what's the comparable now? Instead of guessing 9 or 9.5, look at the CH%, multiply that by the salary cap, and there's your equivalent money to try to negotiate up or down from. Now, with projections for two more years after next season, teams and agents can start to factor that into negotiations by using CH% multiplied by the projected salary cap for that year which is why I think there's going to be some sticker shock on the UFA contracts as it's the big projections moving forward that simply haven't been there before.

A consistent 15-goal, 30-point player? He's reached both of those marks twice in five years. He's a guy who got more ice time in Vancouver with their centre troubles and shot at a whopping 18.1%, 5% higher than his career average. It's extremely likely that it's not repeatable which is going to drag that goal total down. He's also probably not playing 17 minutes a game with most teams so that has to be factored in. If Dvorak played 17 minutes a game, he'd have more points to. Don't get me wrong. I like Suter. He's a Swiss Army type of player that's useful to have. If he was willing to sign for 3C money, I'd be happy if he signed with the Habs. I have no reason to think he'll accept 3C money as Vancouver has already offered that and had it turned down. I don't want the Habs to overpay based on the outlier, unlikely to be repeated year and because the centre market is so weak, someone's going to. Based on your evaluation of Granlund's cost, I'm also guessing you have Suter's price tag much lower than it's going to be.

However, I think he is better than what we've got

Genius insight here, thanks for chiming in. Just trying to match your snark big fella. Surely as the Snark King around here, you should understand.

I think certainly any player can be traded to make the team better. The question for me is do you give up one of your better prospects for a guy that may or may not help you a lot for a year or two? Malkin will be 39 when the season starts. Not sure how much gas is left in the tank. If I am trading Mailloux and some sort of package I would prefer it to be for someone who is more than a stop gap. Good item for discussion though, I see both sides. Still thinking signing Granlund is the best way to go. Will have to overpay but that's the way it goes.

Laws against street hockey are a national crime.

OK, so I started with a list of the NHL starters (30 goalies who played at least 41 games) and narrowed it to the younger ones (more recent picks); I used 28 as the cutoff, which gave me 17 goalies. Five Canadians, five Americans and seven Europeans (two Czechs, two Russians, two Swedes and one Finn) Six from CHL (1 OHL, 1 QMJHL and 4 WHL), four from NCAA, three from Liiga, two from SHL and one each from ExtraLiga and KHL. Four out of five US goalies chose the NCAA route, in Europe Liiga was a popular option for young goalies. List, sorted by games played: Rank Country Name League Team Age Games GAA SPCT 3 CA Samuel Montembeault QMJHL MTL 28 62 2.82 0.901 6 SE Filip Gustavsson SHL MIN 26 58 2.56 0.914 7 US Jake Oettinger NCAA DAL 26 58 2.59 0.909 8 US Jeremy Swayman NCAA BOS 26 58 3.12 0.892 9 CZ Karel Vejmelka ExtraLiga UTA 28 58 2.58 0.904 11 US Joey Daccord NCAA SEA 28 57 2.75 0.906 13 CA Mackenzie Blackwood OHL COL 28 56 2.55 0.912 14 FI Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen Liiga BUF 25 55 3.2 0.887 16 CZ Lukas Dostal Liiga ANA 24 54 3.1 0.903 17 US Dustin Wolf WHL CGY 23 53 2.64 0.91 20 CA Stuart Skinner WHL EDM 26 51 2.81 0.896 22 CA Adin Hill WHL VGK 28 50 2.47 0.906 24 RU Alexandar Georgiev Liiga SJS 28 49 3.71 0.875 25 RU Pyotr Kochetkov KHL CAR 25 47 2.6 0.897 27 SE Samuel Ersson SHL PHI 25 47 3.14 0.883 29 CA Logan Thompson WHL WSH 27 43 2.48 0.91 30 US Joseph Woll NCAA TOR 26 42 2.73 0.909

Roy=Charles Hudon 2.0?

Did I miss anyone? (Didn't include picks that were not first rounders). In: Dobson Bolduc Blais Kahkonen Clurman Belzile Out: Heineman Mailloux Dvorak Armia Pezetta Primeau 16 17

Well, perhaps they are looking for a Marner replacement?

I agree, just speculating on what might be possible which is what we do on a thread called Permanent Rumour Thread with the emphasis on Rumour.

Reinbacher plays a year in AHL, and Mailloux too

And 8m is going to be market value for his level of defenceman. Sure hes a top pair guy but not a Norris level of a Makar or Hughes, but those guys are going to be 12-14 when they sign their next contracts. The cap going up is going to rise the top earners and rising tide raises all boats Id rather a forward than a defenceman when push comes to shove but 8m is not an unrealistic ask IMO.

Lots of red flags around Zegras, but assuming that we're better without him than with him kind of depends on what we'd be sending the other way - no? If it's another Harris-for-Laine type move, I can get on board with that.

if you look at his whole career, Bennett is .74 pts/game in the playoffs and .49pts/game during the regular season, not an insignificant difference for a guy who is not known as a big scorer.

Umm, Regular season Bennett vs playoff Bennett.