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Interesting stats, but I'm not not sure we should be worrying about that yet. Remember Higgins last year - 3/4 of his goals were scored after the Olympic break. Johnson is playing on the third line, whereas he played on the top 2 in Phoenix. His role has changed, I would suggest that Carbonneau would be ecstatic if he scored 43 points this year. It also bears mentioning that our top defencemen are miles ahead of last year's pace. Souray is on pace for 66 points, which would blow away last year's haul of 37. Markov is also on pace for 66, which is significantly more than the 46 he scored last year. And Komisarek has already scored as many points in 21 games this year as he did in 72 games last year.

Kovalev's talent has never been in doubt, it's his ability to produce up to that talent level that's in question. In 2001, Kovalev had 37 PP points, our of 95 total. That's 39% of his points. In 2003, Kovalev had 29 PP points with Pittsburgh, out of 64 total. That's 45 % of his total. During his three huge years n Pittsburgh, Kovalev had 88 power play points, out of 235 total. That's 37% of his total. That is a very large % of points coming on the PP. I don't have enough time or patience to do a statistical comparison with other players, but that seems pretty high to me. For example, when Jagr had 51 PPP in 95-96 (a ridiculous number), it was still only 34% of his total.

Wow, calm down Aebischer4life. I'm pretty sure everyone on this board can be said to "know hockey". It seems pretty clear to me that Kovalev's stats were padded in Pittsburgh. Which is much, much different from saying that he wasn't a good player. His linemates aren't as relevant as who he played on the PP with, namely Lemieux and Jagr. Kovalev played the point on the Pittsburgh PP, and racked up a lot of points doing so. Look at two guys who also played the point on the Pittsburgh PP, one before Kovalev and one after: Petr Nedved and Dick Tarnstrom. Nedved scored 99 points one year in Pittsburgh, which is 21 points more than his second best year. Tarnstrom meanwhile put up 41 and 52 points on the PP point... Dick Tarnstrom! I'd say that everyone's stats got padded in Pittsburgh during the Lemieux/Jagr era, not just Kovalev's.

Huet needs to stay in the net and stop chasing the puck around his crease.

Brian Bradley.

Bouillon is being interviewed on CJAD - he says he's pain free, his cardio is game-worthy, and now it's just a matter of getting his timing back. Great news!

Games like that make me really, really excited for the future. Latendresse: 2 goals. Komisarek, 1 goal, +4 Perezhogin: 1 assist, +2 Plekanec: 1 assist, +2 Bob Gainey is building this team right, my friends.

My alma mater sure knows how to churn out Olympic calibre goalies!

My "source" on Streit being signed to replace Hainsey is common sense. The Habs had Souray, Markov, Rivet, Bouillon, Komisarek and Hainsey on the roster. Dandenault was signed in August 2005. That gave them 7 guys who were projected to be Top 6 D-men. Streit was signed after after Dandenault. And remember, Streit was at the time projected as being NHL-ready from the get-go; he wouldn't have left Europe just to "develop" in the AHL (he was quite clear about that in training camp, having played in the AHL in 99-00 and hating it). So that's 8 guys projected to be Top 6 D-men. I highly doubt Streit would have been signed (or would have agreed to sign) unless he was expected to take somebody else's job. Markov, Dandy, Rivet, Souray and Komi's jobs were guaranteed. That leaves either Bouillon or Hainsey on the chopping block. And when it became clear that Bouillon, despite his size, was going to be a big asset in the "new NHL", that left Hainsey as the #8 guy. To be honest, I thought Hainsey outplayed Streit in last year's camp. But I think the decision had already been made after 3 years of underachieving that Hainsey no longer had a future with the Habs and that Streit would, in effect, take his place on the depth chart.

Well, Hainsey didn't get a chance with the Habs 2004-05 because there was no NHL that year. He did, however get a chance to strut his stuff in Hamilton... and was so good that they signed Streit to replace him.

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/news_story/?ID=183678&hubname= People weren't kidding when they say this team has good chemistry...

Nah, Gagné was drafted over Eric Chouinard, and Ward was drafted one spot ahead of Marian Hossa. Then there was Matt Higgins over Brière, Terry Ryan over Iginla...

Good idea in theory. Snippets of "Montreal -40" by Malajube would make for a pretty sweet goal song, but Rogers Wireless had already hijacked it for a commercial.

Not true. Hainsey played 21 games in 2002-03. Considering the shambolic state of our D that year (Patrick Traverse played 65 games), all Hainsey had to do was be average... hell, even being slightly below average would have been good enough to play the whole of that year in Montreal. Hainsey was horrible, and was demoted. Hainsey had a good Calder Cup playoffs in 2003 and was, once again, gift-wrapped a chance to crack the rotation in training camp for 03-04. This was back when Bouillon's size was still a major issue, and, once again, Hainsey only had to play half-decently to win a job on the Habs blueline. He failed, once again.

We have "Les Canadiens sont là", but it's not a goal song. I'd like if it was, though. I like "When the Saints Go Marching In" in St. Louis... and I also liked when they played "Brass Bonanza" in Hartford. Team specific songs are so much better than generic U2 songs, IMO.