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option+

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Everything posted by option+

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. Huet needs to stay in the net and stop chasing the puck around his crease.
  5. 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!
  6. 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.
  7. My alma mater sure knows how to churn out Olympic calibre goalies!
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/news_story/?ID=183678&hubname= People weren't kidding when they say this team has good chemistry...
  11. 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...
  12. 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.
  13. 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.
  14. 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.
  15. Sakic should probably be #1, but Brind'Amour is a damn good captain. A friend of mine is a 'Canes fan, and she gives Brind'Amour more credit than anybody else on that team for the Cup last year... for than Staal, more than Ward, more than Stillman. They think of Brind'Amour down there exactly the same way as we see Saku. Does anybody know why they decided to make that change? The only way that was justified was if Modano asked out of the captaincy à la Jagr, or if Modano was a huge prick behind the scenes. I mean... it's not like Modano is some Johnny-come-lately who had a few big years... he's merely the greatest player in the history of that franchise, by a mile.
  16. No. I still want the old one back.
  17. Even the classic games? That really sucks... I've seen already and they're way too much fun.
  18. Yeah, but that might also be just as much of a by-product of the equipment becoming more like armour in the past 10 years. Last night I saw Jason Williams get stretchered off the ice after being shoulder checked cleanly by Rafi Torres. It wasn't a malicious hit either... he just caught him flush with those ridiculous shoulder pads. And situations like that happen with alarming regularity. I know I sound like Don Cherry here, but it's kind of true. This isn't to refute the argument that the instigator is a bad rule... only to say that the problem with concussions is a complex issue, and removing the instigator rule probably won't stop them from happening.
  19. Hainsey fits in the same category as François Beauchemin. That is to say, they never did the job in the Montreal organization, so it does no real good to lament their loss. And Hainsey's case if even more like that than Beauchemin's. Beauchemin was an under-the-radar guy who had to play his way into the team's reckoning (he did not); Hainsey merely had to avoid playing his way OUT of the rotation. He couldn't even do that. How many chances did he have to become a regular in Montreal? I mean, Patrick Traverse beat him out for a job in 02-03. PATRICK TRAVERSE! I treat Hainsey like he was never even in our organization. If he does well in Columbus or elsewhere, good for him. But it certainly won't make me lament his loss, because a Ron Hainsey who succeeds in Columbus is simply not the same Ron Hainsey who we saw waste chance after chance in Montreal. For whatever reason.
  20. Um... no, because Latendresse beat him out in training camp. Let's put it this way. Team A have two prospects who they expect to be major offensive contributors. Both are unproven in the NHL and both are green defensively. There is one spot left on the team. Player A played better than Player B in training camp... in fact, Player A has played better than the other in two straight training camps. Now, who do you think makes the team? Probably Player A right? Don't get me wrong, I think I'd prefer to see Kostitsyn with the big club rather than Latendresse. But it seems pretty clear to me that Latendresse won the job over Kostitsyn fair and square, irrespective of language, ethnicity or any other factors.
  21. Another question I wanted to raise: what does it mean to be "for real" anyway? It seems to me that pretty much every decent team is a cup contender in the salary capped NHL. Look at last year: Edmonton came within one game of winning the Stanley Cup with an extremely limited team; I'd say that we're probably better right now than the Oilers were going into the playoffs last year. Even Carolina... I mean, did anybody actually think they'd win the Cup before the playoffs started, with that Gerber/Ward combo in net? It seems to me that the playoffs are a lot more of a crapshoot than they were pre-salary cap. As long as a team makes the playoffs and then gets hot at the right time of year, they can win the Stanley Cup. Is Montreal capable of making the playoffs and then getting hot? Hell yeah. Does that mean they're "for real"? Perhaps. I guess I just don't think anybody can really predict how well or poorly this team will do from now until the end of the playoffs... we'll just have to wait and see.
  22. You know what? Every single fan base in the NHL hates Fraser and thinks he screws over their team. For every situation like Hackett/New Jersey and Therrien/Carolina you can name a similar situation where his bad calls helped the Habs. Anybody remember Game 5 in 1987 against the Nordiques? He made a dubious goalie interference call on Paul Gillis as Alain Cote scored to put the Nordiques ahead in the 3rd period (of a 2-2 series). No goal. 13 seconds later, Ryan Walter scored the game winner for the Habs. Michel Bergeron wanted to fight Fraser after the game. Fraser is just a bad referee, he screws everyone over more or less equally. The same goes for Mick McGeough, who is my pick for the worst referee in the NHL.
  23. We all love Patrick Roy around these parts, but comments like this should come as no real surprise. He's always enjoyed running his mouth.
  24. TSN is reporting the same thing, Dandenault maybe back next week. I guess the obvious guy to get scratched is Streit.
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