Habs Fan in Edmonton

Are you referring to the discussion about the Habs needing a left hand shooting defenceman? Yup. I think almost everyone would agree that there is a need for improvement there but the question is how much do you give up to address that need and by doing that will it only create another weakness somewhere else?

Nate from the New York Nick's . Yippee !!!

If you are going to bring him up then you might as well play him. It's not like the Habs have been doing great against teams like New Jersey and Ottawa and the Rangers.

You are obviously not that busy. It's going well. They won!!!

This is not about hard work or being spoiled. It's about treating people with respect. People deserve to be treated with respect. That's the way society should be period.

It wasn't 20 years ago. Players were likely afraid of speaking out earlier because they would get blackballed. There is nothing wrong with a coach being tough and demanding however there is no place anywhere for a coach or anyone to demean other people or make racist remarks. I would lose my job if i did it, why should it be any different for a coach?

Chelios was a beast. One of the worst trades ever, Chelios for Denis Savard. Ouch!!

Totally agree. Better to grab a guy when he is having an off year and his market value is down. The Sens would want a lot for Pageau especially if he is going down the road to Montreal where they have to play against him a lot.

The thing that bothers me about Avery is he was quoted today saying he really deserved to get his butt kicked and that Marc Crawford was his second favourite coach. Then why bring it up? He really loves publicity. I am not excusing Crawford's behaviour. I am sure there is more stuff to come out. Chelios's talk about how Babcock treated Franzen was really damning. I think it will be really hard for Babcock to get another job but I could be way off on that.

Nothing wrong with throwing names out there but I think on MB's list of priorities (I assume he has one) that a right hand shooting defenceman is way down the list or should be.

I am not sure why so many have mentioned Honka as a defenceman of interest. He is an undersized (180 lbs) right handed shooting defenceman who has scored 2 goals in 87 NHL games. I don't think that's what we need short or long term.

Agree, I think Price still has tremendous value. Although he has been through a rough patch recently, he is still an elite goalie. It's amazing how much better a goalie looks when a team plays with structure in front of them. The Habs have lacked that recently. His contract would make him more difficult to trade but there are a lot of examples of goalies who played at a high level late into their thirties.

Agree, even if you are doing a rebuild you need some veteran leadership to show the way. The Oilers will absolutely abysmal because they didn't have a strong enough veteran presence when they had some talented kids. Ask Andrew Ference about that. He really unloaded on them. Now their young talented guys have character. I think MB decided a couple years ago that the only real way to build a winner was through the draft and making the odd trade when appropriate. I think the Pacioretty trade will pay off in spades. The pass Suzuki made on the 3rd goal was phenomenal.

It's not a question of doing nothing. Panic moves rarely work.

I disagree 100% on that one, Edmonton is a small city. Hall had to go and Chiarelli was in a corner because he had to get rid of him. But perhaps Hall has matured since his time in Edmonton. Young guys do grow up.

Chiarelli made some bad moves no question but apparently Larsson was the best he could get as teams had concerns about Hall. I don't blame players at all for seeing what's on the market. Anyway it doesn't matter much anyway, I don't see Hall coming here.

Agree that you don't make that trade unless you can guarantee resigning him. I am leery of giving up too much for Hall, love his talent, not convinced of his character which I mentioned on another thread. There is a reason that the best the Oilers could get for a young dynamic player like Hall was Adam Larson who is a decent defenceman but nowhere near the talented player Hall is.

I wouldn't give up a significant package for Hall (would most certainly include top prospects and picks) and then take the chance of losing him for nothing in the summer. I am a fan of Hall's talent but not convinced of his character. I expect he will go to the highest bidder in the summer, it won't be Jersey so I expect them to trade him somewhere.

I think the Subban trade was risky from the perspective that trading a highly talented, high profile, popular with the fans (I think), player can come back and bite you. Looking back, it hasn't been risky as Subban seemed to have worn out his welcome in Nashville. I really like Weber and he was certainly a safe addition for the reasons you mentioned. I think the Drouin trade was risky as giving up a potential stud defenceman can make any GM look bad. I think even the francophone fans would prefer to have a stud Russian defenceman to an inconsistent francopohone forward. Who wouldn't want to have a young Markov again? The jury is still out on that one. Yup, Alzner was a mistake , MB messed up that one (perhaps his scouts can part of the blame), tying up the money he has for a player like Alzner was a risk but obviously a bad one. The point I was trying to make is that MB is not afraid to make a trade and has taken risks, more risks than many GM's in the league. Some have worked, some haven't, some we need more time to evaluate.

I don't dispute that MB has had time to address certain deficiencies and hasn't. I don't consider MB risk averse, the Subban trade and the Domi trade were not risk averse trades. The Alzner signing was high risk and turned out to be a bad risk.

I agree there is a huge difference between black face and the N word if that's your point. I think what Trudeau did was based on ignorance not any sort of racism. I am no fan of Trudeau but am willing to give him a break on that one. I am not a young man but it's only because of what came out with Trudeau that I have come to understand what black face is. I have known for a long long time that the N word is horrible. Peters should have known better. There is no excuse for his behaviour.

Let Bouchard take over ? Does that mean Alain Vigneault or Michelle Therrien are not available? OK, bad joke.

I agree with a lot of your points. I definitely thought resigning Radulov was an opportunity. I was tremendously disappointed when he was not resigned as he is a terrific player. I believe (who really knows) that MB made a sincere effort to resign him but failed. Whether it was only money that influenced Radulov's decision to leave or something else, who knows. If it was purely money then competing with Dallas where these is no state income tax is difficult. It's interesting that many crucify MB for net getting Radulov resigned but hardly anyone gives him credit for taking a chance to bring him back to the NHL when almost no other GM was willing to do it. Obviously management thought Markov was on his last legs and wouldn't give him 2 years. he wouldn't be helping them now that's for sure but you are absolutely right as that's when the unexpected cap space became available. It's true that teams winning the cup are close to the cap limit or slightly over. What free agent do you think the Habs could have signed over the last couple years to get them to be a cup contender? Obviously Alzner was a big mistake.

Exactly, I think MB has finally realized his best chance of success is building from within, overpaying for guys like Alzner (big mistake) sets you back. Not saying that you don't jump in when the right free agent opportunity is available but it's harder as mentioned for the Habs to get free agents without overpaying.

I don't think everyone is giving Bergevin a pass, he has made mistakes no question. I prefer to focus on what he should do going forward in an era where teams are limited by the salary cap. At the least the last couple years he has accumulated draft picks and accumulated some good young talent. The only way you can win in this salary cap world is having some good young players on entry level contracts to give you some flexibility.