xXx..CK..xXx

I had the privilege of having great seats to our respective 1-5 and 2-6 drubbings against the Kings and Ducks in late October. It was a joke in reference to how Don’s unusually made more morose comments about the team as of late.

Don tells it like it is. The Habs have always been good. Until the past 12 days.

Yeah I did hear about their 44/45 game win streak in the Round Robin. Must be a combination of things as they did play well enough to win tonight as well.

Sweden needs clutch in their water. I dont know about the World Juniors but I think they’ve won some big gold medal games in the recent past at various levels, no? 1-1 heading into the 3rd.

That’s not at all what I said. Drouin had issues in Tampa Bay which should have lowered his value to an extent. Although Yzerman was patient, once the issues with Drouin happened last year, he may have targeted Montreal, knowing he could get a solid return. Of course I don’t know what happened, but I can summize how a smart GM would think. I’ll repeat that Drouin formally announced he wanted to be traded and so that would forcefully have Yzerman look at his options. It’s not as simple as having drafted him to trade him to Montreal. He more than likely drafted him to keep him forever. In real life, his hand was forced though, and he did end up traded to Montreal. It’s not impossible to piece everything together. This idea has less to do with Bergevin targeting a French player than another team being in a tough position and thinking they could get full value from us. Let’s not pretend the Vincent Lecavalier hysteria never happened.

I don’t know if I’m not paying attention enough because I’ve heard him praised quite a bit but I felt Jerabek really stood out in the 3v3. First time I’ve really noticed some of his strengths. Both Sergachev and Jerabek may be better/have better potential than Beaulieu?

Pacioretty isn’t core enough of a player for it to have a positive impact to get rid of him. We will notice his loss more than we will notice how we no longer have his “lack of effort”. He’s obviously part of the core but we need more in addition to him, not something in replace of him. On the other hand, I don’t agree that he’s a type of cancer that brings down the team simply because he is our captain and not performing. I can only gather that people want to trade Pacioretty right now mostly because of his recent struggles. Although I’m not against moving him, I don’t agree that trading him is the only way to redefine the core and I don’t agree that he’s the only way we get value back. RNH is leading the oilers in scoring? Great, so is Gallagher. We now have Pacioretty and Nugent Hopkins and the core is given a little shake. I don’t particularly want to get rid of Gallagher, but it is another option. I don’t see eye to eye with Bergevin but I do think Pacioretty, as well as Weber and Price can win a cup while together, on any given team. Price and Weber to a lesser extent have equally struggled this season. We can go on about how bad these players are or we can tend to agree that while the team may not be great on paper as a whole, these individual players also had uncharacteristic seasons themselves and the statistics will eventually even out, and can do so without a “change of scenery”.

I’m not trying to get into this but the difference is those who voted “no” would then be “free” to leave whereas the athlete would not be... of course it’s not that easy for everyone but I’m biased because it’s what I did. I do think the athlete should have to deal with it but only if the team does remain in the league. Separating from the league is a whole other issue altogether and I think that’s what the main reason is for the clause in Messi’s contract.

I’m fine with it as well.

It’s a lateral move at best because Nugent Hopkins has not come close to achieving what Pacioretty has at any point in their career. Nugent-Hopkins has cracked the 20 goal barrier once whereas Pacioretty is a perennial 30 goal scorer. I like Nugent-Hopkins but it would be a mistake to trade Pacioretty for him.

Terrible play by Alzner. Fitting time to say that Price has played up to standard this game.

The team was stale during Subban’s last full season with us. I remember it very well. It wasn’t Subban’s fault but regardless of Price’s injury that season, the team was playing extremely stale hockey. Last year was better than this year and next year can be better than this one even without trading away Pacioretty. I’m not against trading Pacioretty for a core piece but at best it’s going to likely be a lateral move which you usually are against.

Is 35 minutes good for a psychic?

Sorry, I won’t say any more! It’s still early in the game anyway and I’ll be back to watching Habs once the period starts.

Czechs up 1-0 on Canada right as the period ends.

Pretty good period until that penalty near the end by Drouin, which was then nullified by a nice play by Byron who drew a penalty of his own with less than 2 seconds left.

Alright. So I’m going to be the psychic who says Pacioretty will break through soon.

Well, aren't we here to complain about Bergevin? Instead of attacking him for his quest for leadership, his biggest recent blunder was not addressing our need at center. Last season, while people complain about Ott and Martinsen, I gave him the benefit of the doubt because there wasn't much available. As the off season progressed, things got worse. Some would argue as well that he made the trade you are referring to in the off season when he traded Sergachev for Drouin. My only personal qualm with that move was that we now or still needed a top pairing LD and I don't view Drouin as a natural center. Regardless, if Sergachev and a 2nd can get Drouin and a 6th then Lehkonen, Hudon and a 1st would hold value. The main reason that trade wouldn't happen is because the organization themselves value Lehkonen and Hudon highly, not myself. I'm sure they aren't names that immediately come to mind for them when they think trade.

I don't particularly like Lehkonen so I'm not sure how my Habs blinders come into the equation. Lehkonen is arguably a top 6 player on many NHL teams, Hudon is a top 9 player and then you're adding a 1sg round pick and you don't think we'd be able to get a top 6 player back? That's like saying we couldn't get Valperri Filpulla for those players without even considering age, contract or any other factors. My blinders don't have me viewing Lehkonen as having top 6 potential, that's just where his value is. We don't have to trade away our best player to receive our best player back.

I don’t fully understand why Pacioretty is an issue. He’s as much of an issue as Drouin is, only Drouin is a newer face. Pacioretty wasn’t the reason we lost in the seasons that we did go deep with him. It’s as though we’re saying the team would be better with Tavares than it would be with Tavares and Pacioretty. As for trading away for another team’s stud while giving away spare parts, it may be unlikely but if a team does indeed identify a need, they should start to look at the standings and target the teams who will be selling at lower than normal value. It is possible, although we shouldn’t hold our breath. Unfortunately the Habs seem more likely to be the target of other teams this season. All that being said, I don’t know why trading away Lehknonen + Hudon + a 1st doesn’t get other GMs thinking about trading away a top 6 center. Perhaps not Tavares but there are other options out there as well.

While I have Czech heritage and they shouldn't be taken lightly, I expect the Canada/Czech game to be less of a contest than this one.

I agree that that's certainly a more reasonable reason to question Bergevin's tenure. I also feel as though he has lacked a clear plan many times during his tenure. With th that being said, I'm not as convinced that we don't have players who could bring back value to our team. Players like Lehkonen and Hudon have value to us, as well as other teams. I personally think Lehkonen is overvalued and if he were part of the price to pay for a strong center, it wouldn't kill us. This is just one example. I don't particularly want to trade Lehkonen, and even less so Hudon, but our cupboard isn't as bare as some would say. Trading Pacioretty, Galchenyuk, Gallagher, Drouin wouldn't be what I would personally do, but packaging some of Byron, Lehkonen, Danault, Shaw, Scherbak, Hudon, etc. could get us a return during a normal season. The only issue is that we don't tend to package these players in deals for good returns (Desharnais for Davidson). Instead we ship them out in one for one deals. The other issue is that this season, mostly all wouldn't think we should not be buyers at this point and as a result would probably have the opposite vision as t what we should do. I.e. Trading Pacioretty.

Today the Montreal Canadiens square off against goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy and the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Montreal Canadiens, who have been struggling to score as of late will face Vasilevskiy, who has won 6 in a row and is coming off two consecutive shutouts. The Montreal Canadiens, led by Jonathan Drouin will look to change their luck against this red hot team. MONTREAL CANADIENS Pacioretty - Danault - Hudon Galchenyuk - Drouin - Lehkonen Byron - Plekanec - Gallagher Deslauriers - Shaw - Carr Alzner - Petry Benn - Jerabek Morrow - Schlemko Price Niemi TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING Namestnikov - Stamkos - Kucherov Palat - Point - Johnson Killorn - Gourde - Conacher Kunitz - Paquette - Callahan Hedman - Dotchin Sergachev - Stralman Coburn - Girardi Vasilevskiy Domingue Budaj injured

Oh. So you know what Bergevin's definition of leadership is. Kassian, Radulov, Vanek, Drouin, Gonchar, Semin, Weise, Petry all fit that old school character model. This "character" and "leadership" talk does nothing more than keep uptight Habs fans happy for a moment, as they think about how much they hate the general manager. It's no coincidence that every single person who brings up this character and leadership thing vehemently disliked the Subban deal. There's nothing more to the comments than that. I don't like Bergevin, but I don't make up reasons to dislike him.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if Yzerman had it in the back of his own mind to target Montreal as a trading partner due to said reasons. One thing that's often overlooked is that Tampa Bay was trading from somewhat of a weak position due to how the whole Drouin situation was unraveling. I'm not saying that Bergevin himself targets French players, but I can see how we would have been one of the only teams to offer fair value for Drouin.