xXx..CK..xXx

My brain can process the two images on the right just a little bit quicker than those on the left.

Nicklas Backstrom is an elite player and Max Pacioretty is an elite goal scorer. We can lower him down to "great" to fit the argument but that fact remains. There are almost no goal scorers like him in the league. Nicklas Backstrom got his 86 points playing alongside Alex Ovechkin and TJ Oshie the majority of the time. Max Pacioretty scored his 35 goals and 67 points alongside Philip Danault (and Radulov) the majority of the time. Backstrom 86 points Ovechkin 69 points Oshie 56 in 68 games (or 67.5 points in full season) Pacioretty 67 points Danault 40 points in 82 games Radulov Radulov 54 points Washington Capitals 263 Goals For 86/263=32.7% Backstrom was part of 32.7% of Washington's scoring Montreal Canadiens 226 Goals For 67 points/226=29.6% Pacioretty was part of 29.6% of Montreal's scoring The point is that while Backstrom is elite himself, clearly outshining his teammates, he's had a lot more to work with that Pacioretty. There's no doubt in my mind that Paciorettt's numbers were deflated due to playing with Danault, just a like Backstrom's numbers were helped by having such elite talent surrounding him. Backstrom on the Habs ends last season with ~73 points. What we should be doing is solving that center problem by finding someone to support Pacioretty. Trading Pacioretty for Backstrom straight up is indeed defensible but it still leaves us with quite a void. Also, I'm not convinced that we haven't lost the trade if we include two first round picks and I'm often someone who's "meh" about picks in a trade for talent.

I can see the argument to an extent. Backstrom clearly does produce at a higher rate. At the same time, I really do believe Pacioretty might just about be one of the best goal scorers in the league along with Tarasenko. Now and for the next few years. Similar to the fact that centers are more difficult to acquire than wing, I think goal scorers are more difficult to acquire than passers. We'd be solving a huge void only to create another massive one. Backstrom gets his 80 points with 60 assists. With Pacioretty gone, who is he going to turn into a 40 goal scorer? Drouin is more of a setup man so all expectations would have to be on Galchenyuk. After that, we'd literally have no one else to score goals. Heck we've even had Galchenyuk on the team for the past few years and it has still felt like Pacioretty has been our only true scorer up front, even when Galchenyuk did put in 30. My opinion is that solving the center issue should have been and is a priority. At this point though, I've seen avenues that teams have taken to acquire a top 6 center without having to give up their best player in return. Furthermore, Backstrom hasn't proven to be that playoff performer who brings you a cup. If we were talking Kopitar in his prime, Toews, Sedin in prime, maybe even Bergeron in prime, Crosby, Malkin... players with rings or consistency throughout the playoffs... then you'd have me thinking about trading away Pacioretty and a couple of firsts.

I've agreed for awhile that we should probably acquire a top 6 center as I don't want Danault in the top 6. At the beginning of the off season I was on my own island when it came to the Duchene rumors, stating that I'd take him on my team. At the time I would have contemplated trading Galchenyuk for him despite Galchenyuk being one of my favorite, if not my favorite Hab. The only reason I would have contemplated the move is due to the reality that Galchenyuk didn't seem to have a defined position and we do need that center. Galchenyuk has more upside than Gallagher but my thought had less to do with Galchenyuk's skill set and once again his position. Gallagher and Pacioretty play an important role for our team in their defined roles and even if we did acquire a top 6 center, the propositions I've seen have been quite lateral moves, despite the improvement to our position of need. Trading Pacioretty for a player like Tavares would most likely prove to be a slight upgrade but imagine having a player like Tavares next to Pacioretty, rather than instead of him. With our forwards corps as it is, I don't see it worth trading Gallagher for Nugent Hopkins or even Pacioretty for Backstrom. Both Drouin and Galchenyuk may be better players as wingers, up for debate, but I don't think the position of center is so foreign to them that we cannot at the very least avoid trading 1 of 2 of our better forwards for a comparable center in return. We should rather just move one of our great wingers to center. After all all these years of having that gaping hole in center, I think the better route would have been to sign a free agent a la Joe Thornton, just as an example. If we have to wait until next summer for that to happen, since we missed our window of opportunity, it may be best to wait until the trade deadline when we may be able to get a top 6 center for draft picks, or next summer when we can sign one for "free". And yet Pacioretty was our best player as well and he seems to be oh so available amongst fans.

I wouldn't make the specific proposed trade either. Backstrom is a great player but at the same time people are often justifying these trades by saying "we get the center we need" and regardless of the players involved, it seems to be a situation where we're trading from a position of weakness due to our "need". Pacioretty specifically is also undervalued here and the two 1st rounders added are what make the trade a no go. Pacioretty for Backstrom straight up is a better starting point for a fair trade discussion. We could hear people crying that Washington got ripped off but it wouldn't be by as much as us trading Paciorerty and 2-3 firsts for Backstrom. All in all, I'm not part of the camp that would want to trade Pacioretty or Gallagher for a center at this point. They seem to be proposed trades that involve us overpaying for the center.

I think I have to agree with the we should have signed Radulov mentality despite the cost. The reason being that it's not like we once again saved the cap space for something else specific and we would have been able to unload cap space in the future if we needed it for something else. I was also one of the people who were over the top disappointed when we didn't resign Radulov though so I'm on the biased side of the fence. With that being said, it doesn't seem like Radulov or his agent were overly cordial throughout the process and maybe it just wouldn't have been possible to sign him unless we truly did have to overpay him perhaps even more than Dallas did. I see it as a possibility and in that case, there's really no blame to be placed. What I do think is that Jagr could be the poor man's version of Radulov just like we signed Streit when we knew Markov wouldn't be back. I don't think Streit is Markov's replacement and Jagr probably wouldn't replace Radulov fully at this point but Jagr's strength on the puck is similar to Radulov and I don't really view Drouin as Radulov's replacement. At this point he is younger and probably has a higher ceiling than Radulov. But we did gain him and then lose Radulov. I agree had we kept Radulov, our offense could have been very dangerous and up there competitive with the rest of the league.

You're definitely not wrong in theory but the debate really stems from how one feels about our off season. Our cap space will definitely come in handy when we need it in the future but we'll use hindsight to say we could have already addressed some needs with the cape space this past off season. I didn't particularly love our off season even though I acknowledge some players like Hudon and Jerabek could have a decent impact at a low cost. I'm willing to ride it out but it's going to be easy to forget the reality that we had some options this summer when some fans are crying about our needs as the season wears on. Also while center is our need, acquiring a big strong winger might once again enable us to use both Galchenyuk and Drouin in the top 6 at center. I don't think Jagr is happening but once again Pacioretty-Drouin-Jagr Lehkonen-Galchenyuk-Gallagher or Pacioretty-Drouin-Gallagher Lehkonen-Galchenyuk-Jagr would be fine by me

Next comes 2012. Who did we draft 3rd overall in 2012 again?

With my previous post in mind, it's very true that a team doesn't need to spend all their cap space to be successful. Teams that I am surprised to see with so much free space left also include the Bruins and San Jose. I expect especially San Jose to be quite competitive and they have more room than us at this point. In addition, teams like the Maple Leafs and Rangers probably spend up to the ceiling on a yearly basis and it hasn't done much for them. With that being said, in a specific view, I still would't be able to understand why we would have a limit for spending on a player like Markov (Radulov:longer term) on a one year deal, if we didn't intend on using much of it somewhere else. The Habs had options this off season and chose not to spend it on player(s) who certainly could have still been serviceable to us. In addition most of the teams who are expected to be competitive next season are in the top half of spending. There are teams like Vegas who will be higher on spending without the results but it seems only natural to spend when you can. The Habs still have a few voids in the lineup and we still have money to spare. If there's nothing better out there, then I would try to sign one of the available vets. If nothing else, it may give us the option to place one of our elite winger-centers purely at center and hope they begin to flourish there.

I agree that Hemsky should not be a 4th line player. That's just a personal opinion of mine though. In reality, I've seen him suggested on the 4th line quite often on these boards, as well as elsewhere. I have him penciled in with Plekanec, ideally on the 3rd line, but it's not that far fetched an idea to see Hemsky on the 4th based on his recent past. I'm hoping we don't though. It will mean worse things than better. With that being said, there are also ways acquiring Jagr may work without forcing Hemsky to the 4th line. Looked at in isolation it may not be smart, but there have been suggestions of trading Gallagher for our center. If that happened, all of a sudden we'd have some space for Jagr as a temporary fill in as well as Hemsky. I don't want to trade Gallagher myself, it's just a scenario that might fit a reason to make the move, especially since we have the cap space. Also, if we do sport a fourth line based on speed, it's truly not that far fetched to have Hemsky play on the the 4th line with players like say Mitchell and Hudon. This is another thought based not on personal opinion but theory. I have a 4th line of Martinsen-Shaw-McCarron but it could just as easily look like Hudon-Mitchell-Hemsky. The last reason it could work is by moving Drouin to center. It's funny because this is another move I wouldn't personally make. I think Drouin is nice coming in on his off wing. On the other side of the coin, there could be positives from it because it could allow us to have Galchenyuk and Drouin as our top 2 centers. Pacioretty-Drouin-Jagr Lehkonen-Galchenyuk-Gallagher Finally, I guess I'd just like to use the cap space one way or the other. I think having the cap space is reason enough to justify making the move whether or not Hemsky is on the team. It may not be a homerun move but it wouldn't be detrimental either. With this much cap space left over, I may have to go into the season thinking that management may be looking 2 years ahead, and I've never gone into a season with that mentality in my young life. In the end, I seem to believe the rumors that Jagr may be less likely to come here because of his past history with Bergevin, even though I don't believe Jagr has made personal calls to Bergevin. Unlikely to happen, but not the worst idea in the world.

I'd be fine with Jagr on the squad. I don't know why it's him or Hemsky though. I see them as two different types of players. Both are right wingers but we'd be able to pencil them both in. I don't see it happening though.

He won the next round against Mannarino as well so he's now into the semis against Alex Zverev. Youngest player ever to reach a masters QF/SF. As was noted earlier in the thread, Shapovalov has won the Wimbledon junior championship before so he has some great talent but I still wonder if this will be somewhat of a one hit wonder for him. When other players start paying attention to you and dissecting your game, it becomes a lot tougher to do well. So far he has gone a little bit under the radar. What I do like about him is the unique combination of being a left handed player with a one handed backhand. That being said, even though he has already beaten some great players like Nadal and Del Porto, I will be very surprised if he pulls off the semi final win against Sacha Zverev. Go Shapovalov but I have to think Zverev will take it in straight sets.

I think sometimes people genuinely get 5 upvotes or even downvotes. It might be better if it could be say, 3-5 upvotes or 3-5 maximum downvotes for a specific user towards another specific user.

That's nice to hear, huzer. Colorado is a little different than California I suppose but it doesn't surprise me that the camp is cheaper in Montreal. I live in California now and it seems there are junior leagues out here that are about $2000 for 20 games, or $100 a game. When I was back in Montreal, the same league would have probably cost $250 for the season. It's not exactly the same thing though as this sounds like it was a lot more exciting considering he had the opportunity to meet some of the professional Habs players themselves. I'm sure he'll remember it forever.

Drouin is a force coming in on his off wing. I argued for awhile that both he and Galchenyuk should play center because I didn't want Danault as a top 6 center but I think Drouin should be our first line right winger. I agree that one of he and Chucky should be center though and so that leaves Galchenyuk as my choice. dlbalr may not be too far off however because Danault and Plek were Julien's choices in the top 6 last year. IF Plek were somehow our second line center this season I'd do... Pacioretty-Galchenyuk-Drouin Byron-Plekanec-Gallagher Lehkonen-Danault-Hemsky Martinsen-Shaw-McCaron

Pacioretty-Danault-Drouin Lehkonen-Galchenyuk-Gallagher Byron-Plekanec-Hemsky Martinsen-Shaw-McCaron Streit-Weber Alzner-Petry Schlemko-Benn Price Montoya My lineups change every few weeks. Dislike Danault on the top line but he did play with Pacioretty a tonne last season.

Finally, this was the quote from the end of my original post. If true, the latter is the only formation that matters.

Schlemko on the top pairing is "not ideal" but that's just fine. Streit on the top pair is "not ideal" and a terrible idea. Read anything about Schlemko which I'm sure you have and you'll see he is just as much of a third pairing defenseman as Streit. You are arguing that Streit does no not belong on the top pair and making that very clear and then replacing him with someone else who definitely does not belong there and calling it not ideal. Next we'll hear that it's the better of two evils but that's up for debate. Streit has been a top pairing caliber defenseman in his career, Schlemko has not nor should he ever have been. "But he's younger". Call me not convinced. The only thing out of it all that I agree with is that Streit is weak defensively at this point. In come Weber and Price.

Yeah I do admit that there are a couple of wild cards who could drastically change things. I also get that Streit was a healthy scratch for a lot of the playoffs but they were the cup winning team, after all. There's no doubt that I'm having wishful thinking thoughts when Streit is only being paid 700k for a reason. You won't hear me talking anymore about Streit in such a seemingly positive way. I didn't even care much about the signing. But wishful thinking aside, I do get a slight feeling he may be able to to do a little more "back home" than he has recently. Three seasons ago he had 2 more points than Markov. 52 vs 50. Since then, I haven't followed him much but it seems he got injured and then fell off a cliff due to his age. I guess Markov just aged better. The only issue I see is that if he's not given a chance, he will end up that press box player that many are predicting. If he is given an opportunity to have a good partner, he might be a contributing 700k player. I mean, we did sign him so which one do we want? Jerabek is the wildcard because if he is a similar to better talent, then I'd agree with Schlemko and Alzner in the top 4 and then Streit a healthy scratch.

If Streit is your 6th defenseman, then Schlemko should be your 4th or 5th. You seem to be arguin a point I'm not trying to make. What I'm saying is that I'd rather have Streit on the top pairing than Schlemko. If the top pairing is Alzner-Weber, then Schlemko should be on the second pair and Streit should see limited minutes on the third pair, along with some PP time. If for whatever reason, the coaching staff sees Alzner as a complimentary partner to Petry, then I'd rather see Streit on the top pair than Schlemko. If you put the younger, faster defenseman against the better opposition, then I'm not sure why we saw Emelin on the top pair last season over Beaulieu. There are two things we have that other teams don't. We have Shea Weber, who can make unorthodox players look competent on the top pair and we also have the best goaltender in the world. What we need is more offense. Statistically, Streit averaged more points than Petry only last year and if he's given a chance, he can get 30-40 points despite his age. Why that's frowned upon beats me. It certainly becomes a worse top pairing than we had with Markov but it's better than Beaulieu and Emelin on the top pair. Due to the reality that Emelin overtook Beaulieu on the top pair last season, I agree we will likely see Alzner there at this point.

I'm not blaming you for not acquiring a top 4 defenseman. I'm staying the obvious by including someone who wouldn't conventionally fit in the role since we don't have one. Non matter who we put there, they don't belong there. Alzner is the best candidate but that doesn't help initiate offense for our better lines and then our other pairings are weaker as well. You are the one blaming me for trying to come up with a solution. Do I think Streit is a top pairing guy? I don't. Do I think he belongs in the top 6 over Davidson? I do. Do I think Streit might be scary on a pairing with Petry or Benn? I do. Of course it's not an ideal situation trying to cover someone's deficiencies by placing him on the top pair. That I understand. But if we're going to play the cards we're dealt, I don't think it would be the worst option. If someone can show me, once again, more BALANCED pairings with Streit on the other pairs, I'm all for it. I get that you're high on Schlemko but San Jose exposed more of their defensemen compared to other teams for a reason. I expect decent things out of Schlemko but he is worse offensively than Streit. Defensively and offensively combined, you'd have to give the edge to Schlemko and thus sums up my point of trusting him with Petry or Benn more than I would Streit.

It's nice to know you guys are offering up potential solutions in the meantime. Oh yeah but I forgot that's not your job. I remember last season you said the exact same thing about Markov that you're saying now about Streit soon before he was placed on the top pair and you accepted it. Emelin's 10 points have nothing on Streit when it comes to that dimension of the game. He's more comparable to Beaulieu, who also didn't work out but who didn't have the experience that Streit does. Mark Streit on the top pairing is just as "wonderful" as Schlemko would be. I'm one of those who said our defense needs something else and also one of those who was upset about losing Sergachev since we had no one to replace Markov in the long term. You don't like Streit on the top pairing? That's fine. I don't like Schlemko on the top pair and think Alzner as it stands will be on the top pair. Streit might be the option in my mind for the wrong reasons but I think him being there would give us the most balanced pairings unless Jerabek cracks the lineup.

Out of the players we have on defense? Yes. He can still move the puck in the offensive zone. Had Streit played 82 games last season he would have had 32 points. Instead, he finished with 27 points in 68 games. Jeff Petry played 80 games and finished with 28 points and is a shoe in for our number 3 spot. Why is it so crazy of a thought when Weber would also be the best partner to insulate Streit? I think Streit should be in our top 6 but place him with Petry or Benn and I'm sure we should have some fun in our own end. LAST SEASON Shea Weber: 78 Games - 42 points (.54 ppg) Jeff Petry: 80 Games - 28 points (.35 ppg) Mark Streit: 68 Games - 27 points (.40 ppg) David Schlemko: 62 Games - 18 points (.29 ppg) Jordie Benn: 71 Games - 17 points (.24 ppg) Karl Alzner: 82 Games - 13 points (.16 ppg) Brandon Davidson: 38 Games - 3 points (.08 ppg) Ron Hainsey had 3 points in 16 games with Pittsburgh and Mark Streit had 6 points in 19 games with Pittsburgh. Markov would have been a better option than all of them. With that being said, we can complain about what we don't have or play what we actually do have. I'd like for our first pair to be able to create offense in the offensive done. I see no reason outside of age that Schlemko is any better of an option and good luck with Alzner creating anything in the offensive zone. I wouldn't expect Streit to remain a top pairing defenseman for the long term but I still don't see how he's not the best option at this point, unless all we want our top pair to do is shut the other team down.

I think while the issue is fair to bring up, we have to think that there weren't many more options out there. Markov and Alzner were the best left pairing defensemen available in free agency and even at this point, Markov isn't an ideal top pairing guy for mostly reasons that have little to nothing to do with skill. I still would have signed him for this season, but it's fair to question whether or not he was the real answer either. There are two things that are very clear to me: 1) We don't have the d-corps that anyone envisioned, Bergevin included. 2) The options to solve that issue were thin. Despite my love for Markov, it almost feels like the timing was right in an eerie way. This is outside of the fact that we need some skill on the top pair but if that weren't uniquely true to us, I'm still not sure he's the best solution for a team that wants to compete for the cup. I still would have preferred him over any of our other options without a doubt. I personally think we'll see either Streit or Alzner on the top pair. I think Schlemko should stay on the 3rd. It'll probably be Alzner and Streit on the power play. What I would do: Streit-Weber (hate on) Alzner-Petry Schlemko-Benn What I see happening: Alzner-Weber Schlemko-Petry Streit-Benn

What I've gathered from Schlemko's stats is that if he plays at least 20 games, he will definitely score 1 goal.