xXx..CK..xXx

Anyone who wants Price gone for any reason is in denial, or not a true fan. And that includes the best reason there is which is the cap space.

I don't think it is when one of those contracts came at the cost of teenage year old Sergachev but it's just a personal opinion of mine. I guess I wish the worst for him at this point so I can be wrong. Either way, I look forward to seeing Drouin on the Habs. I agree that it's very possible and even likely that one side is right about Bergevin, one way or the other. As much as I've gotten over some of the things I was upset about a few years ago, I've had my doubts about some moves of his for years now. With that being said, I was refering to exactly what you pointed out you aren't. There are those who on both sides seem to never agree with the other side. In addition, unlike you with Shaw, the example would be that most things that Bergevin haters, for instance, do agree with, would be the obvious things like Pacioretty's contract, Price signing, etc. Those signings are met with mediocre approval whereas anything that is moderately debatable is automatically assumed to be exuberantly wrong. Those fans seem to want the forest burned without even searching if there is anything of value within its boundaries. It is in that sense that neither side is right in my opinion. Each tree should be looked at with an open mind and given a chance to thrive. Some people do that, some people don't. When the forest does grow, it might look different than anyone imagined.

We traded Sergachev for Drouin. Not to mention we did that before losing Radulov to free agency when by all accounts he was expected to resign with us due to what was said to be a solid offer. Those who compare Radulov to Drouin should ask themselves whether or not they'd prefer to have Radulov and Sergachev or Drouin? Or how about Radulov and Drouin or Drouin? Even if I add Alzner's name next to Drouin in the first example, it's still not that pretty. Next season, Sergachev would not have had an expensive contract and there's a possibility we could have offered slightly more to Radulov and encouraged him to stay. In the end, I'm not blind to the fact that we may have lost Radulov anyway but the point remains the same in that we lost one player for nothing and traded away a key asset to acquire the "better replacement". In addition, Sergachev was to potentially be Markov's replacement of the future and even present. We have still yet to resign Markov and as a result lost Markov's replacement and still don't have Markov on the roster either. We can be patient and see how things play out, and I've always been of the belief that the "playing out" of this will involve resigning Markov but as things stand, we've got marginally better at offense and marginally worse at defense if I'm being generous. Those who don't see that seem to be the ones with the blinders on. +Shlemko, Alzner, Morrow? -Sergachev, Markov*, Emelin There seems to be a bit of an argument going on here that I'm not really a part of. Those who are defending seem to be mainly defending Bergevin, with a mixed bag of heavy duty Drouin fanatics sprinkled in saying "wait until he shows you". Those who are complaining about this off season, many of them seem to be those who haven't been happy with Bergevin for quite some time and so they're looking for anything to jump on. We each have our own opinions but I don't feel as though it always needs to be about Bergevin specifically. My opinion has nothing to do with him, but the team in general and I think we could have addressed our needs at center and LHD a little differently this off season rather than trade away our best prospect who could have filled the void himself. We also then loaded up at wing when there are still question marks at center. We do have plenty of capable centers on the roster but we also don't have any without question marks. Danault: Is he really a top 6 center? Plekanec: Will he be able to rebound? It's more possible than people think if he works hard this off season. Galchenyuk: Can he be trusted enough by the coaches as a well rounded 200 foot player? Does this even matter? Drouin: Was he brought here to even be a center? Is he better at wing or center? Shaw, Mitchell, DeLaRose: Top 6 centers? No Our off season had some good moves and probably some that are being completely overlooked. Will Jerabek bring the goodness? Can Hemsky stay healthy and produce? Is Schlemko better than expected? Can Drouin be our Sidney Crosby? (I have high expectations as well) There are some positive possibilities out there but from what I've seen of the debate, you have those who seem to support no matter what on one side and those who to seem to be down in the dumps even when the Habs are playing hockey in May or Nashville has been eliminated. As a result, the specific arguments can lose their value.

The average save percentage of a backup goalie to be expected is said to be around .910 from what I've read. Also, after about a half hour of calculations, backup goalies won 47.18% (377 wins out of 799 games) of their games last season. Albeit, some of them were 3rd string quality. I'm not debating the aura Price has when he's at his best, but the numbers provided don't show anything abnormal going on when it comes to the results our team has in front of our backups.

That took me a lot longer to understand than it should have. Funny indeed. As for the topic being discussed, I've literally always been a Habs optimist but when we were discussing the loss of Radulov, many people argued that Drouin was better than him, so the loss of Radulov would feel less meaningful. One could have argued that the loss of Radulov due to injury (last season) would have been huge as well but when we acquired Drouin, the initial reaction was that we had added yet another piece to our offensive unit. When we lost Radulov, it was only then that people seemed to point out that Drouin's ceiling is astronomical and that he could improve our offensive unit single-handedly even with the loss of Radulov. It is in that sense that it makes sense to worry about the "what if" he gets injured. Pacioretty is proven but outside of Galchenyuk, Lehkonen and Gallagher's potential there's not much outside of Drouin and we are weak at center. I think even those who are "rational" about the team would like to see us in that inner circle of top tier contenders since we hover every year. That list of teams includes Pittsburgh, who should be the current model of success, and they were able to win the cup without a significant piece in Letang. In addition, they could have won had either of their goalies gone down as well.

Just a bad joke It was mentioned that Gallagher is our spark plug and for one reason or another Steve Begin came to my mind as someone who did that job quite well for us. The league's changing though and I'm not sure if he'd get as much of a look anymore.

Gallagher for RNH and Steve Begin I miss his spark plug ways. Not sure if I just insulted or praised Gallagher with that offer.

Now that I've read the article, I've re-read what you wrote. I don't know why Jagr even hired his agent Petr Svoboda if he's the one making personal calls to GMs. I can see there being some truth to it but the truth is most likely being twisted.

That really sounds allegedly. PS: Let's sign Jagr

Nothing wrong with getting a winger. We have a lot of potential centers as well. Galchenyuk Drouin Danault Plekanec Shaw De La Rose Mitchell Vanek is probably the best available player left and did quite well last season. If you sign him, just move Galchenyuk or Drouin to center. I think Vanek would help out.

I'm going to sit on my own island and state that I think Nugent-Hopkins would be a more than capable 1st line center. Then again, I wholeheartedly believe Drouin and Galchenyuk could be as well. I had RNH in the HabsWorld fantasy league a few years ago and he was capable of getting multiple point games frequently. I wouldn't ask more from my top line center. He wasn't as good in recent seasons but I have a hard time imagining he wouldn't be able to rack up the points alongside Pacioretty. They could be a really good duo in my opinion. I wasn't advocating for this but I've always been fine with the Duchene and RNH suggestions. We truly may already have the answer within our roster though, it's just a matter of whether or not Galchenyuk and Drouin are capable, as well as whether or not the coaches would use them up the middle. I do believe, regardless of position, it would be nice to acquire another top 6 player. The position wouldn't matter if Drouin and Galchenyuk are capable centers. Once we slot them there though, one of our wings becomes a little weak. At this point if someone were to think out of the box and suggest say Danault to play wing, he'd still slot in best in the top 2 lines so it would almost defeat the purpose. No matter what our forward configuration will be, there's something a little off right now.

It's a nice looking lineup but if people are arguing that we don't have any prospects in the cupboard, just look at that trade.

I can't lie though, I wish it wasn't an issue. There's no right way of going about this in his position but he's also got to speak up if he does indeed have a preferred position on the ice. For his own good, I wish he would. In most circumstances you might not want to stir the pot by saying you want to play "here" as opposed to "there" because then if the coach doesn't play them there, it places everyone in an awkward position. At this point, I think it might be best for everyone if he announces what he prefers to play. I'm fine with it being in private with the coaches but I just get the sense he hasn't been honest with them either. He needs to eventually grow up and take the bull by the horn, for his own good. Easier said than done when you're the one in his position, of course.

All I can say is that both teams did better last season than the season before. We can say Carey Price was back but that ignores all other factors and oversimplifies things. I'll be generous with these timeframes and say that half the year, people thought the Habs clearly won the trade and half the year people thought Nashville won the trade. It'll never end. Subban could have been treated better by the coaching staff on the Habs but Nashville had the luxury of using Subban the way they did because they had 3 other relatively elite and offensively gifted defensemen. I don't think Subban could have been a purely shutdown defenseman on the Habs even if we wanted him to be. It's also likely that the trade made him introspect and realize he had do to some things better (differently), along with Laviolette aiding him through the process. I'm sorry, but people were complaining that we lost the most electrifying player since Guy Lafleur and now it's being argued that the trade was stupid because he's turned into a shut down defenseman and proven he was capable. IF he were to have been turned into that on the Habs, people would have crucified our coach for trying to change him. It's a lose-lose however you look at it for some.

Hemsky is probably going to disappoint you on the second line and I have Czech heritage and want to like him. I also think there is something to the nationality thing and that it would be fine to see Plekanec-Hemsky as a duo next season on the 3rd line. Either way, I do believe our second and third lines will be somewhat interchangeable in how we label them next year.

Or you could trade Danault as well Funny how his name never comes up in trade talks for a nice return when he was played higher than Galchenyuk in the lineup last season. Is our team overvaluing him as a player or does he actually have value throughout the league? I get the impression that he doesn't have much value throughout the league. At least not enough to replace what he brings to our squad specifically.

Toews, Tarasenko and Malkin all still scored goals if not multiple goals in their respective series' against the Preds and hockey is a team sport. Getzlaf is a playmaker and got a handful of assists against Nashville.

I'm not in the mood to debate it either but it's impossible for both parties to see eye to eye on the topic. Intentional or not, your point provides a perspective that Subban helped the Predators make the cup final when they wouldn't have been able to otherwise. If that's not the point, then I don't know why it's being brought up. The other side sees that Subban was on the team but there were other factors in their cup run and he didn't carry them on his back to the final. None of that erases the fact that the trade could have been beneficial to both teams.

Weber was really good for us in the playoffs. If he can be like that for us in general, I look forward to a lot of long runs with him on our team.

I predicted 5-5.25 mil a few weeks ago but the term was longer. I still expected him to sign for around 5.5-6 mil though based on everything that was said about him and his arbitration powers so it is a nice price. It really is a mixed bag because I agree that 4.9 is great value right now but it's easy to envision him really having a great year within the next 3 years and getting paid for it at the end of the contract. Drouin's contract will look nice comparatively at that point in time. It also is true that it looks like they signed him to an enticing contract when it comes to increasing his trade value so there's always going to be some pressure and uncertainty surrounding the kid.

The 4 names that have been coming up in my own mind are Jagr, Vanek, Markov & Brian Campbell. I expect to hear everyone tell me how Brian Campbell is washed up but he seemed to always be 1) A Left Handed Shot 2) Mobile and 3) A good puck distributor.

People with huge egos can be good at their jobs. It's the same reason many narcissists end up in high positions... even presidents. It can also make them blind to their mistakes but I'm just saying even if he does have an ego, there's a chance that it doesn't mean a thing.

I'm happy we signed him period. I can see the worry about his future but we have him next season and that's a good thing for us. I don't like being hard on our squad but this is the best I've felt about any news this off season.

Pacioretty-Galchenyuk-Gallagher Byron-Danault-Drouin Lehkonen-Plekanec-Hemsky Martinsen-DeLaRose-Shaw Mitchell, Hudon Markov-Weber Alzner-Petry Schlemko-Benn Jerabek Price Montoya Probably what I would go with on opening night with the current lineup and Markov. Everyone forgets poor little 20 goal scorer Byron.

We saw last season that Julien likes playing Plekanec in the top 6. It wouldn't surprise me. The only thing is that Plekanec in the top 6 still had him behind Danault. I've got to give him credit when it comes to being able to adapt to the present but I really think Julien values Plekanec a lot based on the past.