The Chicoutimi Cucumber

Oh yeah, Montembault…another guy who is not a ‘true #1’ according to some of these authorities 🙄

I didn’t see this one, but the highlights suggest some middling goaltending by the Yeti and a D that was oddly prone to being split by smooth-skating Habs. Re: the Evans line, I would not be surprised at all if Heineman has been a secret weapon helping to elevate it. He has been very, very solid for a rookie. They’ll miss him. Hutson: these Great and the Good soi-disant “experts” who claim that he is “questionable in his own end” and try to find things that are wrong with his game, are simply full of crap. The FACT is that this kid does things hardly any one else in the league can do, and does them several times per game; and he rarely gets owned in the D-zone. All this beard-stroking and tongue-clucking reminds me a bit of the garbage around Subban when he first came up, minus the subliminal racism, but Hutson is 10X more imaginative and creative than Subban was (albeit less physical). I’ll say this: if Hutson were a Toronto Maple Leaf, he is all our so-called national hockey media would be talking about. The kid is a frigging all-star and will be a must-watch player in this league for years to come. The Toronto media need to move from denial to acceptance. (Also, thank God we have MSL as coach instead of a dinosaur like Therrien or a dummy like Ducharme. He’d probably still be slotted as a #7 d-man if those imbeciles were in charge).

Hahahahaha, I thought of that even as I hit "submit reply"

That is crazy. I’d rather we didn’t feed it into the “Habs are always injured” narrative, though. Heineman is a great player but not a core guy, and while this injury is a truly bizarre bit of bad luck, it’s not unusual for a team to lose a role player for a while. The main thing is that, Laine aside, all of our best players are currently on a nice run of good health.

It won’t hurt

Monty should be in Tier 3, but is being punished IMHO because he hasn't had a chance to show any playoff form. And in a way, that's fair. But I would say that if come the playoffs, he delivers equivalent performances to what he has consistently done in the regular season for the past three years, then he should be a Tier 3 - without question.

The first two periods were crazy entertaining. Even though we ‘lost’ - hard to take SO seriously one way or another - there’s a ton to like about this team. They’re fun, dynamic, and believe in each other. Like the ‘08 and 2014 teams, they’re a bunch of kids discovering how good they can be. Evans is reverting back to being Jake Evans - not a bad thing, but it does mean that he failed to capitalize a few times tonight. Laine seemed slow, but that hit was absolutely bone-crushing and ho hum, another insane one-time PP goal. Really strong effort against an elite opponent under onerous circumstances 👍

xXx is the all-time GDT champ! Pezzetta sucks and always did. I've always said, he's the kind of guy that fans of bad teams love, but who gets crowded out once a team gets good. This is exactly what we're seeing. Struble, I'd give another chance to. He has a body of work that shows he can be a useful, intelligent bottom-pairing D-man. I foresee Pezzetta ending up on the scrap heap, but Struble is a project worth working on. Of course, that doesn't mean he should dress tonight - but good as we've been playing, we really don't have much NHL-calibre depth on D with Savard out. Unless we want to call up Mailloux, it seems to be Struble or bust.

I don’t think there’s any doubt about it. He’s not just any old #1, either. He’s a budding all-star defenceman in the Hughes/Makar mould. Best Habs rookie I’ve seen since Carey Price, and probably the best non-goalie rookie I have ever seen on the Habs - and I’m no spring chicken. The kid is, or will be, elite, and we should savour every shift that he works his magic. How many times have I bemoaned playing kids on the wrong side? I get that sometimes it’s a necessity due to a lack of options, but it’s still a terrible developmental strategy. The amusing thing about Guhle is that he seems to have a ‘snark switch.’ Most of the time he goes along doing his thing. But sometimes, it’s like he gets pissed off and decides he’s had enough. This can lead to stupid penalties, but it can also lead to him laying surprisingly big hits on guys.

HOLY SH*T HUTSON SUZUKI CAUFIELD = GOOOOAAAAAALLLL

Strong road game from the Habs. Slaf’s second period was weirdly great; the other two were not at that level. Suze had some prime shots, but seemed oddly confused in the second half of the third. Carrier quietly impresses game after game. Boy did we need what he brings. Dobes has been solid.

My sense is that teams tend to wait too long, while, by contrast, a lot of fans tend to argue for a tank job any time their team is not deemed a ‘true’ contender. Fair enough. What I’ve heard more than once is how solid their D is. 🤷‍♂️ We shall see

Kind of amazing how the Caps refashioned themselves from a team on the downslide, to outright contenders, pretty much overnight. There might be a lesson here in not 'jumping to tank' too soon. (Although, to be fair, most teams take too long to flip that switch, as opposed to doing it too readily).

My guess is Dach + Mattheson would get it done. Whether we want to get it done is another question. Valid concerns. He's performed well below his ticket for a while now. One question is how much Miller's bullying (?) is affecting his play. But the fact is, you have to be resilient if you're going to flourish in a Canadian market. It's his cap hit, above all, that scares me.

I loved the fact that the “Hughes vs Hutson” show was won so decisively by Hutson 😃 I mean, sure Hughes was playing hurt, but this was an attention-getting game by our fabulous rookie. We have the #1 D-man for our rebuild.