The Chicoutimi Cucumber

That's right, my bad. Apparently Ferraro was "The Big Ball of Hate." LOL

I don't like to see anyone injured, but yeah - Dvorak has been a singularly uninspiring player. Good enough for a roster spot, but not especially good at anything as far as I can see. He's basically as bland and generic as they come.

UFAs - well, they can be exciting, but if you go after a top-tier guy it usually means you are taking on a contract that will be horrible on the back end. Personally, I am more excited/interested to see whether the young guns already in the organization can fulfill their potential.

I was listening to discussion here in Van and was quite amused to hear someone tracking whole the trade chain involving Pearson from the Canucks angle. The Canuckleheads did the following: Traded Jared McCann (!), AND a 2nd, and a 4th for Eric Gudbranson and a 5th. They traded Gurdbranson for Pearson. They traded Pearson and a 3rd for DeSmith. So, in effect, the Canucks traded McCann, a 2nd, a 3rd, and a 4th for Casey DeSmith. 🤪😝😝🤣🤣 And we think we have had problems, LOL

Very classy and heartfelt farewell letter. Interesting that his message repeatedly mentions how many doubters he had. A lot of small guys who have success seem to be fueled by that determination to defy the odds. (They called Ray Ferraro the "Little Ball of Hate"). The best of them marshal that resentment and use it to power their careers, as Byron did. Byron was an impossible player to dislike, even if his final three years were one of many examples of a guy "hanging on" long after injuries or (in other cases) age have made him a spare part. He also does seem like the type of guy who will succeed in a development role. Hats off to a solid contributor.

The only youngun in question might be Harvey-Pinard. And even with Pearson, there is room for him. Montreal Canadiens Organizational Depth Chart - Habs Eyes On The Prize

You're right. In that case this is an excellent deal IMHO

Not crazy about losing the third, but given that our LW blows chunks, I think this is reasonable. Pearson had a horrible, injury-riddled season and may be primed for a bounce-back year. If he can recover his form, he will be a desirable asset at the deadline; meanwhile he will provide some size and experience up front and possibly help to bring someone like Slaf along. Good trade for the Canucks, too - they need reliable backup G the help keep Demko's load under control.

It’s almost like a compulsion - he HAS to be an all-controlling bully and can’t function without it. The idea that your boss can just commandeer your private cell phone and see what’s on it, in order to form judgements about what kind of person you are, is such a preposterous abuse of employer power as to be practically antediluvian. Good riddance to that POS.

Is there third scenario with Mailloux - i.e., Sheldon Souray, a #5 D-man who morphs into a #1 on the PP because of his booming shot? I dunno, I got the impression that that was one possibility when I read scouting reports, but I haven’t seen him play, so I may be way off.

Disappointing to hear that Mailloux struggled so much. He has indeed lost a LOT of development time and I was wondering about the likely impact of that. I had some hopes for him in pure hockey terms (never mind the other stuff) but it sounds as though we should be thinking about him as a much longer-term project than a high-pedigree kid his age might normally be.

I think my response to this post would depend on whether or not you were among those calling for a Tank Job for all those years. I honestly don’t remember. If you’ve been calling for/demanding a tank and rebuild, then this attitude is exactly what bugs me about some tankologists. They want a rebuild, then complain when a team goes through three or four years of being terrible. On the other hand, if you were never an energetic proponent of tanking, then your attitude is at least consistent. That said, the Sens are festering scumbags that no Habs fan should cheer for, so there’s that.

Right. But that's bad management. I won't accept a rationale from HuGo along the lines of "our AHL systems sucks, so we have to develop guys in the NHL." It's THEIR FAULT if the AHL system sucks, just as it was 100% Bergevin's fault for refusing to fire his completely incompetent chum Lefebvre. AHL incompetence is not a reason to risk players' development by throwing them into the NHL too soon. It is a reason to fix the AHL incompetence.

Well, I don’t know of any player whose development was compromised by spending time in the AHL. I suppose this could be the case if you have a really terrible coaching staff at that level; but if that’s so, then why keep that staff in place? By contrast, bringing players up too soon is a higher-risk development strategy that can indeed go awry. Even the great Carey Price, who at least had one extended playoff in the A, barely survived that treatment. That being said, I’m not saying Slaf won’t overcome it and thrive. But last season he was clearly not NHL ready and that’s one reason he got hurt. 🤷‍♂️ Clearly it was not the right approach in terms of last season, anyway. Something was mishandled regarding injuries last season, that’s for sure. They’ve made changes to the training staff. Whether those guys were scapegoats for what was really a management/coaching attitude will never be known.

Let's hope. They committed to not developing him properly IMHO, but that doesn't mean he won't get on the learning curve and ultimately succeed. For the sake of the rebuild, he has to. Fingers crossed.

I hope so. I'm pretty sick of this endless, pathetic Coyotes drama

Pittsburgh is in classic “contender” mode. In fact, they are a special subset of that mode, which we might call the “desperate contender looking at a rapidly-closing window.” I don’t think they give a tinker’s damn about asset management. Karlsson is a 101-point defenceman (!!!) and I think that’s the only thing they care about in this entire file. What would worry me if I were a Pens fan is that that season was a crazy, ridiculous outlier for Karlsson, who failed to top 45 points in any of the preceding four, injury-plagued seasons. It’s far from clear that Karlsson is really a better overall piece than Matheson. So Pittsburgh threw away a very fine, late-blooming #2-3 puck-moving D-man as part of this desperate quest for Stud D-Men (Petry, Eriksson). But again, from their POV, it’s all about the latter’s 101 points. They’re gambling that he is back. It’s a huge and somewhat desperate gamble from a team that has no tomorrow.

Yes. That’s the whole reason why you have marginal plugs like Pezzetta - to keep the benches warm until they can be replaced the (hopefully) superior talent developing properly in the minors.

You’re quite right that it would be a rarity. What I hear about Hutson, though, suggests that he just might have the off-the-chart skills needed to pull off the trick. You can imagine him paired with a big, intelligent RD like Reinbacher and watching the sparks fly. Who knows. Also, we have a coach who understands better than anyone else what it takes to become a ‘star’ while profoundly undersized. That won’t hurt either.

Same height as the fabulous Quinn Hughes, isn’t he? Hughes is a #1 if ever there was.

The drat video really pumped his tires - he had passionate advocates in management who clearly see him as a potential NHL #1. We shall see.

Interesting. And fun to see guys like Serge Boisvert (!) back in action, LOL. Gorton’s enigmatic comment that “this room doesn’t want to take a chance” seems to refer to Michkov. The management group consciously decided against the super-high-ceiling, high-risk pick. Gorton seems like an easy-going presence…Hughes more of a tight-lipped, tightly-wound observer type. The other peculiar bit is that they seemed to sincerely believe Xhekaj was at risk of being claimed higher than they took him. Considering the unanimous commentary on draft day that he was likely to go much lower than he did, that’s interesting. I wonder if the Habs scouted him more thoroughly because of his brother, and consequently had deeper insight into his merits?

Good post, thanks. You know me, I'm always cautious about youngsters who haven't actually proven anything. Nevertheless, as I've stated repeatedly, I'm cautiously optimistic about Dach. And if he 'breaks out' as a 'dominant force' in terms of possession, that will be FANTASTIC.

Actually, I don't think it's hyperbole to say that a guy who fails to crack an NHL roster is a garbage player at the NHL level. *Shrug* This management group has shown a penchant for making slightly off-the-board draft choices. It's too soon to tell whether they're just outsmarting themselves, or if they do indeed have an unusually canny level of insight.

I don't see anything inevitable about Dach. I mean, I incline toward optimism in his case, but I think the Eller comparable is nevertheless plausible. We've had lots of players go through limited stretches where they looked poised to become impact offensive producers. Eller went on runs for a few weeks where he did indeed look like the 2nd-line C we hoped he'd become. (He was on one of those runs when he got crushed in the Ottawa playoff). It turns out those runs were an illusion. Richard Zednik seemed to be blossoming into a 1st-line W when he got injured and never got back to that place. His hot spells were smoke and mirrors. Galy had that 30-goal year. Even KK would go on these streaks where we would get excited and people would be talking about how his growth into a stud C was inevitable. Bulis. Danius Zubrus. Hell, I remember Russ Courtnall putting together a stellar season for us and everyone thinking we could now book him as an all-star FW going forward. Turns out that was just a freak, peak year. Often, in fact, injuries are the line of demarcation that end a player's hot spell, and he never really gets back to pre-injury form. It's not that the player is damaged goods. It's that the injury knocks him off the perch he was on and he can't quite get back up there consistently, because it was an unsustainable run to begin with. Is this Dach? I don't think so, and I hope not. But it could well be. There are few inevitabilities with young players and prospects.