The Chicoutimi Cucumber

I guess we’re not in on Ehlers, eh?

No, because the centre market just doesn’t seem to be there anyway. There’s a shortage of top-6 C in the NHL. And as someone or other pointed out, the rising cap + a down draft year meant that most teams want to add NHL talent, not hoard draft picks, as they might have done in past seasons. Everyone thinks they’re “two players away” from their organizational goals (whether those goals be winning the Cup, becoming top-tier contenders, making the playoffs, or being “in the mix”). Besides that: we made the team better overall and now MM becomes a realistic trade chip. So it’s not as simple as “we’ve shot our load and have no more assets to move.”

Yup. As for the topic of this thread, maybe one way to think about Bolduc is that he’s really the Heineman replacement. And as much as I liked Heineman, Bolduc is a bit younger and has shown more offensive punch while also apparently bringing a good all-around game. I always pulled for Mailloux as a human reclamation project. And I’m very pleased the Habs did not fall into their historic organizational trap of just dumping a guy who came with heavy PR baggage, but instead focused on developing him and then made a proper hockey trade for hockey reasons. My guess is that he’ll become an NHL regular, but will he be more than a bottom pairing guy with a boomer? At this juncture, I think HuGo have earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to assessing talent.

Granlund for three years at $7 mill per, to Anaheim. Seems like a good deal to me, mostly because the term is not insane. Oh well.

Thanks. I often rely on Habs EOTP’s depth chart for memory jogs about who slots where…looks like it steered me wrong this time. The lines you sketch look better than I thought, but Armia/Dvorak still seem like significant losses especially on the PK.

Dobson is a huge addition and Bolduc seems like he will be a valuable guy who can grow with the team. Exciting moves. That said, our bottom-end depth at FW seems worse overall given the loss of Heineman, who was excellent, as well as Armia and Dvorak, both of whom were important pieces last season. Our LW depth in particular seems downright terrible, even as our RW is bursting at the seams. Guys are either going to have to play out of position, or we’re gonna see at least one more significant move for a LW, I suspect.

A bit like the Dach trade. Identify a 22-year old FW with upside and ship out a D. Honestly I will be surprised if we don't try him at C.

If he's a legit NHLer then he's better than the Pezz. But I know nothing about him and expect little.

While we do obviously need a C, with MM we have what looks to be a pretty damned elite D corps. There are huge benefits to that. And remember that we made the playoffs with the same hole at C we currently have. I'd be on no hurry to move MM. Wait for the right opportunity; we're not desperate.

Ahahaha yes. I'll be happy to see them signing this liability. No doubt he will be pumped up as "just what the Leafs need" and immediately be a fan favourite. 👍 Only problem, from our POV, is that we had to dress him because our FW depth sucked. Now we've lost Heineman so our depth is even worse. Any team dressing Pezz is simply lacking NHL-quality depth.

Personally I never cared about the "trading in division" problem - as long as the trade makes you stronger. Now whether those either of thise guys are adequate return on MM and a sufficient upgrade at C is another question.

I dunno, I kept hearing positive mentions from commentators about him here in Van. He seems to have a rep that exceeds his achievements. Is that just because he's huge and played on a very strong team? Probably

Frankly, given Dobson's profile, I wouldn't be surprised if he gradually becomes a whipping boy. Habs fans do have a history of crapping on puck-moving D men with occasional defensive slips.

That’s good, thanks. So do you see Hutson at RD going forward with Dobson as ‘second wave?’

I love this: The $9.5 million he took willingly to go to Montreal is not the number he would have settled for to stay on Long Island The kid wants to be here 👍

Seems unlikely to me. Both are puck-movers - probably better to spread that around. On the other hand, one of Vancouver’s few success stories has been the pairing of Hughes-Hronek, so maybe that’ll be the model. But if we keep Guhle on RD (which I’m not crazy about, in principle) then Hutson-Guhle would seem like a more complementary pairing 🤷‍♂️

Yup. Bird in the hand. And when the bird in the hand is a 25 year-old first-pairing RD with a 70-point season on his résumé, it’s a no-brainer IMHO. The difficult part of that trade was not the picks, but rather Heineman, who is an excellent young utility FW. But I still make that trade every day of the week.

It is way premature to say that “this rebuild will get us a Cup.” I’d say that right now, based on the players you list, it’s between HuGo and Gainey - with HuGo having a slight edge due to the Hutson/Dobson combo. IF Demidov becomes what we hope he will be, and Slaf takes a step forward, why then I think HuGo start to pull away easily. There is little doubt that this rebuild is looking good. But I will remind everyone that if you took a time machine back to 2008, you would find a very similar level of excitement on this board and among fans and commentators about Gainey Rebuild 1.0. That being said, this is like that phase of a romantic relationship where you’re beginning to realize that it’s for real. Lots can go wrong still, but it’s damned exciting, and nothing wrong with enjoying it

Yet another benefit of this deal is that it allows us to marinade Mailloux and Reinbacher properly, rather than rush them. It also moves Carrier down to the bottom pairing which is probably his ideal slot. And the job of Mailloux and/or Reinbacher will be to dislodge Carrier. Perfect. That’s the kind of depth you need. We now have a phenomenal configuration at RD, both in terms of the NHL team and in terms of talent in the system.

As much as I love the acquisition of Dobson, losing Heineman does hurt. He was a rock for us and will likely only get better as a versatile, hard-on-the-puck mid-lineup FW. The point about sustaining a pipeline of depth is valid

I would see MM as a tempting trade chip to a contending team...if any of them have surplus C, he's much more desirable than works in progress like Mailloux. Dobson gives us that flexibility since he is an upgrade on MM. I absolutely love this deal. I have a bias toward building from the back end, and I love puck-moving defenseman. Hutson and Dobson give us an elite 1-2 punch on terms of offensive push from the back end, for years and years to come. It means we can rush the puck in waves, a bit like we did when we had Subban and Markov. This is HUGE for the rebuild IMHO.

My hot take as well. Great trade, HuGo!!!

Bah. Brilliant, cap-friendly signing for them. Looks like he blinked.

"Intense interest" needn't imply desperation. All reports have the Habs heavily in on Dobson. Doesn't mean they're going to burn the house down in order to get him.

I have been wondering whether the intense interest in Dobson is a signal they're worried about Reinbacher. I don't think it has to be interpreted that way - DR could be 2-3 years away from making an impact and HuGo want to take the next step. Still, it could be an indication that their faith in Reinbacher as the team's future RD stud has slipped.