The Chicoutimi Cucumber

Heating up as the trade deadline gets closer 👍 God love Josh Anderson, working over that Bruin, LOL. Struble has been an irritant tonight as well.

Nothing like the most up to date, expert analysis on Canada's national hockey broadcast 🙄

If he can do that he should get his jersey retired

Maybe he ate too many of those donuts they were babbling about? It's nice to hear them saying good things about the Habs, but they appeared not to know the game's actual score. Just bizarre stuff

Hmmm...not Harris's finest moment - LOL

They conveniently forgot that they deliberately slashed and broke 50-goal scorer Richer's hand that playoff.

Bruins cackling about beating the Habs in 1988 🤪

💯

He's 30 and really only became an NHL regular at 29...AND his current strong season is a pretty huge statistical outlier. I dunno, hard to feel that he was "one that got away;" how long are we supposed to keep guys in the system? 🤷‍♂️

Aahahahahahaahha great throwback. This is why I am usually quite skeptical about prospects, until I actually see them deliver. One of the things that's happening is that several of our prospects do, in fact, seem to be delivering at the NHL level, which is more than most of the turds in that post ever did.

I assume you're talking about the Sens 😉 And yes, I entirely agree

Funny thing about OT wins and losses. The 2021 team had a ton of OT losses and people routinely use that distorted regular season record to denigrate that team, as proof they weren’t “real” contenders in the playoffs (even though 3 on 3 and SO have no connection to the playoffs whatsoever). Now the team has a ton of OT wins and that is proof the team is not a “real” almost-bubble team. Let’s make up our minds. Does OT count or not? But in the big picture, yeah, I’ll echo Commandant: we do indeed have a #1 G (yaaaaay Monty!) and it looks like we have a legit #1 line, for the first time in decades, really. (Suzuki’s hitting another level is massive and I intend to savour every moment of his emergence as a true #1C, along with Slaf’s continued development and CC’s possible restoration as an elite scoring threat). We have a bunch of quality D that are developing successfully on the MSL Accelerator Plan. However, we have no #1 D-man as yet and it is WAAAY too soon to say we have anything resembling a second line. Dach looked great but seems to be made of balsa wood, and Newhook, while he was on a hot spell when he got hurt, is anything but proven. When you find yourself saying things like “if X, Y and Z happen, we’ll be a playoff team!!” - then you’re probably not a playoff team. Don’t get me wrong, a second line would indeed make us a playoff team. But it’s not clear that we actually have one waiting in IR. If (which I doubt) both Newhook and Dach emerge next year as legit and dependable 2nd-line stalwarts, we’d still need at least one of our defencemen to emerge as a bona-fide stud in order to start doing serious damage. Guhle has shown flashes but no more than that. Right now we have a #2-3 d-man (Mattheson) and a bunch of #4-5s, really, on a good team. A work in progress. But the signs are that very promising that this organization knows how to develop talent. Cautious optimism is warranted.

I couldn’t watch this one but it looks like the #1 line had yet another monster game. 👍👍 LOVIN’ IT! Nice to see Roy pot one, too. Good for the kid.

Apologies for missing (or forgetting) that, Brian. Head in the clouds, as per usual…

Hmmm. It seems to me that if Reinbacher develops into a #2-3 defenceman, that will feel disappointing, but it would only be a proven wrong choice if the players drafted in the immediate vicinity after him go on to become impact players in their own right. Right? If none of those guys become more than second-liners, for example, then I'll be happy with a #2-3 d-man. We can't just assume that other teams' picks will max out their potential and that ours won't.

Fair point. It helped the Habs’ cause that the Avs’ goalie was not exactly Tretiak. (Not that he was horrible, just that he wasn’t particularly great). Suzuki is evolving into just a tremendous hockey player. Definitely hitting another level in terms of his overall ability to control play. Having Slaf on his line really helps as well; Slick Nick clearly regards him as another option to pass to beyond CC, and it’s helping to make Suzuki even harder to manage for opposing D. I noticed a couple of games ago, just based on eye test, that Caufield’s shot seems to be recovering its zip. If he can get back to his 40-goal self, that line will single-handedly make the Habs watching down the stretch.

Dreger has reported that a condition of Monahan’s signing his contract was the promise that we’d trade him to a contender at the deadline. I’m surprised this hasn’t been bandied about on this site, so I’m throwing it on here. Such a trade would not rule out re-signing him as a UFA, of course, but usually once guys leave, they stay gone. This report, if true, definitely clarifies that Monahan has no special fondness for Montreal and will not take a “hometown discount” to stay here, as a few fans have (implausibly) hoped.

Hahaha, too true, mon ami. Armia is playing well, however - defensively and on the PK. He’d be a useful deadline acquisition for some contender if his salary were not so absurd. I watched that game via PVR and was really struck by how excellent our #1 line was. Frankly, it was as good as the MacKinnon line - and may evolve into one of the NHL’s dominant lines if CC can find his scoring groove. The way I saw this game was that the Avs completely, laughably dominated us almost every time the #1 trio was not out there. Nonetheless, we eked out an improbable win, which is always nice.

Like I say above - the PK was stellar last night, and Armia was a big part of it. Whatever we think of the wider question of MSL's usage of Ylonen vs Armia, he clearly made the right decision in his use of Armia last night.

Ylonen is the only one I can think of. I have a feeling that Ylonen may turn out to be a bit like Jordan Weal - a guy whose skating deceives us into thinking that he has untapped offensive potential. Unlike Weal, he can play a sound two-way game, which is why he has a chance to have a viable NHL career. But the guy has three goals and four assists in 35 games despite taking a regular shift...that doesn't exactly scream "offensive gifts." 🤷‍♀️ And as frustrating as Anderson has been this season, he has both established top-9 pedigree and a track record of making an impact in numerous ways beyond the scoresheet.

It’ll give Roy a chance to show what he can do. Still, I really don’t see Anderson as “keeping down” promising FWs who would flourish if only given the chance. 🤷‍♂️ This team has a dearth of talent up front.

The thing with Drouin is, if you’re depressive and have mental health issues and can’t stand high pressure situations, then don’t ratchet up the pressure by publicly demanding to be traded because your team sent you temporarily to the minors. Anyway, he’s out of our hair now. I don’t know what the heck PLD’s problem is either. He is obviously capable of being a big, strong, 65-70 point C. Maturity seems to be an issue; offhand I can’t think of another player under 25 who put two teams in the situation where they had to trade him because he wanted out. Nevertheless…I have a feeling, though, that in a couple of years we’ll be hearing about how important he is to LA, that he’s “matured” and “grown comfortable” with where he is, he’s playing a great game, blah blah blah. The guy we’re seeing on the ice right now is NOT the guy he has been in his young career. In other words, IF I’m a GM (like Hughes) who has carefully scouted PLD and IF there are no rumours about substance abuse or other such issues, I might be sniffing around to see if he can be acquired on the cheap, with salary going back. 🤷‍♂️ But I’d only be doing it out of concern that injury-prone Dach may not work out.

Funny, it does seem like CC has been around longer…maybe because of the playoff run of ‘21.

Armia is where offence goes to die, but he was damned strong on the PK all night. Given how critical penalty killing was in this game, we probably shouldn’t give that short shrift.

Terrific third period. Just fantastic. I thought Gally’s penalty was borderline and would often not be called at that stage of the game. The Mattheson thing was just bad luck. Evans played what might be the snarkiest game I’ve seen from him. I like “pissed off Evans.” Let’s see more of that. Monahan seemed to be hell bent on replacing Josh Anderson as the Veteran Who Misses Great Scoring Chances. Kovacevic had a tough night IMHO. He looked like he’s lacking confidence, to be honest. As for Monty, what can you say? You can quibble with two or three of his rebounds, but as far as I’m concerned he has played like a legit #1G all season and radiates that confidence outward to his team and opponents. He’s a gem. On the whole, the Habs played a really lively, chippy game with a lot of determined defending, great sticks (as announcer guy kept pointing out) and physicality. This team continues to get “up” for big opponents and to play with them. If only they could bottle that for the other 70 games of the season.