The Chicoutimi Cucumber

I know Engstrom is a RD but still, if I’m Arber, I see this call-up as ominous. I think the whole organization likes Arber, the guy, but they don’t like or trust Arber, the hockey player.

Which will give out first? The Habs' win streak or GHT120's ability to find clever metaphors for the Habs and their opponents? 🤔😄

Easily one of the best decisions of HuGo's tenure. I've never quite understood Torts' magical hold on NHL GMs, but this may be a calculated move to score a short-term sugar high leading into the playoffs before this veteran team gets sick of his shtick, which I expect to happen after a few months.

This has been a very impressive run of games for the Habs. They're increasingly carrying themselves like a league power. All season long we've been wondering what this team could do if only it got quality goaltending. Now we're seeing it.

I've said this before...the value of having a "policeman" is not deterrence. It's the morale boost that occurs when you see a guy get pummeled because the other team took liberties. That's not an insignificant consideration, though. There's a deflating psychological effect that comes from your opponent take liberties without consequence. It's a little bit like the rule players have against guys walking on the team crest on the dressing room floor...a silly rule in many ways, but the point of that is not to allow any hint that the team can be disrespected, because allowing that in lead to a weaker, more demoralized, less unified team. Actually seeing players wearing the crest get manhandled internalizes a lack of pride; tolerating such micro-defeats leads easily to actual defeat. I suspect you can get much of the same morale boost from the pack mentality whereby random guys stick up for each other even if they don't drop the mitts (which is the team culture we seem to have at present, and why Hutson gets himself into the mix). When we see the whole team immediately swarm after an opponent takes liberties, that's what we want. Still, it's tempting to carve out exceptions - 'Lane, we don't want you doing that...hmmm, Nick and Cole, not you either,' etc. At which point you're into a division of labour that naturally invites the policeman to have a role. But how often do guys really get hurt in those kinds of scrums? I can't think of too many cases. Now if Hutson drops the mitts, I will drop dead of a heart attack, agreed. Steve Shutt used to say the best deterrence to thuggishness was to have a punishing PP. I agree with that too.

Habs really took care of business last night. Just the stronger team all across the board. NSH had no answer for our elite talent. Caufield. The guy is a machine. Demidov had the intermission team in awe, and he was indeed spectacular. Fowler was no-nonsense, stable, steady. Suzuki was his masterful self all night. With goaltending increasingly looking solidified, boy, this team is going to be tough to beat. Two things will be needed, though. One, they have to stay healthy, like any team. Two, they have to not allow successful accomplishment of personal and team regular season goals to make them too satisfied when the playoffs come. If Caufield scores #50 in a game at the Bell Centre, the place will go absolutely, cataclysmically insane.

Don't overthink these things. Put the better guy in for the game that is apt to be tougher.

I wonder how much of that differential can be chalked up to goaltending. I'm adamant on this point. When #31 is retired to the rafters, it will be fully deserved.

The world is indeed a friendlier place when you feel that this glaring weakness has finally fixed itself.

The dyad of franchises I want to see die excruciating deaths: 1. Toronto 2. Ottawa Followed by a franchise that I don't wish death upon, but would like to see go 0-400 against the Habs: 3. Boston. In short, I wish nothing but hot death upon the Sens

The Ted Lindsay Trophy is meant to go to the "most outstanding player." The Hart Trophy therefore should reflect something else. Celebrini probably is the "most valuable" player to his team in objective terms but there's no way he is the league's "most outstanding" player. Indeed, a league that made sense, McDavid would be winning the Lindsay year after year (with occasional blips for Kucherov etc.), while the Hart would probably vary considerably depending on variations in team construction etc. For instance, if San Jose goes out and adds three all-star pieces this summer, Celebrini's relative importance to team success will diminish somewhat and someone else might win it. Maybe the real problem is that the Hart Trophy for some reason has more prestige than the Lindsay. It should be the other way around when you think about it.

TB has always been a bad matchup for us. Now much of that is that they’re just a better team, or have been, but there’s also that deeper element to it where they’ve owned our souls. They were a horrible draw for us in the 2021 Finals. Now this is a new team, not that old group, but I still worry about that lingering effect. Buffalo would be an exhilarating series, two exciting young teams flying out there.

Probably to Edmonton 😄 It’s about time our G start stealing some games here and there. We probably have among the fewest ‘games stolen by goalies’ (if there is such a stat) among playoff teams this season. Marciano appears to have made a big difference. Dobes seems like a unique character - a classic eccentric G. If he can keep solidify himself as a quality NHL G, that provides a nice cushion for Fowler to develop without having to come in here and instantly be Carey Price. We could ultimately be looking at more of a Dryden-Laraque tandem than a Price-Tokarski scenario.

If these results accurately reflect league thinking, I'd be shocked - usually a player of Hutson's profile has to stick around for 3-4 years before they shed the rep for being 'soft defensively,' 'not always reliable,' 'not a 200-ft player,' etc. It doesn't matter how good they are - they just have to 'pay their dues' before everyone officially recognizes what anyone with eyes could have seen all along.

Die, Senators, die. Preferably in as excruciating a way as possible

I suspect the closest would be Saku Koivu in 1997 (top-5 in scoring as of 50 games, then blew out his knee). Our contracts are indeed amazing. The Hutson one in particular still boggles my mind, and will probably become THE best value in all of hockey, if it isn't already. Not winning the Cup with Draiaitl and McDavid probably counts as one of the biggest team-building failures in NHL history. Not one, but two franchise C and you still don't make it. The Oil will fully deserve the years of misery that will ensue after McD leaves. Which he surely will.

Like everyone else, I’m nervous about the standings. Watching the highlights, it is obvious our big boys came to play (while our Dynamic Duo (#13/14) rightly get the lion’s share of praise, I loved seeing Slaf pounding in some goals. His shot seems to be getting more dangerous as he keeps maturing. Agree on squeezing in Laine. But I doubt there will be too many changes after this massive win. It’ll probably take injuries, God forbid, to get Laine in, as MSL clearly does not believe in him. And considering that MSL is as progressive a coach as you’ll find anywhere, not some old school, hidebound plodder like so many of his predecessors, we probably owe him due deference on that. Zegras was traded for Poehling - who has become a very valuable player for the Ducks - along with two picks, so I think we should be careful about assuming he was there to be had for some vague ‘prospect + pick.’ Conversely, I agree that Danault is washed up and that we might have been wiser to wait for some other option to open up. (On the other hand, Danault is probably an upgrade on Cardio Joe, so if we look at it that way, it’s not a disaster, just an overpay).

I went to a PHWL game and missed this, LOL. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED??? 😃

That third jersey with the white backing and blue stripe (1940s jersey) would take the palm for sure: I've never quite understood why we didn't just run with it after we brought it back in 2009 (?) to rave reviews. Obviously the red CH is a uniform for the ages, but for pure aesthetics, I would give the prize to the uni Detroit wore last night. Blackhawks - red or white - in third. Anyway, back to our regularly-scheduled grumbling, LOL.

Well, he's currently on a 55-point pace, which is 2nd-line production. Maybe he is more like Chris Higgins used to be, a guy best slotted in as a 3rd-liner who bumps up to 2nd line at need. But my thing is, he's having a strong season at a very important time in his career, when he really needs to have a strong season. We should be pulling for him.

Detroit has the best unis in all of hockey. Newhook has been a resurgent player overall this season when healthy and we should keep that in mind even as we call for him to be drawn and quartered. I wonder if he's the type to get overconfident when things are going well, and then to get into trouble. But IMHO there is no way he should be treated as an in-and-out-of-the lineup guy based on his play this year. Maybe a one game scratch to make a point, but whatever we do should be measured so as not to undermine the confident player we have seen for most of this season. And all due respect, scratching MM is madness. He does have miscues now and then but overall he is one of the most underrated guys in the league, an outstanding puck-moving defenceman. Two teams that it really bugs me to lose to are Buffalo and Detroit. These are newly-powerful teams we'll need to beat if we ever want to make a long playoff run. I want us to own them, not the other way around.

The playoffs are an expectation this year. We're not on a heater like some teams, but we do keep winning (5-3-2 in the last 10). Hey, here is a question for you all. Struble and Arber: who is more worthy of ice time? Discuss.

Well - the defensive weakness has become more troubling as the playoff race heats up. Chris Pronger was on that idiot Marinaro’s podcast, and for what it’s worth, he explained the problem as simply a lack of commitment. He described the Habs as basically gifted hotshots who are routinely cheating in the defensive zone looking for offensive opportunities, rather than bearing down with their coverage. I don’t know how good an analyst Pronger is, but he did a good job of representing the view that this is basically a high-flying young team that hasn’t absorbed the fundamental lesson that if you take care of business in your end, the scoring will take care of itself, especially with players this talented.

It’s being reported as McDavid ‘criticizing’ the decision, but with an answer like that, he should consider a post-hockey career in politics, because he basically says nothing. What kind of arrangement would ‘make everyone happy?’ I just don’t get how anyone thinks that a few games is an acceptable punishment for destroying a guy’s knee and putting a superstar out of action for the rest of the season. More than that, I don’t understand how PLAYERS can find that acceptable. Don’t they have a vested interest in their own safety? And yet hockey culture always seems to dictate the law of the jungle.

Thanks for posting this. I don't have a great answer, but I will say that our top-4 is really pretty strong: Dobson, Hutson, and Mattheson are all legit top-pairing guys and Guhle is a strong second-pairing player. So I don't think talent in the top-4 is the issue. (People may chime in and say we lack a stud, big body stabilizer in our top-4. True. But that in itself doesn't explain the problem, and the absence of such a player doesn't mean that our top-4 is below average. On the contrary, it is a very good top 4). Beyond that, I defer to the experts, but I wonder if it's a combo of a below-average bottom-pairing on D, leading to chaos in our own end a FW unit that is divided between semi-elite but young/ not-very-big or physical forwards (e.g., Caufield, Kapanen, Demidov, Texier, Bolduc) and slow, declining vets (Anderson, Gally, Danault) - meaning we have a critical mass of FWs who will sometimes lose their man, or get outmaneuvered, in their own zone. Conversely, it might be a coaching issue. MSL did a great job of flipping the team to a new overall system last season, so he has shown he can coach systems - but can he coach team D? Finally: it's not unusual for a young, talented team to suck rocks defensively. Teams with that profile often have issues with players buying into the need for D (because their mindset is to score their way out of problems), and also with players understanding exactly how to do it and what it takes. I suspect our great success with comeback victories has contributed to a mindset where a lot of Habs don't truly, deep down, believe they need to be defensively stalwart. They may have to learn the hard way.