The Chicoutimi Cucumber

Well, a point-per-game pace is about as good as it gets in today's NHL. It's fine to say that DD owes it all to his wingers, but what are we saying? That Pleks or Eller would become 100-point men playing with those guys? I'm no big Desharnais booster either, but credit where due. He's been putting points on the board like crazy and that's nothing to sneeze at. Eller: he's learning to play a 200-foot game. That's not cause to dismiss his offensive potential. 60 points is not a crazy guess for his eventual ceiling IMHO.

Boy, Habs29, you sure called it on Bourque. What a piece of human garbage. I know Cammy had a bloated salary, but I maintain to this day we could have gotten more for a bona-fide scorer like that. Everyone rips DD, but he's been a PPG player for the past 20 games. That doesn't excuse his first 20 games of this season, but the bottom line is he's producing, and at a pretty high level, notwithstanding his obvious limitations.

Doesn't he want to be GM, though? I dunno, I think we should stop fantasizing about Roy. If he comes it here it will presumably be as coach/GM (a risky configuration to say the least) and that means that the Bergevin era has been a disaster. Personally I prefer to imagine a future where Bergevin is still GM 10 years from now and has a track record of success, including at least one championship.

It is a good point, one I've thought was highly salient both to MT's reluctance to hire Robinson (assuming Big Bird would have come, which frankly I doubt) and MB's resistance to Roy. Think about it. The minute Therrien got into any trouble, there would have been a massive groundswell of media and fan opinion in favour of replacing him with Robinson. No matter how many times Larry would have publicly stated his lack of interest in the head coaching job, it would have been the same. Had Bergevin hired Roy as coach, it would have been the same thing: "when will this seat-warmer Bergevin finally give up the big chair to Saint Patrick?" It's unfortunate, but that's life in Montreal.

Well, I didn't see this debacle. Fortunately. But I have to laugh at how the discourse around Therrien is beginning to mirror exactly the discourse around Martin. Now, I never thought JM did a bad job coaching us, and I don't really think MT is doing a bad job, either. "He insists on playing the smurfs." Well, what the hell can you do when that's your team? "He mixes up lines." Yeah, him and every other coach under the sun. "I don't like how he uses player X." Sure, like you're going to agree with EVERY decision a coach makes. What may have happened here is that any "Therrien effect" from last season has now petered out. The clear buy-in to a clear message has sort of faded out in favour of the usual grind. If you ask me he is right on schedule to get canned next season, as I predicted when he first got hired. (And Chris, I don't think he'll be replaced by Roy, because Roy is much further away from being dumped in Colorado than Therrien is in Montreal. As has been the case with Vigneault, the timing has been off; and speaking of AV, I'll bet he's our next coach, since he hasn't worked any wonders in New York and may well be available when MT is canned). This team is basically what we all thought it was heading into the season - not bad but not a contender. We all knew that MB would really start putting his stamp on the club either during this year's trading deadline or this off-season. So I'm not sure where the anger is coming from, when you really think about it. The current team should be measured by one standard: the progress/development of Galy, Gally, Eller, Subban, Bournival, Diaz, and any other young players who are our only hope of contending in this era. A really thoughtful critique would focus there IMHO.

The only move on MB's list with potential long-term implications is the Subban contract. And even there, I seem to remember dlbalr - was it him? - providing a mathematical analysis of the supposed cap savings by locking him up then, and they turn out to be surprisingly minor. (As for the fear that Subban will walk away, that's just more Habs fan paranoia IMHO). I also think it's risky to attack Bergevin for "not" doing things like signing Jagr or Robinson, even though I've indulged in the same line of argument myself at times. I agree that either of those would have been great acquisitions, but we don't really know if those guys would have come here. I think Jagr would have, personally, but doubt that the same is true of Big Bird, who likes low-pressure markets. Even if all of these are genuine mistakes, none have serious ramifications for our prospect of becoming a contender. And that, I think, is what Bergevin's long game is about. We are arguing, in effect, over minutiae.

Oh, I've been derisively calling him "Hero of the Quebec Nation" because of the media/fan attitude toward him when he was first acquired, and because the ONLY reason he is a Hab right now is because he is French. I don't mean to imply he receives preferential treatment by Therrien - to MT's credit, he doesn't. My point here is that Cole would be better than Briere. Somehow MB turned a nifty bit of GMing (getting rid of Cole) into dross (a player who adds less value to our lineup than Cole would). Even that, though, isn't a mistake with any longer-term implications. MB's mistakes have been of the thoroughly minor variety.

Why, you prefer Briere to Cole in the bottom-6 at about the same cap hit until 2015? Not sure why that would be.

Cripes, yes. That's why you have young players. Trade Bourque at the deadline to some dumbass team horny for size, then bring up Leblanc. Bourque looked good for us last season but it has become crashingly apparent he amped it up only to save his career. He's a "money" player in the negative sense that he plays purely for a paycheque - just as Habs29 always said. But some deadline team will happily scoop him up, because idiocy reigns at the deadline. Meanwhile you give Leblanc further seasoning so that he is ready for a bottom-six role for us next year, when the quest for Cup contention in the Bergevin era really begins.

The Oil appear to be one of those organizations where personal connections and contracts determine your fate more than performance at the managerial level. Lowe is some sort of untouchable in that organization, for no valid reason. It is inexcusable to me that the Oilers have not even come close to moving ANY of their raw-yet-vaunted forward talent to start fixing their blueline. They've loaded up on promising forwards without giving those players anything resembling a properly balanced team structure. They made matters worse by bringing in a rookie coach when what they really needed was a stabilizing veteran coach with a long c.v., but more than anything else it's the total absence of a back end that is fatal to these clowns. Trade any one of your "big" forward names for quality blueliners. And do it soon, would be my advice.

Maybe Jordan Staal is a good model for the type of player Eller will become? Just a thought. We need another defenceman in order to become contenders, IMHO. Not sure Del Zotto is the answer - we already have a player of what seems to be a similar profile in Diaz. Being in the Vancouver area, I keep thinking we need an Alex Edler, but obviously that's not realistic...

DON makes a perceptive point about the coaches in Hamilton. I don't really follow the Dogs, but from what I gather neither Beaulieu nor Tinordi have progressed as hoped this season. It is unsettling to me that Pateryn has surpassed the former two on the organization depth chart. We should have learned from the Gainey years the overwhelming importance of making sure that you have excellent mentorship and coaching in your "feeder" system. All three Bulldogs coaches have valid credentials (Lebeau has the thinnest resumé) but it seems far from self-evident that they are doing an elite job. Hopefully Bergevin will be as ruthless as he must be in his evaluation of their performance as developers of young talent. If his choice of coaches was a mistake, it is one that's going to haunt us for years to come unless fixed. (Maybe hire Guy Boucher, ha ha ) Other than that, I actually don't think Bergevin has made any big mistakes and it seems to me to be just hyper-critical internet fandom to argue that he has. Although it may be worth asking whether this team would not be better off with Erik Cole as an admittedly overpaid big body third-liner than with the useless piece of crap Hero of the Quebec Nation. I rather think we would be, to be honest. And in that sense what looked like a clever bit of GMing - trading Cole just as he ceased to be a top-6 forward - has arguably become a mistake, at least in pure in hockey terms.

Interesting discussion hereabouts, as befits the midpoint of the season. In terms of where the Habs are, I'm probably closer to Commandant's more optimistic reading than Habs29's grouchy one in this thread. Commandant argues that we need a gamebreaker up front and a top-4 defenceman in order to become contenders, and hopes that Galy and one of our AHL guys can evolve into these. Habs29 adds that we also need a power forward in addition to those elements. This obviously wouldn't hurt but I'm not sure we need it to become a contender IF Galy and (say) Tinordi can evolve as Commandant hopes. Then again, I'm not sure I agree with Commandant that we are just below the top tier right now. That seems optimistic to me. Or perhaps better, if we are in that high second tier position, it's mostly because of Price, who has been absolutely superb this season - about as good as a goaltender can be - not because of the team in front of him. A high second-tier team should have an "outside chance" of winning the Cup. I don't see this bunch winning the Cup under anything but miraculous circumstances. What really troubles me continues to be the problem I've written about before. It could take 2-3 years for Galy and Tinordi (or whoever) to become the players Commandant says that we need, assuming they ever do. It's not clear that Markov will have anything left in the tank by that point. So then we'll be needing a Markov replacement. Maybe Beaulieu can be that guy, maybe not. I'm still uneasy, in other words, about whether - squinting 2-3 years into the future - this organization will truly have the pieces to contend. This is the sort of thought-process that has led me to (nervously) toy with trading Pleks in order to get back pieces that will remove that doubt, despite the obviously disastrous impact this would have on today's team. As for this year's squad: the "size" issue has been obvious for months, but our recent struggles owe mainly to three players IMHO: Markov, Subban, and Emelin. All three have been flailing by their standards, partly due to their own issues - Markov and Emelin being gassed, PK having been rattled by the non-stop torrent of criticism of his supposedly just awful hockey skills by a universe of know-nothings who would rather that he be Brain Engblom than PK Subban. But it's mostly because other teams have figured out that being super-aggressive on these guys is the way to stop the Montreal Canadiens. It is up to them to adjust, up to other players to seize the openings provided by all this attention on those guys, and up to Therrien to find a solution. As for Therrien, he is right on the schedule I set for him when he was first hired: look great in year one, start to have problems in year two, get fired in year three. He's all right, I'll give him that, but he seems to be almost the quintessentially average NHL coach circa 2013. But because we are committed to affirmative action for francophones, any criticism of him needs to be framed by the wider question: which fluently bilingual coach out there is both available, and superior to, the mediocrity that is Therrien?

Yeah...he only won the game for us last night I agree that Lars is frustrating, but I think it's way too soon to give up on him like that. His game away from the puck seems significantly better this season. He's still learning, in other words; which is to say, he's a young player. Stops and starts, two steps forward, one step back - that's what you get with young guys, despite fan fantasies to the contrary.

Eller illustrates the problem with young players. Despite fans' relentless fantasies - see all the optimism last summer about Beaulieu and Tinordi stepping in and serving as blueline regulars this season - most of the time, young guns don't just jump in and make an impact in the fashion of Gallagher or Subban. Instead you get what we've seen with Eller: flashes of brilliance where it looks like he's "putting it all together," coupled with long stretches where he struggles. The thing with Eller is that he seems to be quietly evolving into a real 200-foot player with some bona-fide physical presence; he's learning, in other words, to do things that don't count on the scoresheet. So there is continued overall progression even if the numbers aren't there. After initial skepticism where I thought he was at risk of turning into Jan Bulis 2.0, I became convinced last season that this guy would evolve into a 60-point all-around C, and I still think that. Patience must remain the watchword.

Absolutely Another question about this. How is it likely to ramify for the playoffs? OK, we get 32 regular-season games, but then what? Frankly, I can live with missing a big chunk of regular season games, but the playoffs, that's another story.

Ha ha, I may have to PM you at some point for advice about not using illegal feeds. You know, the best sources not to use, etc.

While I don't believe that a coach is ever going to incorporate "trade value" into his roster decisions, I do find it comical that either Diaz or Emelin is being sat out to make room for Honey Boo Boo. Either of those guys has more talent in his left toe than Boo Boo has in his entire body at this juncture of his career. I agree, in particular, that sitting Emelin would be ridiculous - an insult, really, to a blood-and-guts guy who simply "hit the wall" after an arduous rehab and missing training camp. Emelin is a top-4 defenceman; you don't sit those guys every time they go through a rough patch. That Bouillon-Murray pairing looks like a recipe for minuses to me, but we'll see what happens.

I haven't seen much of Tampa this season. Their lineup in general seems decent but not stellar. What is the secret of their success? Is it one of these "everyone bought into the coach's system" things? Or am I just underrating the talent they do have? (Remember when Guy Boucher was supposed to lead these guys to glory? After the debacles of him and Dallas Eakins, I hope that fans temper their hysteria when the next "Next Young Coaching Hot Shot" comes onto the market The fact is you're better off going with a Torterlla or a Hitchock 90% of the time, if you can get one).

Pat Hickey, of whose analytical skills I don't think much, but who seems to be tolerably connected, offers an interesting state of the union address here: http://www.faceoff.com/sports/hockey/montreal-canadiens/Hickey+Hockey+Changes+coming+Canadiens+2014/9328421/story.html Among other things, he is certain that Patches will not be traded, that Gionta, Honey Boo Boo and Murray will all be gone at year's end, that Leblanc is nearly toast, that the Habs will look to add a "beefy" winger at the deadline and to sign a FW with size as a UFA. He also raises the horrific spectre of fans outside Quebec being able to watch only 22 games. Discuss?

And they wonder why people resort to illegal feeds

I think Pleks and Kane could form the nucleus of an interesting package trade for both sides. Habs29 is right about that; Winnipeg desperately needs to solidify its roster and a guy like Plekanec (and/or Gorges) could do that, making 'em a playoff team sooner rather than later, which is what everyone in the Peg is crying for. Kane would give us that extra "impact forward" we need and don't seem to have in the system. But once we start hypothesizing about additional players in the package, the variables start concatenating out of control. Best to focus on the core elements. I'm not as optimistic as Habs29 that Eller could immediately step up and replace Pleks. Plekanec is a rare commodity, in my opinion - one of the very best two-way C in all of hockey, sort of a Datsyuk Lite. If we lose him, we might gain offence but we would take a significant and costly short-term dip in our 200-foot game, likely leading to more Ls. A trade involving Pleks for Kane is a move designed to pay off in a couple of years; I don't think we should kid ourselves about that.

That's reasonable. This is one of those trades which has no real reason to occur during the season, as opposed to the summer - at least as far as I can see. We'd be getting Kane, not for immediate help - short-term the trade would actually hurt us - but as part of a vision of emerging as a bona-fide contender within a couple of years. Theoretically, then, you can make the move after we're eliminated from the playoffs, then look to see if you can't add a seasoned veteran defensive C for insurance as Eller grows into the role next year. Anyway, the whole thing is probably fanciful.

There is only one thing any of us want for the Habs, and that is Stanley Cup #25. Everything else is a means to that end. That said, I agree with Psycing. A last go-round by Saks would be neat. Won't happen, of course. Also...I'm not so sure the fans would embrace him with the deep feeling that he deserves. There was always some ambivalence in the fan-base regarding Koivu IMHO; I'm not sure why, but you can argue that Kovalev was more warmly embraced by the fanbase as a whole than Koivu was.

In trading Pleks, everything would hinge on Lars Eller becoming an excellent two-way centreman within whatever our given "window" is for Cup contention. It certainly wouldn't happen right away, but I wouldn't rule out Lars being acceptable in that role within, say, two years. Machine is correct about the element of risk in this; no one is saying such a trade wouldn't be a high-stakes move. Merry Christmas, my fellow Habbies