The Chicoutimi Cucumber

Don’t want to hijack the thread and make it about the Canuckleheads, but while I tend to agree with your analysis, I think the Canucks are indeed desperate. The general sense in Van is that everything the organization does in the summer of 2025 will be based on one objective: to convince Quinn Hughes to re-sign in two years. Which means icing a playoff-worthy, competitive roster ASAP. You may be right that Rossi is not a top-6 C you can win the Cup with, unless you have a Kopitar-like stud #1C with size and physicality. Rossi would, however, make them a significantly better team, and that may be all they care about right now. Because Hughes. Re: Horvat, I thought they were smart not to sign him to that deal. But then the Miller-Pettersson feud spun out of control and out of desperation they traded JT for a song. And now the cap has exploded. I understand why they kept Pettersson, but suspect that keeping Miller would have been the smarter play. And Miller-Horvat would be a Cup-worthy duo down the middle. The trouble with moving Pettersson now, meanwhile, is that you’re also trading him as a distressed asset. It also contradicts the likely goal of getting better NOW because of Hughes (since you’re probably getting junk or futures back for him). They may have no choice but to cross their fingers and hope he returns to form. Sorry for the Van detour, but I find the Canucks’ current dilemma fascinating. It’s one of the toughest managerial puzzles I can recall seeing (closest I can think of is when Tkatchuk and Gaudreau wanted out of Calgary).

Marinaro is an idiot. That doesn’t mean his guest is, but I tend to discount anything coming from the vicinity of that blatherskite. I’m hearing lots of Rossi rumours in Van. I have a feeling there’s fire to go with all that smoke.

It was crazy how Markov elevated his partners. He single-handedly made Komisarek a very rich man. The General was, very quietly, a magisterial player.

Depends how smooth Mailloux's play-making game is. Petry was above all a rushing D who could dish the puck. I've always understood Mailloux to be more about a boomer from the point. I dunno how 'mean' he is. Souray was thought to be, basically, Arber Xhekaj when we acquired him (but had a huge spike in his development around age 28 climaxing in that insane 26-goal season). Certainly his PIM totals are a lot higher than Mailloux's.

Souray does seem to fit the bill almost perfectly.

The Habs aren’t picking on Mailloux. If he hasn’t had much of a spell up here - or rather if he got sent down after playing 7 games - it’s because they don’t think he’s ready. That’s all there is to it. Hutson, by contrast, got a few games and pretty much immediately made himself indispensable. I make no pretense whatsoever to know anything but the most basic info about prospects. But I’ve never read anything to suggest that Mailloux is an irreplaceable blue-chip prospect. A good, interesting prospect, yes. I pull for him because I like his redemption arc and think that a guy who went through that may come out the other side as a better man than a lot of pro athletes. And I like his profile as a cannonading d-man with size. And as DON noted, though, we’re not getting a #2C without giving up something that matters. Maybe it’ll be Mailloux, maybe it’ll be something else, but I doubt it will be a 17th overall pick in a middling draft. Habs fans need to start getting used to the idea that not every trade is going to be a gimmie like Barron for Carrier or Harris for Laine. Do you know how many teams are desperate for top-6 C? That’s a seller’s market big-time.

Fully deserved. What a phenom he is 👍

That about covers it. If you read Dryden’s portrait of Houle in the 1970s in ‘The Game,’ it makes his disastrous failure as GM even more poignant. Dryden sketches a shy, diffident man who feared failure and took years to feel like he belonged. A guy like that, unlike those other A-holes who will always blame others or else tell themselves they did awesome, is going to have the self-awareness to know that he failed and suffer because of it. It was reported that he almost didn’t attend the 100th anniversary event because he was afraid of getting booed. Which I thought was very sad, really.

A lot of people around me were still operating on the assumption that it was semi-normal for the Habs to win. For my part, I knew this was potentially a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and would have chewed through rope to be there. Although I never imagined that it would take almost 30 years to get back to the Finals, and more than that to win another Cup; nor that tickets to a Cup-winning game would only be accessible to the super-rich or the highly connected.

Hahaha, yeah, I also hated the Whalers. They always seemed to play their best against us. (A bit like Ottawa tends to do). These days, I kind of miss that franchise - a quintessential 1970s/80s NHL team (smallish city, not really 'big league'). And of course that great jersey.

I was in the building, having waited for hours to get in for standing room. It was really during the second intermission that it began to sink in what was happening. The roar of the crowd started swelling until it was the biggest noise I'd ever heard. I still remember the wag behind me shouting "hey, how 'bout those Expos?" 😄 It shows how wildly different the NHL has become that it was even possible for a guy in minimum-wage job to afford tickets to the Stanley Cup winning game. I can't remember what the standing room ticket cost, somewhere between $60-100, maybe? I want to say closer to $60. Never will I forget Roy hoisting the Cup in our direction and roaring out his triumph. Another memory: streaming out of the Forum with 18 000 other ecstatic fans all sharing the same natural high, singing "les Canadiens sont laaaaa." It was only as we marched down Ste Catherine's that we began to collect another, less savoury element looking to make trouble...and then the bottles started flying. I do recall a woman who had, crazily, parked her BMW a block from the Forum and was yelling at people to get off her car. No doubt that was one of the charred, overturned vehicles on the news later that night.

This thread just activated my PTSD

Yes, all else being equal, if we lose MM, a perfectly decent D-core suddenly sucks. Now, if we lose MM AND then replace him with another experienced puck-moving top-4 LD, the top-4 remains fairly strong. If Matheson can be a major piece of a trade bringing back an impact C, for example, then it’s worth considering. But you absolutely have to replace him with a player of similar profile. That scenario has two dangers: one, you aren’t able to secure that replacement; two, it risks becoming one of those whac-a-mole scenarios: trade MM to fill a hole…then create another hole trying to fill the hole left by MM…etc. I expect we’ll keep Matheson. It is a pity that both Struble and Xhekaj are physical players jostling for the same spot. If either could evolve into a legit #4 D, you can see a world where one of Reinbacher or Mailloux eventually crowd Carrier down to the bottom pair and provide enough secondary offensive push from the back end to make MM expendable. Won’t happen this year, though - if it ever does.

Nah, I want to see McDavid win the Cup. As a player of his greatness deserves. The “Canadian” factor means very little to mean one way or the other (in this context; I’m as “elbows up” as the next man in terms of the wider issues).

Yeah, it’s not about “giving up on Dach” as an NHL player. But only a fool would pencil him in as a #2C at this point. He needs to rebuild the knee, then rebuild his game.

I’m pulling for Edmonton, but ya gotta love this guy https://www.facebook.com/reel/1369262404266392?fs=e&fs=e

Love it! Minus the anti-vax stuff, of course.😉

Yes indeed. I get so tired of fans still thinking in terms of goons. Larry Robinson is much closer to the model of toughness you need today. God love Xhekaj, but the answer is not to give him significant minutes just because he can throw ‘em. The answer is for him to become a player that his coach trusts with significant minutes. But we also need physicality elsewhere in the lineup. As with Dach, a big, strong C with skill, you can see where Reinbacher had an important role in HuGo’s vision: big, strong RD with skill. Unfortunately both have been derailed by injury. Hopefully Reinbacher can still fulfill his potential. Dach is a lot harder to be optimistic about, of course.

No problem. Give it to him.

A magical game and the start of a magical run. I remember waiting all night on pins and needles for the Leafs to wake up. They never did. They were defeated from the first drop of the puck.

My guess is we’ll push hard for Granlund. I love Habs29’s idea of getting Shane Wright, but seriously doubt that would come to pass.

Brian’s article is very good…characteristically level-headed and objective. I’ve always advocated the approach you take in your final paragraph. Don’t worry about other teams, which list as they will. Focus on your own. I suspect that, assuming some solid moves this summer, the team will once again be in the mix, which is no guarantee of actually making the playoffs. If Slaf can be Monster Slaf more consistently, instead of just in the last quarter of the season, and if Demidov can show like he did in his audition this year, that’s significant improvement in the top-6. FW depth remains a concern that will be hard to address given the likely veteran departures. Brian’s take on the D is spot-on. We will upgrade the talent by bringing in one of the prospects, but that might result in a dip in performance and consistency until the growing pains recede.

Laws against street hockey are a national crime.

They do. What increasingly worries me is that if you look at the core we’re assembling, it has the profile of a team that absorbs punishment more than metes it out. I say this as a guy who always believed in skill first. But if you look at Cup winners over the past decade, most of them have been teams that deliver the physical punishment more than they receive it. Colorado and Pittsburgh are possible exceptions. But those teams had multiple generational talents on their squads. Florida exemplifies this. They have skill, sure, but that’s not really their advantage. They are ‘built for the playoffs’ when the refs bury their whistles. It’s not about a bottom-pairing defenceman who can throw ‘em (WiFi). It’s about a team that systematically, up and down the lineup, grinds you into powder. That’s also how the 2021 Habs were built, BTW, but of course no one ever gives them credit for that. It’s a real pity that Dach hasn’t worked out. A healthy Dach was perfect for the kind of hard-on-the-puck playoff game that you ideally want from a C. Bad luck there. (That being said, if EDM wins tonight, then I expect them to win it all. They took FLA to seven games last year and I suspect they now have the necessary experience to understand what it takes. They also fit the Colorado/Pittsburgh profile of having two generational players on the team, which seems to be the magic number needed to win with skill nowadays).

🤣 KK is useless, LOL