The Chicoutimi Cucumber

Hey, if they win, I'll be happy; I'm not going to go rend my garment. Fact is, though, in a cap system having too many individual trophy-winners can contribute to skewing your salary structure and making it at least a little bit harder for you to win as a team. It's great to say you want your players to be the best in the league, but what if that means you have to let some of them walk due to cap pressures? Or have to unload a Prust in order to keep a Subban? Another way of putting it is to say that there is exactly ONE trophy I give a rat's ass about. That trophy is what makes you a winner, not individual hardware.

We're doomed if Price doesn't play well in the playoffs. I suppose I have a hard time believing that he could suck against TO and then suddenly be awesome in the next round. Anything's possible, I suppose. I also think fans tend to overthink things in the playoffs. Come the crunch, all that regular season crap goes out the window. You play your best and they have to be AT their best if you want to win, period.

I understand the desire to have 'our' players recognized for once, and to see excellence rewarded. That said, the more hardware our players collect, the higher their salary demands will be. It's not really in our interest as Habs fans to have our players win individual awards when you think about it.

That's a salutary reminder. Anything can happen. That said, there have been far more playoff rookie goalies who eventually got solved than Drydens. Looking at the matter objectively, you have to say that the Leafs' goaltending inexperience is a legitimate question mark for them heading in. Just as, I might add, the playoff inexperience of the Gal(l)ys also has to be taken as a question mark for us, hard as that is to believe. EDIT: as for not playing Price, Habs29 is obviously right that he is The Man. That doesn't mean you don't go to Budaj if he stinks out the joint, but if that's the case, we're doomed anyway. Price on a "short leash" is bizarre thinking.

Right. One game in 30 years By two teams that had zero chance to do anything even if they made the playoffs. Please.

Oh, no doubt a playoff series - or ideally, a few such series - would rekindle the rivalry big time, turning it into the real thing. I'm not denying that. ANY two teams that collide reliably in the playoffs become bitter rivals, and in the case of these two teams the rivalry would be deepened by all that history. But this is just theoretical at this point. There hasn't been a Leafs-Habs game that really mattered since the late-70s. And I'm not quite saying a rivalry doesn't exist; it exists on one end (Toronto's) because it is hyped by a media machine and fan base that still wishes it was 1967. I maintain that the Habs have not felt anything like that intensity when playing Toronto in my entire lifetime. I remember a passgae in The Game where Dryden talked about one of his teammates - Lapointe? - on the eve of a game against Toronto throwing down a newspaper and scoffing, 'the great Leafs-Habs rivalry! They must think we're the f**king Pittsburgh Penguins!' (who were then a joke franchise). A telling remark. If not for the hype machine, those guys might as well be the Atlanta Flames.

The "Leafs-Habs rivalry" means way more to the Leafs than it does to the Habs. Leafs fans are accustomed to thinking that nothing has happened since 1967, so the times when it was a real rivalry seem like only yesterday. The reason why we all hate the Leafs consists partly in this imbalance, I suspect. We're told over and over again how IMPORTANT Habs-Leafs games are - we get fed the Leafs-Habs for season openers and/or closers over and over, we have to hear the whole CBC hype machine - when our real rivalry is with teams like Boston (and in the previous decades, Quebec, Buffalo, Calgary, even Hartford) and despite the fact that that franchise has been only slightly more relevant than the Cleveland Barons in terms of genuinely meaningful on-ice games since about 1978. The whole thing is force-fed us from a Toronto perspective. Now, if we do meet them in the playoffs, that series will be exciting because it's a playoff series, not because it's Toronto. The only extra frisson will be created by the burning desire to shut the hype machine the f*ck up and not to have to hear about the Great Series of 2013 for the rest of my life, not by some awesome internal rivalry between the two clubs. That's difference. I want us to beat Boston because there is a blood history there and genuine hatred. I want us to beat Toronto because of the Leafs-centred media hype machine. In short, it's one of the most artificial rivalries in all of hockey.

Wow, you just summarized in one sentence why I've felt for YEARS that we have nothing to gain in a playoff series with the Leafs! Nicely done.

I think a degree of agnosticism about Price in the playoffs is warranted because the sample is so small. He's had one superb series and a couple of dodgy series. With the latter, it should be kept in mind that he was still maturing - so one could easily argue that the mature Price has only had that one great series. But that still doesn't prove a pattern one way or the other. What bothers me is the unwarranted pessimism about playoff Price emanating out of many quarters of Habs fandom. There is a huge chunk of the fanbase that has swallowed a bizarre narrative that Price is obviously overrated or that Price is obviously a playoff dud. It's as if he is to be forever condemned for some youthful growing pains 3-4 years ago; and that the excellent 2011 playoff never happened. So: a cautious awareness that the sample is too small to prove anything - sure. Hostility and pessimism that our goalie sucks? Simply ridiculous. The appropriate attitude to Price is that he is a blue-chip starter who can reasonably be expected to perform well in the playoffs. If I were Price I wouldn't let any of it get to me. For years and years and years, anglo Habs fans were actively skeptical of Patrick Roy. I don't know how many times I had to defend him against the accusation of being overrated, "not that great," trade bait, etc., etc.. This (mostly) ended in 1993, but notice that it took one of the all-time great playoff performances by a goalie in NHL history to quiet the grumblers. The fact is, even great goalies have better and worse seasons, better and worse games, and better and worse playoffs. Price is a blue-chip goalie. Time will tell if he can be the guy who carries a team to glory...but the fact is that we will never know the answer unless he has a team in front of him that can put him in that position, just as Patrick Roy, Marty Brodeur and whoever else you'd care no name did. Even the supposedly superhuman Halak had a team that pioneered systematic shot-blocking and did a masterful job of restricting shots to the outside. The Price haters should take the young man's advice and "chill."

Bets on how many goals down we'll be after one period?

It can go either way when a team looks listless and uninspired heading into the playoffs. In 1988 and 1992, for instance, the Canadiens looked totally out of it down the stretch, and everyone figured they were just waiting for the playoffs to start to crank it up. Instead, the listless play continued right into the playoffs and the Habs were soon eliminated despite being considered contenders. Same thing happened to the Vancouver Canucks last season, incidentally (I talk about them a lot because I live in the Vancouver area). Those seem to be teams that had some sort of chemistry issue, whether it was Jean Perron fatigue (1988) or huge personality clashes (1992) or a major hangover from the previous season, plus key injuries (Canucks). Conversely, my other favourite examples - 1986, 1993, 2010 - represent the opposite trend: an unfocused team down the stretch that snaps into form when it counts. We'll see how it goes, but given that chemistry is probably not an issue with this bunch, I wouldn't rule out a pleasant surprise.

I'm more interested in seeing Drewiski out there than Tinordi, at least when the real games start. The kid's a raw rookie, for heaven's sake. Drweiski is a marginal player but at least has the profile of a stay-at-home, blood-and-guts D-man with size and some NHL experience...more likely to step up and help us in the playoffs than Big T, I suspect.

Right. I'll be the first to admit that Therrien has done a stellar job this season. The issue is simply a narrow point about a particularly bizarre personnel decision in a specific game.

Typically teams don't just leap out of slumps playing at 100%. It's a process of fits and starts. Commandant is right to say that the quality 30 minutes they put in is something to build on. It probably reassured the team that they still have the capacity to hit that level, and gives everyone a point of reference for the purpose of playing better. Take that as a good sign. Great point about Markov and Weber as the top pairing on the PK. I generally refrain from getting worked up about line pairings and matchups, but that is just brutal. Wake up MT!!

I think we have seen enough teams back into the playoffs and then suddenly click into form - c.f. the LA Kings, not to mention the 1986, 1993, and 2010 Habs - to reject this kind of deterministic negativity. The fact is, we don't know enough about this team to know whether it is likely to slump its way out of the dance, or to snap back into form once the games really start mattering. I agree that it's not looking great, I agree that I don't want to play the Leafs, but going from that to the certainty that we will lose in the playoffs is a bridge too far. And then saying things like 'embarrassed' - come on. The current slump is embarrassing, yes. But how we can be ashamed of a team that finishes 5th in the Conference after NO ONE expected it to do anything at all beats me. After suffering through 1997-2007, to say nothing of the collapses of 2009 and 2011, I would think Habs' fans should have a more realistic sense of when a team is a genuine disgrace.

Ha ha, well, this wasn't what I meant! I assumed that MT would find a very receptive dressing room this year, but that, probably at some point next season, his act would wear thin, as it did catastrophically in Pittsburgh. Even I didn't think the team would tune him out after 46 games! And in truth, I can't believe that's what's really happened. It's probably more a matter of a drop-off in intensity snowballing into a bona-fide slump from a team that has to play with 100% commitment in order to have a chance. They may be discovering the terrible truth that you can't turn it on and off like a tap: the oldest cliché in the book, and one we could have avoided if players had been wiser, I think.

Yeah, I agree...not ready for prime time. That's why I suggested a '1-2 year stopgap.'

Yep, the loss of Emelin definitely exposes a structural imbalance in our blueline. Of course, it's nothing we didn't recognize long before that. Once Tinordi comes up, we should be all right, but MB might want to think about a 1-2 year stopgap, if he can find one.

That's a good point about divisions skewing regular season results. My theory would only apply 100% to a league in which there weren't massive distortions created by teams playing in crappy divisions. Still...I'm not talking about 'fluking' into the playoffs; I'm talking about the difference between 'fluking' to the Cup vs. 'fluking' to the regular season championship. Divisional distortions aside, I don't think either happens much, actually; teams win the Cup because they play the best in the short tournament, and teams win the President's Trophy because they play the best over 82 games. All I'm really saying is that prima facie, it takes a stronger team to dominate for 82 than for 28 games. And in an age of parity the longer span is especially useful in controlling for freak events like injuries or crazy hot streaks. Just a-ruminatin'.

Sure. But the 'fluke' factor is mathematically very much reduced when spread over 82 games rather than a (maximum) 28-game tournament. And if the Cup was awarded on the basis of the regular season finish, it would further cut down on the fluke factor, because teams would really be going for it (whereas these days the President's Trophy is something that experienced teams tend to see as a luxury item, with the 'real' prize still waiting). Don't worry, I'm not making this as a serious proposal. But I do think that if the Cup were really about the best team, that's what we'd do. EDIT: of course, one can argue that the current format is truer to Lord Stanley's original vision of a 'challenge cup.' And that's a fair point, I think; it's just that standard discourse around the Cup as symbol of 'hockey supremacy' doesn't make as much sense as we might think it does.

You're spot on with this point. It's not 1980 any more when 16 out of 20 teams (or whatever it was) made the dance. EVERY team that makes the playoffs is a good team now. There are still better and worse clubs, obviously, but it's generally quite a thin margin. Indeed, the playoffs have become such a crapshoot - decided by streaks and injuries - that I sometimes think the really sensible thing to do would be to award the Cup to the regular season champ. The team that's won more than anyone else over 82 gruelling games is actually the strongest team in the NHL. It'll never happen and it wouldn't be nearly as exciting, but it would be more meaningful when looked at objectively.

Losing Emelin looms large. Not because he is such an awesome talent (though his contributions may have gone under-appreciated until his absence) but because we have no other quality defender with his skill-set. Indeed, it's this injury that stops me from confidently saying that the slump is simply caused by a drop in focus and intensity after sealing a playoff spot. A real part of the problem may be that Emelin's absence is ramifying through our entire game. Like I said when Emelin went down, Drewiski is our only plausible answer to this problem. It's not a great answer, but we have no choice but to play him because he is the only guy who brings the same kinds of attribtues Emelin does. The other issue is the possibility that other teams have adjusted to Therrien's system (e.g., high-intensity 'swarming' of pucks in the defensive zone, which results in things like Bourque, rather than a proper defenceman, covering the open man on the third goal last night). Therrien will have to decide whether to go 'all in' on the system - demanding that players execute it with redoubled intensity - or to tweak it in response. Emelin aside, some quality practices may be what's really needed here. Price needs to bear down and correct the holes that have crept into his game. The team needs to get some solid guidance on the way forward. It's the coaching staff's time to shine. But you're right: this slump tends to put the kibosh on the notion that these guys are bona fide contenders. I still wouldn't rule out a deep run, but it's hard to see a team getting so thoroughly shellacked all April marching to ultimate glory in June. Probably a good thing that MB didn't move picks or youth to get a rental, then! Ironically these results tend to support the wisdom of our GM in not buying into the hype and remaining true to his larger plan. It helps to keep things in perspective and remember than none of us even dreamed that our team would be #5 overall, let alone a Cup winner, this season. Even if we get blown out in 4 straight, MB's rebuild is ahead of schedule.

People forget that Price was awesome in the 2011 playoffs. I'm not sure I'd conclude that he lacks 'mental fortitude' because of a dodgy April of meaningless games; but I agree that if he struggles in the postseason, it'll be harder to defend him in this respect.

I guess so. In a way what I'm saying is these guys believe in Price so much that when he doesn't deliver, they're lost. Price will get back in the groove as long as he doesn't get down on himself and lose confidence. Getting away from the Bell Centre will almost certainly help. By rights, this should be where his sizeable experience of radical ups and downs in Montreal comes into play and gets him through it when it matters most, i.e., the playoffs. As a whole, meanwhile, the team needs to stop worrying about results and focus on process. The little things - winning battles, bearing down on the defensive coverage, trusting your teammate to do his job, etc.. Same old recipe. And I agree 100% about Drewiski. With Emelin out, he has to play every damned night - and eat significant minutes to boot. There's no other choice.

Give me a break. If Price gets his game back, the whole team will feed off that. That was one of the points of my earlier post - for all that we go on about PK or Markov or Pleks or whoever, Carey Price is THE key guy on this team. As he goes, we go.