The Chicoutimi Cucumber

You don't think Wisnewski can help? Can we at least wait a few games before dismissing what most appear to see as a legitimate top-4 defenceman acquired for a 50th overall pick? Packaging...well, what are you gonna get for Kostitsyn/Lapierre, that could both help us AND fit under the cap? There's nothing specific to these moves that warrants any kind of strongly negative reaction.

CoRvIna, I had the same thought about Lats. They were buddies and Lats was probably whispering in his ear the whole time. Who knows, this could be viewed as the final (?) piece to fall in the Great Purge of 2009. Laps is replaceable. Those agitated over this move really should take a pill. In any case, the Habs have been very consistent since 2009: you don't like it here, then f*ck off. I support that message, and therefore can't be too upset about this.

Colour me surprised. He's had a disappointing year so far, but I always believed in his merits as an agitator/bottom 6er and I always assumed he'd carve out a long career in that capacity in Montreal. I never pigeonholed him as one of the anti-JM elements, but we might infer that he was indeed one of those. Hard to know what his specific grievance was. It's not as though he's likely to be a top-6 forward and can claim that he was being grossly miscast in Montreal. Anyway - don't look for much in the way of return. QUICK EDIT: http://www.habsinsideout.com/main/42413 His grievance was diminished ice time. I never have much patience with that complaint myself. You want ice, play better and earn it. Oh well.

Starting Auld is a no-brainer. With apologies to Wamsley, I have been opposed to what I regard as the over-use of Price all along. Nobody can play 80 games a season and (potentially) another 20 in the playoffs and be in peak form throughout, least of all in the insane Montreal pressure-cooker. Desharnais is a good call-up. I'm no authority on the Bulldogs, but I tend to pull for this kid, who has had everything stacked against him from day one and responded merely by succeeding at every level. If a mutiny is indeed a possibility, having kids come and play well might shake some of the complacency from the mutineers. And of course, on a less Machiavellian level, the team needs offence, so why not insert a guy whose game is all offence? I just hope he gets more than 5 minutes of ice time. Our big guns are all playing like popguns. I tend to concur with Benoit Brunet that you need to respond, NOT by using them to kill penalties, but by deploying your depth. En tout cas. I'd love to the see team SUCK IT UP and play a tight, desperate playoff-style game. Every win is huge at this particular moment.

2-7...hoo boy, it ain't pretty. I thought it might be useful to consolidate our scattered rants about The Slump here. What I'm mostly interested in is explanations. How does a team go from looking great to being unable to beat anyone? Here's a few thoughts culled from other threads, along with some of my own. Feel free to add your own. 1. The good start was a mirage, conjured up by great play from Price. With Price now being merely good, the team is exposed (I don't accept this myself; the team I watched in October-November was playing a strong, intelligent system, with commitment). 2. The System is too demanding to be sustainable over 82 games. A letdown was inevitable. 3. Slumps happen. They'll get it back. Heck, the first period against TB is the glimmer of an impending turnaround. There is nothing to explain, therefore. 4. Markov hurt + Subban loses his mojo + assorted minor injuries (Gorges) = major crisis on the blueline, followed by a major slump. This seems to me to be the simplest, most obvious explanation - albeit one that seems to be glaringly underplayed in commentaries. If this theory is right, then the addition of the Wiz, healing of Gorges, and the gradual recovery of Subban will likely see us picking up steam pretty soon. I tend toward this view. 5. Something has happened to the team chemistry. I recall that last season we had reports of an internal battle among the players over whether to play JM's (highly successful) system. They wisely rallied around the coach. But these sorts of internal settlements aren't always stable; could be that JM has lost some key support in the dressing room. Or perhaps someone new element like Subban, with his reportedly questionable behaviour, has magnified tensions. Brian raised the mutiny idea in his 'Final Thoughts' tonight. 5 is the scenario that worries me the most. I will say that this team right now reminds me of the 2009 team and last season's club for significant stretches; most of our best players are playing as if they're completely out of it. (Heck, Cammy and Gomer have seemed out of sorts all season). Often when I've seen this in the past, it's a sign of a team with internal problems. I sure hope that's not the case, because I believe that the only way this team will excel is if it follows the model of last spring/this fall. Anyway, let's hear it...

It would be ridiculous to fire JM because of one slump. Gomez has a groin injury, so his current play should not be taken as representative; and furthermore, as we've discussed before around here, even if you could somehow trade Gomez, there's no point in moving him unless you have a quality offensive C to replace him. 'Get rid of X and Y!' is seldom sensible hockey advice. PG has made his move. Let's allow Wiz to get comfortable and grant a few games for his impact to be fully felt before we panic.

Well, like practically everyone else, I think this is a fine acquisition at a pretty acceptable price. Wiz is a right-handed defenceman - a major consideration - who has shown in both Anaheim and New York that he can produce useful offence and bring a physical dimension to our zone. Yes, his +/- is a concern, but that's a team stat as much as an individual one (if you doubt it, check the +/- of players on New Jersey). This acquisition has the potential to ramify throughout the lineup, reducing our dependency on overtaxed veterans and not-quite-ready-for-prime-time rookies. That is the key to this move; although Wiz himself is no superstar, the addition of a top-4 defenceman should, over time, serve to make the entire defence corps play better by removing the nee to use players inappropriately. When Markov went down, I said we'd need to add a top-4 defenceman if we were to have any hope of contending. Given the current play of the team 'contending' now seems optimistic. Yet Wiz will make it significantly easier for the team to restore its commitment to JM's system - which is the vital factor to any success these guys will have. Finally, we have another young-ish defenceman in the system who gives us an added safety net when it comes to the summer. His age is important. Right now we have a D caught in purgatory between declining old age and struggling youth. Wiz fills that gap. Classic Gauthier move. A canny acquisition that, without being a blockbuster, has a good chance of yielding dividends beyond what the player himself would seem to imply. It may take a few games but I would expect the benefits to begin to tell at some point in January. :hlogo:

I'm with you. And for the record, Subban won't learn much stapled to the press box. Just sayin'. This team needs help on the blueline, but at this point I'm just stating the obvious...

I love how people who were not privy to dressing room dynamics presume to know that Ribs HAD to go. In defence of such people, I do recall reading from some credible source somewhere that Koivu and Ribeiro were not on good terms, which suggests that Gainey made a decision to support his captain, and dressing room harmony, by shipping out Ribs. What I wonder is whether adequate effort was made to heal the breach before radical surgery was undertaken. It is true that moving Ribs allowed Pleks to blossom. Then again, had we kept all three we could conceivably have shifted Koivu to more of a checking role as he declined. My point is that this team desperately needed C for much of the time that Ribs carved out a nice career in Dallas. Prima facie, that suggests that trading him was a boner. A better return would have helped, no question! At the time, I observed that Gainey was making a high-risk high-reward move, gambling that Ninimaa would return to form (in which case it would have been a fair deal). He assumed ALL the risk in that trade. It didn't work out. Water under the bridge, but this 'he HAD to go' stuff sounds way too glib to me. Many Ribs haters seem to confuse his hotshot style with substance (the substance here being, he was/is a damned good playmaker). Not that I'm losing sleep over it at this point.

As a fellow Vancouverite, you must be aware that Bieksa is no saviour? Still, he would be a useful addition. I just believe that fans would turn on him eventually; inconsistency, thy name is Kevin.

I'm not quite as fatalistic as Wamsley tends to be about the impact an individual player can have, but I agree with the gist of his analysis above. The key is team identity. As he says, this is a Pat Burns/New Jersey Devils-style team concept, which always means a defensive orientation and scoring by committee. It would make more sense to reinforce this by adding a quality defenceman than deviate from it by adding a middling forward. I haven't followed Reghyr's development closely this season, so I'll defer to Habs29retired's scouting report. The point is that THAT's the type of player I'd like us to acquire. Easier said than done, natch. I wouldn't be too keen to panic based on this December. Slumps DO happen. Nevertheless, the absence of Markov is not a variable you can just assume away with coaching or system, and that's the area we'll need to address.

Good reply, BTH. It has to be taken on a case-by-case basis. E.g., -Trading Ribeiro was a huge mistake, granted; in fact, only last season did we finally reach a point where we had fully recovered from throwing away the 2nd-line C we desperately needed. Sh*t happens, unfortunately. -OB was outplayed by the younger Picard and had a track record with us of NOT siezing opportunities - what is so hard to understand about that? -All indications are that Latendresse basically gave up on Montreal after the Great Purge of 2008. Contrary to popular belief, JM gave him time on the top lines and he did nothing with it. When a player wants out, what can you do? And note that the jury is still out on whether he or Pouliot are better players; Fats showed up to camp in Minny out of shape and that contributed to his injuries this season. This is not exactly overpowering evidence that we traded away a quality player. -Sergei, not a team player. Period. He had hot streaks with us too. I'm not worried. It won't last. -One you didn't mention is Grabovski, whose game I liked. But when you look it at, who would you rather have - Grabovski/Plekanec or Gomez/Plekanec? At some point, you have to decide if there is room for an NHL-worthy youngtser on your team. If there isn't, you move them. When that player is an asshole Like Grabs, it makes the choice easy. Every indicator is that Rebuild 2.0 is doing MUCH better at developing young players than Rebuild 1.0 did. I believe that Gainey completely blew up the coaching staffs at both levels with the aim of achieving exactly this outcome. The REAL issue here is that some fans want the Habs did win every single trade they make and obssess over the ones they lose. Fair enough, but it's a distortion. The only real howler here is Ribeiro.

With Markov healthy, our D is among the best in the league. With him out, it's workmanlike: solid but beatable. There's a lot of confidence around here, from myself too, but I still think that injury was a very significant blow, and any yelping about the Habs' inadequacies needs to take it into consideration.

I respect BTH's opinion a lot, but as some may recall, this is my view as well. All other things being equal - and no further major injuries - I believe that between Pouliot, Patches, and maybe Eller, we can squeak by at forward; but that we will need to add a top-4 defenceman (preferably Regher) in order to have a really convincing shot of reaching the Finals. Part of it has to do with a general philosophy that a good defenceman is always worth more than a good forward (a longstanding conviction of mine). Part of it is that defence wins championships, especially for a team that is constructed like ours. And part of it is the gigantic hole that Markov's injury leaves us with. A Regher could really raise our defence to a dominant level. I like that.

If they're the good team we all think they are, then this trip should be no cause for great concern. Then again things have been only so-so lately. I predict a .500 trip, maybe slightly better.

OK, I'll buy that. What I don't buy is that we were in any way outmuscled or intimidated last night.

We didn't need a goon last night. The fact is - and this may be part of what was disturbing Milbury and Stock - the Habs were the more physical team. These guys showed ZERO signs of being pushed around, and with guys like PK and Pacioretty taking a regular shift the team suddenly looks decidedly bigger. A lot of the mewling about the 'dirty' Habs may be a combination of 1. whining about big-mouth irritants like Lapierre and Subban who annoy but don't drop the mitts (but - news flash - being annoying and not fighting is NOT the same thing as being 'dirty'); 2. confused shock at being outmuscled by a supposed team of 'smurfs' (in fact, we're not that small); 3. excuse-making for the fact that Habs are a damned strong team. Of course, I also don't rule out 4, that we can do the chippy stuff with the best of 'em I recall some reporter quoting an opponent as saying that if he's always hacked up after facing Pleks. This sort of argument, especially as it relates to the Prunes, goes way back. Guys like Carbo and Chelios yapped and sliced guys up and tended not to drop the gloves. Now those guys are considered legends. Our boys are in good company as far as I'm concerned.

Well, I think it's an open question. But I'll admit that I'm going out on a limb, and some people may be agitated by what I'm about to say. The key word in my post was 'subliminal.' I don't mean that Subban's critics are consciously manifesting racism; in fact I'm sure they're basically decent men who would be appalled at any overt act of racism. But the fact is that the attack on Subban is unfolding against a cultural backdrop in which those kinds of claims have all too often been levelled against successful black people. The sad reality is that North American culture has long been marked by much broader and deeply-rooted fears of both the 'uppity' Black Man who 'doesn't know his place' and the insolently 'threatening' Black Man who must be contained or jailed. Attacking Subban for being uppity and insolent starts to look slightly suspicious when placed in that wider context. It doesn't help that the NHL has had exactly ZERO all-star players who look like PK. The novelty of his 'racial' - academics would say 'racialized' - identity means that he is likely to be an especially potent trigger for those underlying, half-subconscious fears among whitebread commentators and observers. In short, I don't think we can let them off the hook so easily.

100%, with certain qualifiers. E.g., if a 240-pounder totally destroys Wayne Gretzky, even cleanly, he is likely to face retaliation. And I think that's rather reasonable given that player's importance to the team and to the game, and the nature of his style as a player. But what has happened is that a pretty specific and limited part of the code - 'that if you crush a small, skilled, and key player you are liable to face reprisal' - has somehow been expanded out into the idea that ANY crushing hit has to be met with angry denunciations and fist fights. The double standards around Subban centre mainly on his wearing a Habs rather than a Leafs jersey (how often did the CBC condemn Darcy Tucker for his numerous attempt-to-injure and his ignorant chattering?) - but given the way this narrative has taken off, I really am beginning to wonder whether a subliminal racism is in fact at work here. I hate to say it. But if PK were white I really doubt the indignation over his mouthiness would be as intense. Shame on these arseholes.

I watched the RDS feed, and scanning this thread I am floored to find the CBC slagging Subban for ANY aspect of his behaviour relating to that absolutely spectacular hit. That was one of the best bodychecks of the season, from any team: clean as a whistle and just devastating. Some of these NHL commentators have simply lost the plot. The kid has a big mouth, so he MUST drop the gloves after making a clean hockey play? He shouldn't let the Prunes take a pointless penalty? What the f*ck??? I hope the veterans took PK aside and told him to keep playing EXACTLY like that. The discovery that PK can crush people will really build his mystique and will also start to make people think twice about crossing the blueline with him back there. This kid has it in him to do it all, if he can just keep his head on straight and not get distracted by all the petty losers who don't want star rookies to be entertaining. Great, character win by Les Boys. Watching this, it occured to me that I like this team a lot. Probably the best combination of talent, guts, goaltending and team concept since 1994. :hlogo:

Well, not sure I share this Zen-like detachment...but it's hard to argue with the logic. I guess the key is to care passionately about the outcome (which is the fun part of being a fan) while resisting the attendant trap to draw wider conclusions about the team's prospects from that one game.

Ah, memories. Obviously I agree with you on Koivu. Fun stuff right here: Points to note: 1. Huet came up huge in the second half of the game. 2. Gomez, playing for the other guys, nearly spoiled everything. Lucky his shooting was just as bad then as it is now! 3. What a killer move Koivu puts on Lundvquist in the shootout. :hlogo: :hlogo: :hlogo:

Yeah - this is a game we should expect to lose, especially considering our walking wounded. (That Gomer and Spacek are dressed doesn't mean they're anywhere near 100%). Philly is a team basically constructed to beat us. Unfortunately, this game follows on the heels of two losses (one good, one bad) and so a loss tonight will really compound a narrative of doom and gloom around the Habs. Get ready for lots of bitter commentaries, attacks on Martin, fuliminations on how we're 'really a bubble team,' etc., etc.. The task for the Habs will likely be to ignore all of that crap, put their heads down and play their game like they can -which, I suspect, they will. Like you, I believe in the system.

My own view is that, if the Habs want to be true contenders this season without Markov, they will have to add a top-4 defenceman somewhere between now and the deadline. I agree with CoRvInA to that extent.

Wellllll...I *did* point out that Higgins flourished artificially from being placed as Koivu's winger... I always found it interesting that the first thing Gainey did when he took over from Julien as coach was put Komisarek with Markov and Higgins with Koivu. Clearly, there was little doubt in Gainey's mind as to the capacity of Msrs. Markov and Koivu to make their linemates better. Ironically, though, those moves - while beneficial at the time - ultimately inflated expectations (and contract demands) for those players and contributed to the outcomes we're now discussing. Wamsley was bang-on about Komisarek at the time. I confess to wavering on the question of the Komisarek contract, but in the end I did want us to re-sign him at, say, $4.5 mil. My bad! And Wamsley is also correct that contracts and the related expectations have a deleterious effect on players' careers. But I'm sure their extra, unwarranted millions help them to sleep at night.