The Chicoutimi Cucumber

Everything you say here is correct - the same being true of BTH's reply. But here's the thing: how often do teams fleece other teams in return for franchise players? The Leafs did it twice in the 1990s. San Jose did it with Thornton (who, if the Habs had acquired him, would be reviled among Habs fans by now for being a 'playoff bust'). Vancouver arguably did it with Luongo (another player who by now would have been ripped to shreds in Montreal as a 'playoff bust'). Those are about the only examples I can think of since the year 2000. So I don't think that's the appropriate measure of success. Your argument about drafting/player development is MUCH closer to the mark in terms of identifying what's ailed the Habs over the last decade. (In fact, if you have really strong player development, you're much better positioned to swing a deal for the franchise player when he comes on the market, since in a cap era teams will always be looking for high-end young players and picks in return for the franchise player. Then again, if you're sending pack high picks and young players for Iilya Kovalchuk, are you really 'fleecing' the other team? I doubt that fans would think so). In short, forget about 'fleecing' teams for superstars - the real issue with the Habs has been mediocre player development, I think.

Yes, this board does seem to have a higher percentage of sane Habs fans than anywhere else. :hlogo: Thank heavens for that. The National Post ran an article a few days ago on how fans in Canadian markets are killing their teams, using Price as the key example. This raises the question of whether Montreal is unusually bad or just on a continuum with other Canadians cities. Personally, I think Habs fans are in a whole other category of lunacy - the most pathological fan base in hockey by some distance. Anyway, great post, brother.

It's true that the Habs have not scored a trade comparable to the Sundin or Gilmour deals in a long time. The last one might have been the Turgeon/Malakhov for Muller/Schneider trade, and even that one saw us give up a top-2 defenceman in return. I'd rate the Muller-for-Richer deal as comparable in impact to the Gilmour trade - Muller was a key cog in the 1993 Cup run. But really, the last case of us completely fleecing someone was probably the Kordic-for-Courtnall trade. However, the post above does sound suspiciously like special pleading to support your argument. Obviously, Gainey thought he could re-sign Kovalev. And he was right. So that trade was excellent, full stop. Gorges 'looked bad at the time,' maybe, but clearly Gainey and co. saw potential in Gorges and they were proven right. So that trade was excellent, full stop. We should also include Garon for Huet/Bonk on the ledger of good trades in the Gainey era. Now as for Gomez, it's true he has an awful contract, but right now it looks like we won that trade in pure hockey terms, especially when you factor in Pyatt. And there is no way the Rangers would have sent Gomez to the minors. Unlike Redden, he is simply to good a hockey player to make that defensible. And Gomez is NOT the worst contract in hockey; that dubious honour would go to Redden or possibly Huet. The Gomez contract is more like Brian Campbell's contract - a bloated salary paid out someone who is nonetheless quite a good player. Note that I'm not trying to say Gainey was some mastermind at the trade table. The Ribeiro trade is an absolute howler that had ramifications for the franchise for years. (For instance, if we keep Ribs, we maybe don't need to trade for Gomez; etc.). But he also made good trades and there's no need to deny that or rationalize arguments whereby they reframed as somehow 'not really' good trades.

Well, yeah. I wasn't precisely endorsing the idea that they should have traded Price because of fan backlash. It's more the whole pattern of the Gainey era, including Price, whereby young players seem to have been basically left to the tender mercies of the most ridiculous fanbase in North America. You DO have to think about whether you're putting Player X in an almost untenable situation, and I'm not convinced the Habs take that seriously. I don't think this is quite the same thing as 'listening to the fans' - it's more that you might have no choice but to do so in extreme cases. Anyway, I'm still mulling this idea over. Your basic case is certainly strong.

Well said. J.T. captures a distinctive angle on the whole decision to keep Price here: http://habsloyalist.blogspot.com/2010/09/consequences.html Like I said, the Habs HAVE to start factoring in the pathological fan base when making decisions.

Halak had (or has) a lot going for him, but there is no comparison between making a push as a backup and wildly surpassing the low expectations set for you, and having to meet the burden of ridiculous expectations which you are then publicly flogged for not meeting. Halak was never in a pressure situation outside the games themselves. Price, conversely, was expected to be Patrick Roy from Day One and was condemned as a bust after he failed to meet that standard at an age when Roy himself generally didn't meet it. He has been publicly humiliated and scapegoated for going through normal growth pains. Halak NEVER had to face that kind of pressure, of knowing that one weak goal and he will be Public Enemy #1. Come to think of it, Halak has never even been a #1 in five years of pro hockey. He has never had to bear the responsibility of being The Man on an ongoing basis in any city, let alone in Montreal. Instead he's been the underestimated underdog. We will never know how Halak would have fared as #1 in Montreal. One thing I do know - one slump and HE would have become the scapegoat.

That defence cracks me up

I had the same thought. The problem is that at that time, Gainey's credibility was through the roof - he was just starting out as GM and uncritically revered by the Montreal fanbase. So when he spoke, fans listened. No one in the Habs' hockey operation now enjoys that remarkable level of credibility. If Gauthier came out and called the boo-birds 'yellow, jealous people,' as Gainey did, the result would probably be to intensify the booing. It would become both a way of jeering Price AND telling Gauthier to shove it. If Gainey did it, people would ignore it as the words of an irrelevant former GM. So the only candidate for this job is Jean Beliveau. I think they should record a general message from Big Jean saying there's nothing worse for a young player than being booed in his home rink, that 'your canadiens' can't succeed without your support, and urging the fans to cheer on their players as this new season begins. Broadcast it before every game for the first few weeks of the season. Everyone will understand that Price is the real topic of this message. Unless Montreal fans have truly lost their minds, they will shut the f**k up after that, at least for a while. Sadly, I doubt the organization has the creativity and pro-active attitude to do this. They seem to be locked in a mindset that just says 'fans will be fans,' in basic denial of the catastrophic effects that this rabidly insane fan base can have on players. You'd think they'd have learned from the debacle of 2008-09, but I have a feeling they haven't truly absorbed that lesson.

Yes, the fan reaction worries me more than Price's play itself. In a sense, that is the great X-factor that management didn't consider in deciding to keep him over Halak. They made a pure 'hockey'/cap decision, but the fact is that Price may end up in an untenable position created completely by the irrational, hysterical fan-base. What is remarkable is that so many fans are prepared to sacrifice the success of their team in exchange for the gratifications involved in psycho-drama scapegoating. I still don't trust Habs' management to have fully insulated its players against the consequences of living in the loony bin. The really troubling thing here is that Price refused to speak to the media afterwards. This suggests that he was upset by the treatment. And the player interviews also suggest that it bothered them and him. NOT good news for the mental and emotional state of the young man. Worse, this could be just a hint of the nightmare to come once the games start to matter. If the meltdown happens, we could be in for an excruciating season that will make the second half of 2008-09 look like a picnic. Having said that: in terms of on-ice play Price may just be doing what a lot of 'veterans' do, which is use the preseason to warm up and fine-tune without really giving a rat's ass. I repeat: don't worry about his play until the real season starts. The immediate source of worry is the fans.

Didn't see the game, but I've seen enough pre-season games to know that they mean exactly diddly-squat. I'll worry about Price if he falters in the season, not before.

Preseason hockey? Wake me when it's over.

Oh, I was just raising the only possible problem with selecting Gio - not really an issue at all. These photos are interesting. For instance, they constitute conclusive proof that Mike Cammalleri is the world's first living bobblehead: http://www.montrealgazette.com/sports/Gall...4376/story.html as well as providing a great opportunity for a caption contest: http://www.montrealgazette.com/sports/Gall...4376/story.html Martin: Sorry, Guy, no ice-time until you learn to backcheck Lafleur (thought balloon): Maudit face de cochon!

You wound me, good sir :puke: Me, panic? Perish the thought. :hlogo: I'd dredge up my old posts to prove the point, but...meh.

AAAH! We cannot lose BOTH him and Markov. Fortunately it sounds like he'll be back for the start of the season. The more worrisome possibility is that he'll be a step behind due to missing training camp, which isn't good either. I'd curse the luck, but really, this is part of the risk in having an older defence corps. Spacek is injury-prone as well. It's a bit of a ticking timb-bomb back there. Let's hope Subban really is all that, and that OB can step it up a notch.

I will be shocked if it's not Gionta. It just seems obvious. He is locked up long term unlike Gill, Gorges and Markov; brings it every night; top-6 player; exciting player you tend to pull for; no baggage like Gomez; and has the proven maturity, winning heritage and Cup rings, unlike Cammy (whose game I love). It's a no-brainer, really. The only issue with Gio is age. If he loses a step, he may not be a player who can plausibly be deployed in the bottom-6, in which case he will become marginal fast. But that's a minor risk. Time to end the speculation and pull a Jean-Luc Picard: make it so!

I spoke my mind at length about this in the 'What a Bung-hole!' thread a while back. Suffice it to say that the argument is nativist at best and racist at worst. Francophone players and coaches such as Pouliot or Martin are not 'Quebecois' if they were born elsewhere (regardless of whether they live in Quebec). English-speaking players living in Quebec (E.g., Saku Koivu, who did more for Montreal than 99% of these turds will ever do) - immigrants, in other words, albeit immigrants of an unusual type - are also not 'Quebecois' because they're not French-speaking. In short, unless you have both the right bloodlines *and* speak the right language, you are not a 'real' Quebecois. This is just the sports version of Jacques Parizeau's infamous referendum-night speech on 'nous' (meaning francophone Quebecers with ancestral roots in the province) being the voters that really matter, as opposed to 'money and the ethnic vote.' Besides, the team is managed by a francophone Montrealer. I guess Gauthier is what they used to charmingly refer to as a 'n***er king' (i.e., a local lackey of the colonial overlord. They said the same thing about Pierre Trudeau, Jean Chretien - basically anyone who disagreed with their narrow and paranoid vision. After all, all federalists are 'sellouts'). The Molsons stepped up where local francophone money failed to - and Gilette before that *saved* the team despite the complete lack of serious interest from credible Quebecois investors. Yet all this is a 'plot.' It's just ridiculous. The sad part is that there IS a legitimate criticism that the Habs have not done enough to draft and nurture local talent (French or otherwise). What is absolutely ridiculous is feeding this into a preposterous nationalist persecution complex that is about 40 years out of date. GET A LIFE, YOU F**KING JERKS :hlogo:

I'll believe that when I see it, but it certainly sounds promising. :hlogo:

On a related note: one of the problems with Gainey hanging around in the shadows, as he is, is that it likely impedes the Habs' ability to lure back into the fold certain talented people whose throats he slit. Carbo and André Savard top that list - the former having been fired, the latter having been shunted aside to make room for Bob and later driven out by his own frustration at being marginalized. These guys are both French and have impeccable credentials as good hockey men; of necessity the Habs should be aggressively recruiting people with that profile. Could be that Uncle Bob is making that harder. As for Carbo, I'm not saying he was a horrible coach, but given his oft-stated love of coaching, it seems likely he'd have pounced on any credible opportunity that came his way. His record was mixed and he is plainly no coaching 'star' a la Guy Boucher.

You get fired in hockey. If Carbo can never forgive Gainey for making a decision that any other GM would also have made, then that may be an understandable, human response, but it's not a reasonable one. Just as I'd like to see the Habs bring back Andre Savard into the organization, I would like to see Carbo return to the Habs' organization in some capacity (I could see him being groomed for GM some day). But as a coach, there is no indication that he was anything special. He might or might not become something special someday; certainly, his Montreal experience would have given him a lot to draw from in that regard. Like I said, though, the fact that he seems to have been completely overlooked by the other 29 teams since his firing might offer a clue into how his coaching abilities are regarded around the league.

I love how the BRILLIANT coach Carbo, that tactical wizard unjustly fired by evil Bob Gainey, and who was so righteously defended and made into a secular saint by the stupendous hockey minds of the Quebec fans and media, has been so quickly snapped up by other NHL clubs. It just goes to show what a HORRIBLE, franchise-shattering error it was to let him go I remember the 100th anniversay celebration...Gainey stood more or less alone out there, isolated from several old friends whom he had fairly recently fired. At least, that's how I recall it. It seemed a sad sight and a case study in the price that power can exact. Hopefully Bob has healed the breach with Carbo...and Doug Jarvis too.

It should be Price!! Thank you, Mike Gillis. I could be off-base, but I remember reading somewhere that after the disaster of Carbo and Chelios tying in the vote and becoming co-captains, Koivu and Corson were basically in a dead heat. Could be that Habs' management has been burned once too often by doing it democratically. Having said that, I often wonder if management consults with players as they should. For instance, before acquiring a player, in addition to scouting reports and all that, it would make a lot of sense to confidentially ask players on your team what they think of him as a hockey player. That'd be the most direct way to find out whether he's easy to play against, etc.. Does management do this? Beats me. But they should. Not to change the subject. Anyway: too bad about the death of the tradition of players voting for captain, but there might be good reasons for its demise given our history.

Well, you might be overlooking the fact that Muller was done as a top-6 forward by that point. Muller had a weird career in that for the first half of it, he was an elite all-around C. By the time he hit 30, he had for some reason lost a step and mutated into the bottom-6 grinder they knew in Toronto and elsewhere. I agree that Schneider was a lot to give up, but the bottom line is that in that deal we traded a #3 C for a legitimate #1C, and traded a top-2 defenceman for a top-4 defenceman. So I think it was another good trade by Savard. Indeed, when you consider that Savard left us with a team that had Damphousse, a young and superstar-calibre Koivu, and Pierre Turgeon at C - not to mention Roy in nets and a bunch of other good players - you realize what a strong hand he bequeathed his successor. Unofrtunately his successor was a moron and soon dispatched Turgeon in exchange for an older Corson a few years later. ARRRGH. But don't get me started. :hlogo:

Heh...I'd forgotten about that. It certainly humanizes Richer's on-ice erraticism but does nothing to relieve the aggravation of having had to endure Houle's numb-skulled re-acquisition of the guy. Oh well. Water under the bridge. Still...anyone who saw Richer in full, magisterial flight during the 1989-90 season can only shake their heads at what could have been; Wamsley's account of what he could do when he was on is completely right, and I'm only slightly exaggerating when I say 'the next Guy Lafleur.' The happier story is that we turned him into Kirk Muller, who, next to Patrick Roy, was the single biggest reason we won the Cup in 1993. So all the frustration paid off in the end.

I remember the debate around that trade quite well. It seemed especially polarized between anglophones (who opposed the trade of Corson + Gilchrist) and francophones (who of course loved it). I recall one French guy specifically calling up the English sports show and arguing that Damphousse was an elite offensive talent and that those other guys were merely good players, and that when you get a chance to acquire the former, you do it. He turned out to be completely right. A good lesson there. Just as French Canadians tend to overrate francophone players and are maybe too generous toward talented mediocrities like Kovalev, I think English Canadians have a certain cultural tendency to over-value physical/lunch-bucket hockey players, over offensively gifted ones. Some part of us just loves the plumber. But ultimately there's no substitute for sheer talent. Richer was the most infuriating Habs player of my lifetime IMHO. An absolutely sublime talent capable of dominating games and, indeed, entire seasons, he lacked the will and desire to do so, preferring instead to carve out a comfortable little career as a middle-of-the-pack second liner. He could have been Guy Lafleur; he chose to be Martin Ruscinsky. This was frustrating enough on the first go-around, but then to have that idiot Houle trade Lyle Odelein, our only physical defenceman and dressing-room leader, for this bozo - and to have this trade be praised by the dumb-ass French media - was more than I could take. Unsurprisingly, Richer put in a couple of mediocre seasons before being shipped out of town, while Odelein went on to be his usual rock on the blueline for NJ. I remember the French media expressing puzzlement that it should be so. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. If I had to sum it up, I'd say the anglo response to the Damphousse deal illustrates the Anglo pathology of overrating grinders over talent, while the francophone response to the Richer deal exemplifies the francophone pathology of celebrating sheer talent/frenchness over substance. Not that I'm generalizing