The Chicoutimi Cucumber

Oh dear. Maybe he's the best possible candidate...but it sounds suspiciously like the Habs have become the Montreal Nepotisms.

A sage move by the CBC. I think that in the TSN/internet era there has been, not so much an expansion of hockey's fan base, as an intensification of the interest-level of the existing base. In other words, a good portion of fans have become much more hard core than they used to be. We see this all the time, what with sports call-in shows being consumed with hockey even in the middle of summer, vastly expanded interest in the draft and off-season moves, the proliferation of blogs dissecting minutae, etc.. Back in the day, people followed ONLY the pro team and ONLY in the winter. Now it's a year-long obsession. If I'm right, this means that there is a significantly untapped level of interest in AHL hockey, as these hard-core fans seek information and exposure to team prospects and to track what various acquisitions are doing. I think TSN would be wise to follow suit and introduce some carefully-calculated 'AHL' coverage of select NHL farm teams. (Probably the Leafs, Habs and Canucks, in that order). The key will be for coverage of any given team to be reliable and regular enough that fans can follow the storylines for the team in question; the tentative model the CBC is proposing wouldn't succeed in the longer term. But if we could have some assurance of being able to follow the Dogs on a fairly reliable basis, there would be interest. I would be amazed if the ratings aren't better for something like that than they'd be for darts or NASCAR or whatever else they use as filler on non-hockey nights. They could end up creating/discovering a nice adjunct market supplementing the core NHL audience.

You make a good case. In fact I think we're actually saying the same thing, just with a different tone. We agree that OB needs to step up and establish himself - I'm just leery of the fanbase being unduly intolerant of the inevitable ups and downs on his part. Remember, he's been one of the designated fan whipping boys in the past, which (incidentally) I seriously doubt has helped his development. We do need to see an overall narrative of progress on his part this season, without getting too worked up if he struggles in game X or Y or even for stretches of the season. Unfortunately his salary, his non-francophone ethnicity and his 'lost season' two years ago practically guarantee that he will be singled out for systematic public humiliation the minute he does begin to struggle. And that's too bad. The most likely scenario, I'd speculate, is an up-and-down season followed by his departure from the Habs and likely solidification as a serviceable #5-6 defenceman in some more tolerant city...to be followed by attacks on Habs' management for 'letting this punishing physical defenceman get away.'

Well, on paper the Flyers were contenders from Day One. That's why they got respect and we didn't. I think the Habs' position players are getting a bit more respect in general media coverage nowadays - Cammalleri in particular is being regarded as something approaching a star (as he should) - but dealing away Halak cost the organization a lot of credibility among the talking heads, so it's more or less a wash. I try not to worry about it. Ever since 2008, when the Habs were universally predicted by 'experts' to be useless and then went on to finish first in the conference, and then 2009, when they were universally praised by 'experts' as contenders and proceeded to lay a steaming turd, I could give a rat's ass what the 'experts' think.

Defencemen, especially huge defencemen, take a good while to develop. The goal for OB this season is to do what he looked to be on the verge of doing last season before his injury, i.e., becoming a guaranteed regular and establishing himself as a solid bottom-pairing D-man who can reliably rub guys out. I agree that he absolutely cannot afford any regression, but he'll still have ups and downs and patience would still be my watchword with a guy with his size. We could really use a properly-developed Ryan O'Byrne back there if you ask me, and I'd hope that the fans will not get all 'now or never!!' on his ass (but they will, unless their hatred of Price distracts them for a while).

The fun thing about Gill is precisely that his skills are SO limited, yet he manages to do a number of useful things through sheer wing-span and bulk. He's sort of this gargantuan galoot on the blueline. That tickles me. His leadership is also uncontestable. Having said that, no question that he's something of a specialist that needs to be used correctly. And it's true that we should be grooming OB to replace him (his contract's up next year, right?). Enjoy Gill for what he is, then look to the future.

I liked Gill all last season, not just in the playoffs, and continue to do so.

Wamsley's post was very interesting; I hadn't considered the parallel either. On reflection, I'm not sure the parallel is exact. The 2007 team did not have anything approaching the quality veteran core this team has, in my opinion. This bunch is starting from a higher plateau than the 2007 group. But the analogy holds inasmuch as we need a push from the young players if we are to vault to another level and become an unambiguous top-10 team. There's one other thing to keep in mind that I don't think gets discussed enough. Whatever else happens, we have quite an exciting and dynamic group of players in the guys you list - Cammy is the best offensive forward the Habs have had since Koivu blew out his MCL, if you discount Kovy's one all-star season - supplemented by highly likeable support players such as Gorges and Gill. I can understand fans being nervous about the team's chances, but ever since the Gainey Explosion of last summer I have not been able to understand fans who do not just plain LIKE this team. There are plenty of squads out there with a lot less charisma.

BTH is quite right. Based on clutch performance, Halak should definitely be paid more than Price at this specific juncture. (I continue to believe it's folly to lock Price up for substantial money when so far he has done exactly jack sh*t beyond being a passable NHL starter, but that's another story).

I dunno. While I always hesitate to expect too much of rookies, I do tend to that think Subban will be a major addition, potentially making a significant difference at both ends of the ice. So unless Spacek and Hammer suffer huge regression due to age, our D will by definition be significantly better. At forward, we're still shy a top-6 forward, as BTH sagely points out, but it's not clear that we're any worse than we were last year up front. Indeed, depending on the progress of young guys like Lapierre, Eller, Boyd, Pacioretty, and Pouliot, as well as A. Kostitsyn, we could conceivably even be better. Remember that in fact we only had four top-6 players for much of last season, with Pouliot a late arrival who then suffered a collapse down the stretch and Andrei doing his patented Kovalev-on-valium routine. If one player can step forward, that'd make a difference. The team bonded in playoff fire and should have a major edge in internal cohesion and buy in, relative to last season. Conversely, we have perhaps less experience on the bottom 6 (no Metro or Moore). Barring ridiculous injuries, IF Price consistently plays like Jeckyll instead of Hyde, I cautiously think we have a better team than last season. That's a big if.

Yeah, I'm not an uncritical Price booster, but he has been the most singular victim of this wider tendency of Habs' fans to drool over unproven prospects while devaluing the players actually on the team. It's ridiculous. As for Boucher, who knows? You make a good point about him not dressing Desjardins down the stretch. He may see Desjardins as a good 'organization' guy, someone who can serve a useful role at the AHL level and maybe have some starts in the NHL eventually - like Curtis Sanford. Or he may see Desjardins as potentially more than that. But canny fans have already noted Yzerman's press release, which clearly pegs Desjardins as an AHL man for the forseeable future. What's probably really going is that Tampa has turned over senior management and Yzerman doesn't yet have the pro scouting staff in place that he wants, or else the Tampa people are still getting up to speed. Therefore they are relying on whatever information they do have - e.g., Boucher's opinions and recommendations. In other words, the sudden Tampa preference for Habs-related people may be a symptom of a limited information pool available to Yzerman at this stage of his reconstruction of the organization. It's not that Boucher is telling him that player X is so great, it's that he has a better BOOK on player X because of Boucher than he would have of players from somewhere else. I seem to remember Gainey doing a couple of deals with Dallas early on...and even that idiot Houle, when called upon to trade Roy, reached for the Big Book of Québécois Received Scouting Opinions that had pegged Thibault as a future star. GMs new to the job tend to rely on shortcuts because they don't have the proper infrastructure in place.

Ya gotta love a fan base that anoints Cendrick Desjardins some sort of elite young prospect but sh*ts all over Carey Price who is TWO YEARS YOUNGER. That's Habs fans - the bird in the bush is always the bird of paradise, the bird in the hand is always a turd.

Whatever, the wider point stands. Not every goalie translates NHL season success into particularly impressive playoff performance and Price may be one of those guys.

That's the trouble right there. Do we? No, we don't. He could turn out to be: 1. Exactly the guy he is now. Hot and cold, mid-range NHL goalie. 2. A guy who ultimately crumbles under the Montreal spotlight and is obliterated: c.f. Thibault and Theodore. 3. Marty Turco: An excellent regular-season goalie who fails to step it up in the playoffs. 4. A middling starter who is capable of spectacular performances at key times. (Least likely option in my opinion; this is more likely to be true of Halak than Price IMHO). 5. A dominant all-around NHL goalie. I think (3) and (5) are the most likely scenarios for Price. But all five are solidly within the realm of plausibility. Pleks got the contract he deserved. Yes, we could have signed him at 4 mil after a 39-point season, but it's a strange philosophy that assumes ALL your young players are by definition going to become stars and should therefore be locked up long-term no matter how they actually produce. You can't just assume the best case scenario and plan accordingly.

That's setting the bar pretty low but thanks for all the kind remarks about my little post.

I'm closer to Torontohab than bar on this. Based on play, Price has not earned a long-term deal, nor has he earned a huge paycheck. (I'm not very good at calculating market value, but somewhere in the 3 mil range seems fair. Based on performance there is no WAY he should get Halak money). I can see that argument that we need to lock up young guys while they're still cheap - but there again, I don't think too many guys who have not produced at an elite level, but who believe that they will eventually do so, really are going 'lock up' at cheap rates. The guys who do are guys like Streit who were never expected, or expecting, to become stars. Teams usually lock up players like Mike Richards and Jeff Carter AFTER they have given convincing proof that they will be impact players in the NHL. And of course you have to distinguish bona-fide star potential from freak seasons like Souray's (not to mention that Souray was a narrow PP specialist, which makes calculating his value even thornier). So the principle seems pretty clear to me: if you have demonstrable proof that player X will be a star for years to come, you lock him up at a fair rate. Price has offered little in the way of such proof at the NHL level. Therefore he should be locked up only at a major discount relative to his potential. Otherwise it should be a short-term deal based on his actual performance up to now.

Prime Minister Koivu - the real issue lies in the historical and psychological complexes of Quebec nationalism. For generations French Canadians were a subordinated underclass in their own province, their economy, wealth and upward mobility controlled by English-speakers in general and Montreal's English minority in particular. That's not rhetoric, it's a demonstrable sociological fact that lingered until well into the 1970s. Add that ongoing and grinding day-to-day cultural humiliation with deeper insecurities going back to the conquest of New France by the English and you've got a recipe for an intense concern with personal and collective dignity. Enter the Habs. At some point in the 1940s, with The Rocket leading the way, the Montreal Canadiens become a symbol of French Canadian success. A humiliated people looked to the hockey team as the vehicle for their frustrated aspirations and dreams, both on a personal level ('I may be a subordinate at work pushed around by English bosses, but goddamn it, my hero the Rocket - a 'tis gars, a little guy just like me - he won't be pushed around by anybody!') and a collective level (it's French Canadians who are conquering the world via the Canadiens). This helps to explain the quasi-religious intensity with which the Habs have registered in the collective psyche of French Quebec. They became a compensatory device for the oppression to which that community was subject. The problem is that these issues don't apply any more. They haven't for decades now. Francophone Quebecers are no longer in any way subordinate within Quebec. In fact, they are now in the position of a commanding majority that struggles to come to grips with the necessary restraint required to justly deal with its devastated and dying anglophone minority and cultural minorities rooted in immigration. But the nationalist narrative vis-a-vis the Habs has not died off in some quarters even though the sociological conditions that created it are long gone. Somehow the Habs are STILL supposed to be the vehicle compensating for humiliations and oppressions that no longer exist. A further pathology of this kind of nationalist hangover is that it contributes to a willful blindness about the real problems. For instance, in hockey terms, the real question is less why the Habs don't have francophone stars than why there are so few elite-level hockey players being produced in Quebec these days. But asking that question might require some self-critical analysis. Easier just to blame The English (read, the Habs and their owners). It's at best juvenile and at worst racist. Tremblay is both, I fear. Easy Ryder: no question the Habs should try to scoop up elite talent that comes from their own backyard. That makes good business sense AND good hockey sense. Everybody can agree on that. What's idiotic is attributing the Habs' failures on this score to an intentional effort to 'abuse Quebecers.' This is the emotionally stunted nationalist paranoia that fuels Neanderthals like Tremblay and the knuckle-dragging talk show callers to whom he appeals.

http://www.cyberpresse.ca/chroniqueurs/rej...s-quebecois.php Not sure why I'm moved to post this here; it's on the main page under the 'media links,' and this topic has of course been hashed out before - it's a symptom of my boiling blood, I suppose. To say that the Habs have no respect for the French fact in Quebec and 'abuse Quebecers,' when they have committed to running a permanent affirmative action program for francophone GMs and coaches (unmentioned by this dribbling old hack), is downright enervating. Does Tremblay suppose they are deliberately trying not to have star francophones? They made huge and fortunately unsuccessful plays for Briere and Lecavalier. They drafted Louis Leblanc. They irresponsibly reserve key managerial positions for francophones. They've rejigged their scouting machine in Quebec to be able to draft more Québécois. No dice, this is all window-dressing for Geoff Molson's neo-colonial agenda of consigning the Québécois to the status of wretched of the earth eternally toiling under the crushing burden of a hockey team with too few Quebecers on it. Il sait porter la croix, right? No wait, that's a federalist slogan. And notice the sly ambiguity about who *really* counts. Jacques Martin and Benoit Pouliot are franco-Ontarians, which presumably is why they are unmentioned in this article. The only thing that matters is that Lapierre is the 'last Québécois.' At the same time, Tremblay attacks captaincy candidate Markov for not showing enough interest in learning French, when by his own 'logic' it wouldn't matter if Markov did, because he's not Québécois. Nice rhetorical move; it allows him to attack individual Habs for not learning French while discounting those Habs who do. (Needless to say, merely residing in Quebec doesn't make you Québécois, no matter what language you speak. You need to get your bloodlines checked first). Rejean Tremblay needs a lesson in reasonable accomodation all right - preferably up his arse, which is the primary source for his so-called 'journalism.'

Hmmm. That doesn't sound good. Of course he could be reasoning that if he locks in now, he'll be underpaid over the long term. But if true, this may also mean that he has every intention of becoming a UFA as soon as possible and therefore leaving town. Time will tell, but you'd like to think that the Habs made the decision to move Halak from some kind of informed position vis-a-vis Price's longer-term intentions. I doubt it though.

Not to be a jerk, but did you at least read what I wrote?

Well, bar is wrong to say that a playoff hero is a guy who is 'the sole reason for a vcitory.' Nobody is the sole reason for playoff series victories. Everyone remembers Patrick Roy as a playoff hero, and God knows I worship at the altar of Roy, but he would not have won a damn thing without the incredible play and clutch goals of Kirk Muller, the historic hat trick by Eric Desjardins to even the series in Game 2, the crazy performances by John LeClair and Paul DiPietro. So the fact that (say) Cammy had a monster playoff doesn't mean that Halak wasn't a playoff hero. I am well aware that the Habs played an incredible defensive system; in fact from the very moment it all went down I was posting messages attacking the whole media-fed idea that Halak was single-handedly saving the Habs. The Habs were consciously allowing Washington and Pittsburgh to enjoy massive possession time and take tons of shots, as long as they didn't give up many rebounds or in-close chances. To a degree this was making a virtue of necessity (no way could we have gone toe-to-toe with those teams in terms of shots and puck possession anyway). But it was also clearly the game plan, supported by unbelievable performances from Gill and Gorges in particular. However, apart from the fact that the team was able to play this system because of its confidence that Halak could be counted on to stop 40+ shots from powerhouses night after night, we should remember that the teams of Patrick Roy and Ken Dryden also played highly effective defensive systems. We remember those guys as playoff heroes because they were able to define games and series by being unbeatable at key moments and ultimately frustrating the opposing team into submission. The fact remains that Halak turned in a dominant, series-defining performance in game 6 against Washington and was nearly as effective against the Penguins. This is what makes him a bona fide playoff hero. This gets to the question of his being pulled. To this, my response is 'meh.' A system where the goalie is getting shellacked with massive shots (even if they aren't from in close and from repeated rebounds) is one that almost guarantees occasional blow-outs. More importantly, it's not about whether you were pulled here and there. It's about whether your overall performance was crucial to defining a series. Halak's performance meets this standard for the first two rounds. Off the top of my head, I'd say that Halak's playoff performance ranks behind those of Roy of 86 or 93, Dryden of 71, and Penney of 84, but arguably ahead of most other Habs' goalie playoff performances in the expansion era. It ranks way behind the Roy and Dryden achievements because he only went two rounds. (No question, his play against Philly was middling at best - much like Price's play in three of his four playoff series). Although Steve Penney also only went two rounds, his performance ranks ahead of Halak's because as incredible as Jaro's stats are, Penney's are even more jaw-dropping. I really think that Price's defenders are falling into an argumentative trap here. You can agree that Price is or will be better than Halak; that Halak was playing over his head; that the Habs played well as a team in the playoffs; and that the Habs were right to trade Jaro - all without denying the evidence of your own eyes that Halak turned in two phenomenal rounds and was a massive, defining contributor to two gargantuan series upsets. There is no need to minimize what Halak did in the playoffs in order to defend Price.

Quite possible. But that has nothing to do with the question of whether he was a playoff hero. Which he WAS.

'A .500 playoff goalie' There is no need to deny what Halak accomplished in order to support Price. Halak was THE goalie of the 2010 playoffs. Let's at least have the simple honesty to face up to that fact before moving on. At the same time, yes, Habs fans shouldn't scapegoat Price. It's a terrible thing to do to a human being - rich or not, good player or bad, I don't give a crap: no one deserves to be publicly demonized, humiliated and ripped apart for playing hockey, especially if they're trying their best. What happened to Brisebois was a disgrace and while Price hasn't yet come in for that kind of treatment, this tendency to scapegoat is the least forgivable part of Montreal hockey. It is indecent to scapegoat Price and it is also totally contrary to our own interest as fans. We should cheer him and support this young man down to the end, be it bitter or sweet. At least that way only he, and not we, will be responsible if he fails.

Hee hee...hard to be too resentful of people who have the Oilers or Isles(!) as their second-favourite teams Most people want to see the Nordiques back, but not me. The intensity of that rivalry overwhelmed everything else, to the point where players had their careers ended (Mondu) and the teams had nothing left for playoff runs after beating each other. There *is* one possible advantage to the Habs, namely, that they would no longer have to bear the burden of being the sole hockey representative of French Quebec and therefore might become freer to hire the best qualified person for key jobs (coach, GM) instead of the best qualified bilingual person; but I think it'll actually work in the other direction. The Habs will have to be even more attuned to thier own 'frenchness' lest they lose the PR battle for the hearts and minds of the fans in the province. This is what happened last time, to the team's deteriment (remember Alfie Turcotte?). So thanks but no thanks.

Look: Price played excellent in 2008 against Boston. We had a powerhouse thing going on that year, so to say he 'stole the series' is a significant exaggeration, but he was definitely a strong part of a winning mix. His playoff work since then (basically, two series plus some backup work) has been middling to stink-o. Nothing he has done compares statistically or psychologically to Halak's accomplishment last playoff, as this chart helps to show: http://habsanalytics.files.wordpress.com/2...ens_goalies.jpg Say what you want about the trade, but what I find 'selectionist' is to try to pretend that Price has done anything equivalent to what Halak did for us last playoff. Does that make Halak the better goalie going forward? Not necessarily. All I'm saying is that, given the chance, he proved to be the single biggest factor in a massive playoff run - a classic Montreal Canadiens 'money' playoff netminding performance - something Price has not even approached. And that simple fact that we got rid of the guy who actually did it in favour of the guy who hasn't (yet), has been gnawing at me ever since. Kindly note that this does NOT constitute slagging Price, who I want to see succeed for obvious reasons. My fear that this decision was a case of overthinking things - theory over practice - remains valid. I hope it's proven wrong. Now as for the theme of the thread, I've said my piece. Play well, act like a man not a boy, and hope to hell that Halak doesn't surpass your play by any significant margin. If all three conditions hold, Carey will thrive and Habs fans will love him. If any one of these conditions is not met, then trouble will be a-brewin'.