The Chicoutimi Cucumber

Obviously you're correct in purely rational terms. Numbers have no inherent value. We could also change the red line to paisley and make the refs dress in mascot outfits. What I'm suggesting is that if you have a sense of the history and traditions of the game, your preference will be for continuity with the practices that characterized that history, unless there's a good reason to change them. A great many of the things we do are 'arbitrary' in purely rational terms - we do them because that's our tradition, how we do things. And we come to value them for precisely that reason. Having said that, it's obviously not an issue to go ballistic over one way or the other. It doesn't cut to the heart of the game in the way that, say, shootouts do for some people. Like I said before, it's more a matter of seemliness. It behooves the Habs in particular to be faithful to the traditions and mystique of the game, as they are its ultimate expression. Let the Nashvilles have the gaudy jerseys and the novelty acts. The Habs should always be old school. :hlogo:

This IS a good read from one of the best Habs-related sites in existence. And saskhab, thanks for the awesome list! bar, the issue is simply tradition. In the old days teams almost always allocated numbers starting from 1 and moving upwards. Since there's only 20-odd players on a team, in followed that numbers over 30 were rare and typically reserved for guys trying to make the cut. This is why you find very few of our retired jerseys with big numbers on the back. Instead we have #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #7, #10, on up to #33. Then it stops (until #99, the universal Gretzky jersey-retirement). Historically, players just didn't wear these inflated numbers. So to people like me, who tend to enjoy hockey traditions and be irked when they are arbitrarily discarded, the proliferation of high jersey numbers might be OK for junky franchises like Vancouver or Florida...but it's unseemly for a team that has the greatest heritage of them all. I agree with everything this article says - including the principle that superstars might be the exception to the 'low jersey number' rule. I never begrudged Gretzky his #99 (especially since it showed such a keen sense of tradition, given that #9 is the most mythic number in all of hockey). Mario's 66 was a clever inversion of Gretzky's 99. Jagr's 68 was a play off Mario's 66. And so on. Fun stuff. But the Habs are in a super-starless era, so it's a moot point. With #6 awarded to Spacek, I'd like to see PK grab #8. :hlogo: And I'm a little surprised nobody's jumped on #22, given its distinguished associations (Steve Shutt).

No, that number describes his expected points totals for this year.

No kidding. Frank Mahovlich! There ought to be a ban on numbers over 35 for regular roster players. Of course, with so many Habs' numbers retired that might take us into negative integers For time-wasting trivia before the season starts, dig this investigation into the history of the #27 in NHL and Habs history: http://www.hockey-reference.com/friv/numbers.cgi?number=27 Does anyone with even more time on their hands have it in them to create a list of all available Habs' numbers that are NOT football numbers - i.e., numbers under, say, 38?

I think I want these words inscribed on my tombstone.

Bettman is such a soulless pr*ck, he'd probably prefer Arby's.

Hilarious. The team is a Stanley Cup semi-finalist and yet the fans are in an indigant, fatalistic rage before the season even starts Right-handed shot, good faceoff man, veteran leadership for the bottom-6, some possible offensive upside if used on the powerplay, cheap - this the sort of move you'd expect from Gauthier's track record, a small step but one that improves the team. And I could not agree more with Easy Ryder: this signing saves us pssing away a draft pick at the deadline. Good, responsible GMing.

dlbar, you've jogged my memory. Johnson was hailed for his shot-blocking prowess in Vancouver but was basically labouring with injuries his whole time there, which is why he was such a marginal factor. The issue with him is clearly age + injuries. He looks OK on paper but my guess is he's too broken-down and old to be fully effective - certainly that's what his Canucks dossier suggests.

Yeah, I love how players who hardly have any playoff experience get labelled 'playoff busts' if they struggle a bit. I remember they used to say this about Pavel Datsyuk. Kovalchuk only had one playoff on an actual hockey team, as opposed to a piece-of-crap franchise of third-raters, and in that one playoff he registered more than a point per game. I wouldn't bet against him to deliver the goods. The real issue with the Devils, to me, is how Brodeur will react to the new, supposedly more offensively-minded regime. I'm pretty sure the Devils will be fine, an elite team yet again - but there's a small amount of potential there for internal ruptures and a major step backward from the guy in nets.

A nothing player, really - unless he's good on faceoffs. That I live in Vancouver and pay some attention to the Canucks, and yet my mental file on Johnson is practically empty, may give you a clue as to the sort of impact he's likely to make. Or maybe I just didn't pay enough attention. I still think we should be looking instead at someone with offensive upside to potentially help bail out the top-6 when Kostitsyn gets hurt/craps out/slumps and when and if Pouliot struggles: a Mike Comrie type of player - super cheap, a bit of a wild card, but with some potential top-6 tools. But Gauthier isn't the type for such moves, I suppose. You could also argue that we should be hoarding cap space in order to bolster the PP by signing a MA Bergeron type, in the event that we are gravely wounded by our lack of left-shooting cannon from the point, as per JT's latest post: http://habsloyalist.blogspot.com/2010/09/special-teams.html And BTH will no doubt observe that if Gauthier is concerned about our lack of veteran experience on the bottom-6, he should have saved some trouble and re-signed Moore

This is one issue I can't get too excited about. The main thing is to avoid making two mistakes that hurt us in the past: 1. Allowing the locker room to become divided between two camps for the captaincy. (Remember the Carbo vs. Chelios days? And apparently there was a bit of a Corson vs. Koivu division in the mid-90s). Last season we had a bit of a rift between Gomez ('let's play up-tempo rushing hockey') and Gill ('let's play stay-at-home conservative hockey'). If this rift still exists, the eventual choice of captain could have ramifications for it. 2. Not pulling the old Ronald Corey move of choosing a captain based on PR rather than actual leadership (Turgeon). While I'm sure Cammy has leadership qualities, there might be slight grounds for concern if he becomes the choice - that the team is going with stylish media relations over true in-the-room leadership. And while we're at it, here are two questions to ponder: 1. Do we HAVE to have a captain? Is it totally inconceivable that we could simply go with a rotating captaincy or else the 'triple-A' model? 2. What will be the method for choosing a captain if we do need one? The tradition has been a player vote. has it been confirmed that Martin will be making the choice?

I agree that parity is here in a big way. However, speaking realistically, Washington, Pittsburgh, New Jersey and Boston have to be considered 'locks' to make the dance. Philly should also be a lock, with only the possibility of horrible goaltending and perhaps collective fatigue from last season's playoff raising a question mark. And I suppose it is possible that NJ could take a lurch backwards despite Kovalchuk, given Brodeur's ongoing decline and an apparent organizational shift toward a more open style. So I'd put Boston, Washington and Pittsburgh in the 'guaranteed playoff team' category and the other two in the '95% guaranteed' category. The rest of the conference is more or less an even toss except perhaps for Florida, TO, the Islanders, and Atlanta. So yes, parity, but on three levels really: 4-5 locks to make the playoffs, 5-6 teams that are good enough in principle to make the playoffs, and 3-4 teams that would need a miracle season to make the playoffs. The Habs are in the upper segment of the second group IMHO. If the young guys deliver, they will enter the first group.

I think we can all see the weaknesses on our team. Other posters have identified them accurately. However, I feel it's ALWAYS a mistake to start panicking about what other teams are doing or have done. Every single year I read posts about how 'the other teams have gotten better and the Habs haven't.' And every single year the Habs make the playoffs while one or more of these 'improved' teams doesn't. While it's true that the Habs are not a top team, it's also past time that Habs fans stopped griping about us being a 'bubble' team and recognized that our team reliably makes the playoffs. In six seasons since 2002-03 we have made the playoffs five times, getting out of the first round three times. In today's NHL that is an impressive track record; significantly better than, say, the supposedly admirable Vancouver Canucks. And more recent years have seen a marked uptick in performance. Over the last three seasons, we finished first in the conference once (08), were universally hailed as a contender but then fell apart (09), and then went to the semi-finals (10). While the past is hardly an automatic predictor of the future, fans need to start shedding this 'loser' mentality. The Montreal Canadiens have actually been a pretty successful organization over the last six or seven years. I have considerable faith in Subban and IF Hammer and Spacek don't regress too much due to age, our D actually looks pretty good. The team will have much-improved chemistry so we can expect substantial improvement from within. Pleks, Gomez, Gionta, and Cammy are top-6 players on ANY team in the league. The X-factor is the young players, including Price. If they play well, we will be more than a bubble team. If they don't, it'll be like last season. Like I said, I'd feel better if we had one more player who has a track record of being able serve at least temporarily on the top 6 (Guerin). But hand-wringing anxiety over whether a semi-finalist will make the playoffs seems to me unduly pessimistic. :hlogo:

I've made the case for a Bill Guerin or equivalent in order to enhance our capacity to ice two respectable scoring lines over the course of a full season, on the assumption that neither Pouliot not Kostitsyn can be relied upon to deliver that. And I still believe that we will need to enter the playoffs with such a player if we wish to really be dangerous. Having said that, I think that Gauthier will go into the season with this lineup and tinker later. $2 mil is a nice cushion if a trade possibility opens up (you don't just have to trade contracts, you can take on a little more; e.g., Kostisyn for someone more expensive), or to add that missing ingredient later on. He likely will use it before the deadline.

What I particularly like, besides the fact that the deal is fair all around, is that Gauthier has a little wiggle-room to add a Guerin-type if he wants.

Hee hee: http://blogues.cyberpresse.ca/gagnon/2010/...ore-en-renfort/ I have to admit, IF Price does indeed turn out to be playing hardball and making unreasonable demands, which is far from clear, I rather savour the idea of letting him rot at the rodeo and bringing back José Theodore on the cheap. Not only would it mark a satisfying closure to the unhappy saga of Theo and Montreal, but José (who I always liked) would be doubly motivated to excel and, inspired, could probably do a serviceable job for us. Fun stuff.

It's part of a wider syndrome. I could understand the quasi-hysteria over losing Kovalev because Kovy was a legitimately charismatic and stylish player who did have some sort of authentic emotional bond with Montreal. Nonetheless, the spectacle of Montreal Canadiens fans getting worked up into knots over the loss of a 34-year-old over-the-hill headcase who never came close to helping us win anything was a clear sign of the decline of Habs' fans standards over the years. (Doubly surreal was the comparative indifference to the loss of Saku Koivu, who in contrast to Kovalev was a true Canadiens hero even if he also never led us to any meaningful victories). Now we're seeing the loss of Halak treated as some epochal catastrophe comparable to the trading of Roy or the premature retirement of Lafleur, and a player with a charisma quotient of about zero turned into yet another martyr to the evil/incompetent Habs management. Years of mediocrity coupled with a bloated media/blogosphere desperate for talking points seem to have corrupted beyond repair the hockey judgement and perspective of Montreal fans. Was it a good idea to trade Halak? Personally, I feel the odds are about 60-40 that it was a potentially costly mistake. But it doesn't follow that I have to make a saint out of Halak or a demon out of Price...or, God help me, cheer for the Blues to beat us. Get a grip, habs fans!!!

I have to say that I think this is getting ridiculous. Halak did no more and no less for us than Steve Penney. We're talking about a guy who had ONE great half-season and ONE great playoff, not Guy Lafleur. It goes back to what Wamsley and bar are saying in the other thread...the Habs' fanbase has completely lost the plot.

Well said, good sir.

A reasonable take on it. When you look at how highly Halak is regarded, though - the centrepiece of St Louis's marketing, generally seen as the final piece to a completed resurgence there, picked by The Score magazine as a Vezina candidate, etc. - I'm not entirely convinced that he would have been seen as in the same category as those other guys. He might have kept most of his value. Nonetheless, a fair point.

I wouldn't put too much stock in a single tweet (but that's the media for you nowadays). Nonetheless, if these negotiations drag on much longer then it will be clear that you are absolutely right. Whatever we think of trading Halak in principle, the *rush* to trade him was incomprehensible. I think panic about it remains premature, though - but he'd better be signed by camp. Price can NOT afford anything that could adversely affect his performance and holding out often has a tendency to do that.

Yeah, I thought of that. Part of the problem is that Guerin is a RW - meaning that, unless he can play on the left side as well, or one of our other RW can do that effectively, he doesn't really address our real glaring weakness in the top 6, which is at LW. But if he or one of our other good RW CAN play LW effectively, then I think Guerin would be a very useful addition as a platoon guy for the top-6, spelling off Pouliot or Kostitsyn when one of them hits their inevitable protracted slump. Right now we are basically gambling on either Kosty or Pouliot (preferably both) to morph into reliable top-6ers. We have no other obvious young players who are contenders for a top-6 slot. So it's all well and good to put your faith in young players, but I'm a bit uncomfortable with those odds. If you add a guy like Guerin who can be a credible option in the top-6 for a decent chunk of the season, if not an entire season, you increase the odds of us having two good scoring lines on a regular basis.

Ah, I guess I see the point...but I also fail to see what the big deal is if some games are 'worth' two points divided equally between two teams if they tie, while other games are worth three points allocated to a team that wins. In fact you could argue that this reflects the merits of Chris's system - i.e., it maximizes incentives to WIN instead of tie, because games that are WON are worth more than games that are tied. Getting hung up on the technical question of 'all games being worth the same' seems to be losing the forest for the trees. Chris's system is straightforward, does not reward teams for losing (unlike our current system), avoids silly gimmicks such as 3-on-3 OT or shootouts (unlike our current system), and would generally give a much stronger incentive for teams to gun for a win than the current system does. Sounds like a good outcome to me.

I'm probably thick, but I don't quite get the problem. The way it used to be, before OT, a team got 2 points for a win and 1 point for a tie. Chris suggests that now teams should get 3 points for a win instead of two. I don't understand how that's any different in principle. All games ARE worth the same; they're worth 3 if you win and 1 if you tie and 0 if you lose. The idea is that a tie is worth something, but not as much as a win. What's so unfair about that? Chris's extra point (3 for a win instead of the old 2-point system) is added because teams of the feeling that teams need a stronger incentive to 'go for the win' in order to avoid the tedium of two teams 'playing for the tie.' You'd still have occasions where both teams are playing for a tie, but not nearly as often as under the old, pre-OT system. The reason the idiotic NHL didn't go for Chris's idea instead of introducing OT in the first place, was the feeling that awarding 3 points would destroy the record books, since a team with a mere 50 wins would now have 150 points. But this is a false problem. First, the steady bloating of the number of regular season games has already distorted team win records, as when Detroit beat out the 1978 Habs' record for regular season points a few years back while playing several more games. Second, you can just put an asterisk in the record books, indicating that a different system was adopted. The NHL should have implemented Chris's plan long ago instead of embarking upon a process of continual fandangling with the rules in order to get around ties. And yes, THE INSTIGATOR RULE SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ADOPTED and is one of the dumbest rules in memory. A great example of which you should be conservative in your approach to rules changes. But that's another story.

Bill Guerin as a candidate for a cheap guy with a plausible claim to being able to do some time on the top 6? http://aa.habsaddict.com/2010/08/one-minor-change.html I think Guerin might be a good move if he can fit under the cap. Even if he gives us only 20 games of top-6-calibre performance, that's 20 more games than we'd have otherwise. Could be a useful acquisition - ?