The Chicoutimi Cucumber

Yeah, but I don't see trading Subban myself. I'm a mite nervous about the discourse that seems to be emerging around Subban. The RDS guys were slagging him last night for his bad attitude, for taking excessively long shifts, etc. - basically for being a punk. Meanwhile, he has had the predictable sophomore slum so trading him suddenly seems conceivable. I'm getting a faint whiff of the 'Dion Phaneuf' syndrome, where there's a possibility that young stud defenceman eventually gets moved because the team/city/fans are fed up with his maturation process instead of cooly riding it out. PK has a realistic chance to become our Shea Weber; he is close to untouchable to my mind, especially for a guy who could become UFA in a year. Admittedly Getzlaf would be a ferocious return. But deal Subban for him and then you have a hole on the blueline just as big as the hole currently at C. And geez, throwing in Pleks and Kristo? Then you just create a NEW hole at C AND lose a decent prospect to boot. I agree that we should be looking at Anaheim. But be careful what you wish for. Cammalleri should clearly be the centrepiece of any big trade we're looking to make.

Brobin, I think the idea that he will emerge as a top-6 C, while not unrealistic - he was considered a 'blue chip' prospect when we got him and has certainly shown flashes of elite talent - is a pleasant notion and a natural one for fans after the 5-point game last night. We need positives and the hope that Eller might emerge as a quality offensive centreman gives us hope. I think everybody realizes this is not a sure thing. Still, if he doesn't emerge as at least a decent second-line C eventually over the next couple of years, I for one will be disappointed. I never saw him as a 40-point checking centreman myself.

I hear ya, but let's remember how great Gomez looked before his groin injury. There's still two Gomezes - the guy from 2010-11, who is awful, and the guy from every season prior to that, who is a damned good player (albeit still grossly overpaid). I doubt we'll ever see the latter guy again. but still,he's an X-factor.

It's hard to know what Plekanec's problem is these days.

I agree that most so-called analysts don't analyze, they just offer shallow commentary that reflects dominant opinion - which in turn is usually shallow as hell. However, there is a reason for thinking this organization is in shambles, and it has less to do with the on-ice performance than with -the weirdness of firing Pearn and then getting around to firing Martin later -the strong suspicion that the Martin firing was driven by ownership interference -the total bungling of the language issue, especially Molson's idiotic declaration that Cunneyworth was basically a lame duck - another case of detrimental ownership interference -the inability of the firing to have any effect on the losing -the acquisition of Kaberle, a good deal in my books, but one that 'dominant opinion' (see above) frames as incompetent -the signing of Markov to a three-year, high-dollar deal -the basic unlikeability of Gauthier 'A franchise in shambles' is shorthand for all this. You're correct about our underlying strengths, though. If we can build on those instead of blowing them up, we'll be fine going forward.

I love this comment. It gives me hope!

Yeah, unlike that paragon of respect, CBC's beloved Brad Marchand. I don't want to make too much of this, but it's mildly interesting that the Habs have managed to deliver two blowouts in their last four games. It's slightly hard to imagine that happening under Martin; but is it a hopeful sign of a team about to take a step forward, or just an aberration against teams caught napping in the mid-season doldrums? The way this year's gone, my dough is on the latter.

Another game thread, another impending loss - caused by a third-period collapse to boot, no doubt. Orr, why the hell not.

I'm with Commandant. This team is much better than it has shown. So the plan should be to trade away Kostitsyn if he does not want to sign, and various spare parts and veterans whose value to us in, say, two years will be minimal to nonexistent (Gill, Campoli, Weber, maybe Moen). Of the current 'core' the only ones I'd be actively interested in moving would be Gomez, Kosty and perhaps Cammalleri - the first for obvious reasons, the second because he's a UFA and the latter because he effectively betrayed the organization by quitting on Martin. With a guy like Gio, I listen to offers, but plan on keeping him. You retool with youth acquired in the moderate sell-off, sign new players to fill vacancies, and try to be good next season with an eye to being great thereafter. There is no grounds for a scorched-earth policy.

Young defencemen generally take 4-5 years to become fully formed. This is why any expectation that any of these junior d-men are going to be key cogs in a Cup run in the short to medium term is probably delusional...and why we need to be careful about dumping Kaberle if we want to compete over the next 2-3 years.

Yeah, 'experience' as a GM, certainly, can be overrated. Mike Gillis has done a great job with the Canuckleheads and he was just a player agent before he got that job. Serge Savard was 'just' a player before he was tapped to be GM and did fine work for us in that capacity. Still, I think some experience in management in some capacity has to be preferred given the complexities of the modern NHL. The Serge Savard case is instructive in another way. He was a guy who had always stood apart as a natural leader and authority figure, an impeccable managerial type: nicknamed 'the Senator' he was obvious corner-office material almost from the get-go. The same is true of Gainey and Yzerman. Sakic'd be another, I'd speculate. Certain individuals just seem to have the right kind of 'hockey mind' and personal qualities that make you think they could run an organization effectively. It's hard to know for sure from the outside, of course, but all of the aforementioned cases really do seem glaringly obvious. Damphousse may be one of those, but I personally have never seen this. Carbonneau, on the other hand, was a leader everywhere he went and easily one of the smartest on-ice players of his generation. He was brought along as Gainey's successor both in management and behind the bench before the sad rupture of 2009. In short, he seems to be cut from the same cloth as the Savards, Gaineys and Yzermans, which is why I can see him as a plausible GM. Note that NONE of these guys are hotheads and loudmouths. I don't want J. Jonah Jameson running the Montreal Canadiens, and I am leery of both Patrick Roy and Pierre MacGuire for this reason. The Habs, of all teams, need a calm hand at the rudder - someone who can rise above the hysteria and panic that infects everything surrounding this organization, rather than contribute to it. I don't see Roy or MacGuire doing so. (In fairness, MacGuire's hothead image may be sheer showbiz rather than indicative of his true personality. But we should be careful about his backseat driving. Yes, he wanted to deal Souray, but he proposed that we take Steve Bernier back - which is as good as getting nothing back. He also despised the Carey Price pick. Ultimately he is no wiser than the rest and remember, he wasn't rated good enough for the St. Louis job either).

In my mind, I've begun to purge Markov from the Habs' future. I hope this is a mistake on my part. But I fear it's not.

Andre Savard was a good GM and I see no reason why he wouldn't do a good job. Note that he also has substantial coaching credentials and ought to be mentioned a lot more than he is as a possible Cunneyworth replacement. Guy Carbonneau was a questionable coach and hiring him would be a gambling that he learned a lot from his first go-around. Myself, I'm surprised nobody mentions Carbo for GM. I have the feeling he remains a good hockey mind, even if he wasn't a huge coaching success. I don't understand the Damphousse reference. What is the basis for claiming he possesses 'tremendous knowledge?' The guy has never run anything in his life as far as I can see. And we do NOT need a GM with 'personality.' We need a GM who can build a winner. Sounds to me like Willey is completely imprisoned by media images rather than substance.

There are two differnent situations when it comes to talking UFAs. First, there is Montreal before the Gainey years had settled in and the team had established itself as a competitive club and one of the most exciting cities to be in when things were going well. That's the team that had zero luck with higher-end UFAs, that Smyth reportedly rejected because he wanted to play on a 'winner.' All players could see was a dismal record and good players like Brisebois getting publicly humiliated night after night. Then there's the Montreal of about 2008 and after. That Montreal has had no problem attracting free agents. Players are heavily influenced, I believe, by their general (and not particularly expert) impression of an organization. They look at Montreal now, they see a team that's been well-run and always makes the playoffs. Obviously this season damages that image, but it's likely to be taken as an aberration provided signs of managerial disarray are kept to a minimum. Nevertheless, when you're competing in the UFA pool you do have to pay out, because you have to outbid all comers. In Montreal's case, we have to pay still more because of the tax situation. Somewhat arbitrarily I automatically deduct $500 000 from most contracts to compensate for the tax. The combination of signing UFAs + the tax factor means that most of our UFA contracts are going to have a whiff of overpayment about them. We have a number of contracts on the bloated side because of Gainey's decision to rebuild via the UFA market. Unlike some, I don't freak out about it. A lot of fans are cap obsessives. They appear to think cap space wins. They complain that Hammer was overpaid and blinding themselves to his invaluable contributions over four years, attack the Cole contract because it'll probably look bad in Year Four, as though that outweighs his obvious merits in the interim, freak out about paying a 50-point defenceman $4 mil, etc.. Of course a contract like Gomez's is indefensible, but the rest are within the bounds of reason in my books.

Well, I agree with most of this. I've complained myself about the way Gauthier seems to want to rebuild the 4th line every season, with the result that every season we have a running problem with our 4th line. It's ridiculous. On the broader question of locking guys up willy-nilly, I see the merits in your approach, but also the dangers. Looking back, I think the Habs may have been uncertain about just what they had in Gainey Rebuild 1.0. Was Komisarek really a premier shutdown D-man, or a 5th defenceman who looked great mainly because of Markov? Was Higgins a future 40-40 man, or an injury-prone 3rd-liner who could chip in offensively in spurts, his scoring prowess artificially inflated? Was Andrei Kostitsyn an elite talent or a bum who would never max out his talent? Was Sergei a strong second-liner or an erratic headcase? Was Latendresse a serious power forward in the making or a grinder? Was Streit a bona-fide 50-point defender (like Kaberle!) or a one-trick pony? Was Pleks a slick third-line centremen a la Carbo or a legitimate top-6 C? Was Lapierre an elite agitator or more trouble than he was worth? And so forth. These were quite hard questions. It comes back to what I said before, about the difference between players whose identities and future payoff are obvious (Towes, Keith, Richards, etc.) and less sure-fire prospects. Perhaps Gainey chose to be cautious about tying the team to these guys long-term for that reason. Similarly, Gauthier was reluctant to lock-up two defenceman who were recovering from very serious knee surgeries at the same time. He took a risk on Markov but not on Gorges. It hasn't worked out, but I can certainly understand the thinking. Where there are few question marks around what a player is and what he will bring in the future, then yes, lock him up at a discount if you can. The thing is, we've rarely been in this position, alas.

It's fun to speculate on a D-corps in 5 years with Subban as veteran NHL all-star in his prime, Bealieu as upstart emerging star, Tinrodi as bruising shut-down dude, Gorges as elder statesman, Emelin as seasoned stay-at-home stabilizer, and maybe Diaz as helpful #5 guy. Of course much will change in the interim. No question that a healthy Markov is three times the player Kaberle is. Nonetheless, in an ideal world I'd have both - just as I said of Wisniewski. Whether that's cap-possible, or whether Markov will ever again play and play at the level we expect, these are other matters. But without #79 we should keep Kaberle for sure.

Well, I have a running theory that there are major chemistry problems in the room (no real evidence, just a gut feeling from having seen it before). But I wouldn't have expected Pleks and Subban, blood-and-guts guys both, to be at the heart of it. I figured it was more Gorges/Gill vs. Cammy/Gomez, something like that. So I'm betting you're right Brobin, this is more a symptom of two guys angry at being on a losing team than deep personality conflicts. Time will tell, eh!

Good analysis, especially the second sentence. I can see a maturing Subban, Emelin, a veteran Gorges, Diaz, and eventually Tinordi grounding a pretty solid D over the next 4-5 years. (If Tinordi is to be a big element, we'd better give it about 4 years). Markov will likely be out of the picture by then so I'm not sure your equation works. Let's think two years from now: Subban - Emelin - Diaz - Gorges Looking at this, Kaberle could prove to be a significant ingredient, unless Weber somehow emerges as a major puck-moving defenceman: Subban - Kaberle - Gorges - Emelin - Diaz Much better. Even assuming Subban becomes all that he can be, while that looks to be a good defence corps, Markov is STILL a major absence. We'd need another higher-end defenceman to be Cup-worthy IMHO. But what I'm saying here is that Kaberle could prove to be an important asset fin keeping us competitive as Subban matures and Tinordi learns how to be a pro. I just don't understand fans' hurry to throw this 50-point defenceman under a bus.

Perhaps the question is whether we see a lot of players taking hometown discounts for teams that are NOT perceived as obvious Cup contenders. Maybe these proliferate and I just don't see it. I still have trouble understanding why a player who projects to be a 40-goal scorer would cheerfully accept being paid long-term like a 25-goal scorer, or why Price will be only too happy to be paid like Dan Ellis for his entire career. And the whole 'lock up your RFAs' theory risks blowing up in your face as much as it does rewarding you - e.g., if we had signed Higgins for 10 years on the assumption that he was gonna be a 35-goal scorer we'd have a cap problem that makes the supposedly onerous Kaberle deal look like a masterstroke. In any case, even if I'm wrong about all this, since the Habs have not had very many clear-cut elite prospects over the past decade, I'm still not sure the analogy with Chicago applies. The only clear-cut, can't-miss kids we've had are Subban and Price. Ribeiro, Plekanec, Hainsey, Komisarek, Higgins, Perezhogin - all came with significant question marks. All the same, I agree that we've bungled a fair portion of our assets. Perezhogin driven off by Carbo's bizarre determination to turn him into a checking winger. Grabovski thrown overboard because he was a drama queen. Streit, allowed to walk because management shared the erroneous view of most fans that this guy was not a legit NHL defender. Ribeiro jettisoned as a supposed locker-room cancer. Hainsey, abandoned as a no-good punk. Beauchemin, tossed aside as a never-will-be. Latendresse, collateral damage to the rebuild of 2009, Lapierre, upset because of his relegation to the 4th line. Sergei, sacrificed so JM could make a point about team culture and his authority. Etc. Etc. I just think that's a more appropriate thing to gripe about than the debatable notion that we could lock up excellent players at major discounts.

Personally I think getting all worked up about how player X could hypothetically be acquired (based purely on speculation) is a waste of time at best, and a recipe for endless fuming and frustration at worst. (That way, if the Habs acquire a less spectacularly impressive prospect, Habs29 can bitch about bad asset management because HE would surely have gotten Schenn, etc.). What I share with Habs29 is the desire to see is the Habs dealing veterans and perhaps Weber to build a team that can seriously compete next season and contend the season after that. Going cowabunga over hypothetical particulars? No thanks. Habs29, I still think you exaggerate the Habs' mismanagement of their RFAs. The fact is that when we have had players of the calibre you list, we have locked them up: Markov and Pleks. If our pattern holds we should expect Price and Subban to similarly be locked up at fair value. Most of the RFAs we've lost as UFAs have been second- and third-tier types, many of which had significant attitude and maturity issues; quite a different story. Beyond that, other than Mike Richards I don't see too many massive, clear-cut hometown discounts on your list. And Richards probably believed he was signing on to an elite, contending NHL power, not a solid upper-middle tier organization like the Habs have been since 2008. Indeed, I think really unambiguous hometown discounts are uncommon. Vancouver got the twins on a deal but that's partly because they come as a set: an exceptional case. They bagged Luongo on a pay cut - a contract now widely reviled nonetheless - because of a term that would now probably be vetoed by the league office. Kesler at $5 mil is unquestionably a steal, but again, it's a case of a guy with Cup fever on a powerhouse. And once again, these are elite players, not Chris Higgins or Ryan White. Our issue, it seems to me, has consisted in prematurely trading away guys like Ribeiro, Grabovski and Sergei Kostitsyn, rather than mismanaging their contracts per se. Streit is the exception of course.

I agree. But I don't actually think we were a soft team over the past two seasons, especially not in the playoffs. That's really my point - I get antsy when I detect people taking the past three months as defining the players on this team for all time. Wasn't referring to you in particular.

I can see moving Gionta, but I'm not sure that we have a ton of awesome RW in the wings ready to replace what he brings. It seems to me that if we move him it'll signify either that there is serious quality on the UFA market or else that we are moving toward a total rebuild rather than a tactical tweaking. Truth be told, I'm a bit annoyed that fans seem to have completely forgotten what a fine leader and valuable player Gionta has been in the previous two years. Three injury-addled months and suddenly he's washed up...

Habs29, I don't know why you're in a hurry to get rid of Gionta particularly, and I still rate your hate-on for Kaberle - who is signed for 4.2, BTW, not 4.5 - as pretty exaggerated. Moen is also a pretty good blood-and-guts guy, who I'd only move because his value is probably inflated at the moment. The other thing is this grumbling about our unwillingness to lock up our prospects. I agree that IF you can lock up great prospects at a discount, then of course you do it. But I doubt that most players are dumb enough to lock up at a significant discount, and off the top of my head I don't see a whole lot of great prospects that we allowed to walk, other than Streit. Higgins, Komisarek - did we really want those guys locked up at $4-5 mil each for ten years? (This is a separate issue from trading away prospects, which Gainey did to excess). That Gorges was locked up suggests PG will now try to lock up Kosty. The main message I take from this is that the Canadiens ARE happy to negotiate during a season; if Kostitsyn is dealt away, it seems fair to infer that that will be because his demands are unreasonable from the Habs's point of view. This is reassuring at least.

You're spot on, but note that three of the five have been decimated with injuries this season. I think we forget just how much injuries have hurt this team.

Finally a bit of good news. This is not a bargain, though. I can't believe he'd have gotten much more than that on the open market. Nonetheless, he logs tough minutes and is effective in doing so and has only gotten consistently better year after year. And he wants to play here and is pals with Price. Great to LOCK UP long-term a blood-and-guts guy who bleeds Habs red. And it also conveys that Gorges has a certain faith in the organization, which is good news too.