The Chicoutimi Cucumber

This thread has gotten into some interesting territory. I think a lot of it boils down, for me, to the spirit behind one's comments as much as the comments themselves. What bugs me is when fans take an adamant, 100% certain attitude that Move X is self-evidently a disaster and that the GM must be a blithering jackass to make it. Very rarely, in my experience, have Gainey or Gauthier (or before them, Serge Savard) made decisions that were OBVIOUSLY moronic. What they are doing is making decisions with necessarily limited information and with necessarily limited options, in a context marked by radical uncertainty. Take trading Halak. We don't KNOW whether last season was Halak's peak, whether he will become the next Huet or the next Hasek or something in between. We don't KNOW whether Price will emerge as a compelling #1 G he has always been projected to be. We don't even know how good Eller will be. Nobody knows these things. So the GM makes a calculated gamble, based on his assessment of the future probabilities as well as his knowledge of the needs of the overall team system (e.g., the need for high-value young players) and the salary cap situation (keep halak, lose Pleks). Gauthier has more info and research at his fingertips than we do, but ultimately he is still making his best guess about outcomes. Beyond that, decisions have to be measured against the real options available, not some fantasyland ideal. For instance, we can say that we'd rather have size down the middle than Gomez and Pleks. Fine. I agree. But it's one thing to say that, another thing to make it happen. The most likely result of losing Plekanec would simply have been a much weaker team down the middle for the forseeable future, not the magical acquisition of some 6'8 version of Malkin who (unlike Malkin) scores 5 points per game in the playoffs. Only the truly inept GMs - the Houles and the Milburys - regularly make decisions that are self-evidently absurd. The idea that Gainey or Gauthier are in this category is nonsense. It is 100% legitimate for fans to question that best guess based on their own sense of these factors. What is NOT legitimate in my opinion is acting as though there IS no uncertainty here and as though some vastly superior option to a given outcome is always readily available. I hate it when fans take the attitude that it's just obvious what should be done when it hardly ever is. That attitude speaks to a glib arrogance rooted mainly in ignorance of the complexities of the issue. So, honest disagreement? Sure. Righteously demanding Gauthier's head on a platter for making tough calls or going around like Chicken Little because we just signed our 27-year-old leading scorer to a 6-year deal at below market value? Ludicrous.

Given that Pleks is not overpaid - if anything he is UNDERpaid - it would be absolutely bizarre for him to become the whipping boy. (As for Gomez, he is obviously overpaid but a lot of fans also seem to have chosen to be blinded by dollars signs and totally ignore his many excellent qualities: blinding speed, excellent rushes, outstanding playmaking, leadership.) I find it interesting that the overall tone on French-language blogs and online posts is vastly more positive about the Pleks signing than English-language posts. What's with that?

Hmmm. I'm not crazy about that. Presumably that's why we were able to sign him at LESS than market rate (yes, Chicken Little, you read right). Hopefully it's a limited NTC - but I doubt it.

Like BTH and Wamsley, I am baffled by all the negativity. Honestly, I thought he'd make significantly over $5 mil per on the open market. Considering the Montreal tax stuff, he's probably underpaid. There is an element of risk here because of his 39-point regression two years ago. But I don't buy all the "he chokes in the clutch" stuff. They say that about practically EVERY young player learning how to succeed in the post-season. They said it about Datsyuk for a couple of years. People are forgetting that he played injured, has been on a learning curve, played without adequate wingers for much of the stretch/playoffs, and is only now entering his prime (which is typical of fans' attitudes toward players that come up through the system - Pleks is only turning 28 but he seems to have been around forever). If he continues to play as he did this season that will be a good contract. If his game continues to develop it will be a really good contract. This is a sensible GMing move and instead of freaking out Habs fans should be happy the team has locked up this hard-working and exciting forward for his prime years - just as we did with Cammallerri. Solid stuff.

Yup. Just what you want in a marginal player: lots of character and experience. He usually makes the smart, simple play but he was obviously overused in the playoffs. Good little asset.

It's quite possible that Gauthier wanted Eller all along and, having a good general sense that he wouldn't do any better than that particular player in return for Halak, pursued him. According to this story, the Blues tried hard to bargain him down from Eller: http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/st...8D?OpenDocument If that's the case, I see nothing wrong with it. A lot of the media criticism centres on the idea that the Habs should have got a ROSTER PLAYER for Halak. But in addition to the well-documented weak market for goalies - not just now, but as a general rule, goalies are inexplicably undervalued in the NHL - this criticism overlooks the small matter of the salary cap. Gauthier clearly wants to add bargain-basement quality young guys to the roster because this is the only way to win in a cap system. Until I hear clowns like PJ Stock factoring in these considerations, I will continue to ignore their babblings.

Fair enough, but the thing with Halak is that he always does better when he's getting a lot of action. He's a Cujo type - the type who looks great behind shoddy D but questionable playing behind the Detroit Red Wings. So I wouldn't rule out his looking heroic even if the Blues do turn out to stink.

What's crazy is that, before the internet, the UFA era of massive player mobility, and bloated media coverage of everything from trade deadline day to draft day, hockey fans pretty much turned to other matters over the summer. Now you can obssess over les canadiens 365 days a year. Given that the Expos used to be my other major sports preoccupation, this is probably a good thing for my psyche if not my productivity :hlogo:

No kidding. So why is Florida shopping him around? Either he wants out, or it's to try to stickpile high-end prospects/draft picks - ? If the latter, we're uncompetitive. If they want immediate help, then maybe we can make a play.

Horton is indeed a no-brainer. It depends on what Florida wants. If it's roster players they're after, I'm sure Andrei Kostitsyn and his brother will be at least mildly tempting. But I don't know much about Florida, so you're probably right.

I think BTH wins this thread with his careful analysis of the options facing the Habs in this cap-tightened era. Once you read that post, it is - or should be - simply impossible to revert back to a knee-jerk 'what an awful trade' reaction a la Todd and Fisher. In the end the trade is impossible to evaluate on anything other than a theoretical basis, because NONE of the players involved are proven commodities. Halak just came through his first pro season (really, half-season) as a #1 goalie - not exactly a towering body of work. Price is a work in progress. Eller and Shultz are prospects. So all you can do is analyze it the way BTH has done. And once that's done, you see this trade makes a lot of sense. The ultimate outcome could take any number of shapes. E.g., -Halak regresses and Price develops. We win. -Halak stays where he is and Price comes up to his level. We win. -Halak stays where he is, Price stumbles, Eller emerges as a major player. We win or lose depending on whether we can fix the situation in net. -Halak stays where he is, Price stumbles, Eller emerges as merely OK. Whether or not we patch up the hole in net, we lose. And there are plenty of other scenarios. What bugs me is that the fans and media themselves are an independent variable here and there is considerable danger that they will work to validate their own hypothesis, by putting so much heat on Price that he will simply not be able to survive. Then, once the kid has been broken by a level of mass hostility that would break ANYONE, the people who have broken him will righteously declaim that this 'proves' what a bad trade Gauthier made. As Wamsley said, the Habs MUST be attuned to this possibility and protect him. I remember when Price did his FU to the crowd and Roy commented that this showed 'he's not well surrounded.' Gainey's big mistake with Price wasn't in playing him, it was in not adequately mentoring and protecting him from the jackals of the Bell Centre and the perils of Montreal. The Habs' future depends on their not repeating this mistake. Fortunately, the leadership core of the new team seems very strong. That could make all the difference.

I do not think the Habs will pursue Marleau. Not with that cap hit and with Eller clearly pencilled in as a future #2 C. If we have to replace Pleks it will be with a moderately-priced option who doesn't need to be signed to a really long-term deal. I therefore agree that Jokinen is a very interesting possibility given the history (and success) with Martin, and could conceivably be had more cheaply than Pleks by maybe $1-1.5 mil. (Keep in mind that Plekanec will quite likely bag grossly inflated dollars given his status as Top UFA C Available. Meanwhile, Jokinen's value may be artifically low). The Habs still desperately need an upgrade on the wings, and it would not surprise me at all if Gauthier decides to let Pleks walk and rolls the dice on a Plan B (Jokinen) or C (Lombardi) at centre while trying to translate the money saved between Halak and Pleks into an upgrade there. All bets are off, in other words. By moving Halak Gauthier made, to me anyway, a HUGE statement. He's a big picture guy prepared to be ruthless in a cap system, and the players are all moveable parts.

I agree. You can certainly criticize this trade, but Fisher didn't seem to take seriously ANY the variables the Habs were dealing with. Sad to say, but the great man is clearly now just reposing in his armchair spouting off. People who are familiar with Eller seem to be a lot more positive of this deal. Alas, the Gazette hacks aren't among those. But part of the problem is that I don't subscribe to the dominant media narrative that Halak single-handedly stole two series. I agree that he delivered an all-time great performance in Game 6 vs. Washington. Other than that, we saw a goalie who made the most out of a team playing a bizarre defensive system that surrendered a lot puck possession and a lot of shots, but made a point of surrendering very few rebounds or really dangerous chances from in close. This is not to denigrade Halak's performance by any means; it's just to say that the Habs enhanced his performance, not unlike the way Philly's choke-hold make Leighton look like a Conn Smythe candidate. (Of course Halak is 2x the goalie Leighton is; I'm drawing an analogy here). I believe the Habs held their own against washington and were the better TEAM against Pittsburgh. But if you just accept that halak won everything by himself, then I suppose you would freak out over this trade.

That is indeed a terrific article. Biron, Ellis, and Mason all strike me as solid options, especially the first and third as they can play a lot of games if needed. (Theodore is a really interesting idea, but do we really want that circus?) When you look at the projected cap hits and the respectable quality and quantity of credible backups/#1A guys out there, you realize the cap-managment wisdom of choosing to move the likely-to-be-more-expensive Halak. A Price/Mason-or-Biron platoon should give good results. At first glance you think it should be Biron, if only to take some heat off for the Halak deal. But then you stop to think - hold on, if Price hits a rough patch, can you imagine the media howls for French Superstar Biron to take over the reins as #1, and the concomitant bile spewed Price's way? (It'd be even worse with Theo). Might be better to avoid all that and go with stolidly anglo Mason, probably the best of these choices off the top of my head.

Meanwhile, someone just posted that Halak is a 'franchise player' I agree 100% with your post here, Wamsley. Gauthier showed that he has the right character to GM the Habs. Now he'd better be right about the players acquired and dealt. It's funny how this goes. If Eller had developed within OUR system, all the fans would have canonized him long ago as a sure-fire star (and would probably have been saying silly things like 'let Pleks walk, we've got Eller!!' for some time now). As it is, everyone is in hysterics. Incidentally, as recently as January Halak was apparently worth only a 2nd-round pick. Five months later, he brings an excellent top-6 prospect and a valuable depth prospect back. Say what you want, but looked at objectively - factoring in not JUST one stretch drive/playoff, but the careers and overall profiles of all the players involved - this represents a terrific bit of asset management. Whether it works out is another question, natch

Whoops!

Listening to Gauthier's conference call, it seems clear that 1. The longer term was absolutely a key calculation here. He said that again and again. This was definitely a deal to boost our system, while taking a calculated gamble that Ellis in particular can help next season. (You know, Ellis was a 13th-overall pick who had a promising first pro season; it's worth underlining that that represents a MAJOR infusion to the system at F. We should be reasonably excited about that given our desperate need for quality top-6 talent, and quality at C in particular). 2. Price was the organization's guy all along. They regard his resumé to date as very impressive and believe he is the guy for the future. Expect him to be #1 and the Habs to sign a quality 'complement' as a UFA - Gauthier said this explicitly. 3. Gawky looks aside, Gauthier is the alpha male - unflappable, refusing to be interrupted by reporters, forming his own assessment of player value without bothering with agents, etc.. That's only significant because it suggests that he has what it takes mentally to be a GM in Montreal. Also quite articulate. 4. In projecting Ellis as a #2 C, is he tacitly preparing for the loss of Pleks? I doubt that that's Plan A, but listening to that conference call, you could definitely get that impression. Hmmm.... 5. The cap was a key consideration, of course. He compared Ellis to guys on Chicago, a cheap quality young gun who can give us a few seasons with minimal cap hit. Clearly he has faith in this guy as a key part of the core going forward. But does that come back to point 4, the possible 'redundancy' of Plekanec in a cap system? That if we're gonna win, it's going to be with cheap youth supplementing Gionta, Gomer, etc.? We shall see.

WOW I am blown away. Absolutely stunned. Gauthier has balls. That much is abundantly clear. He simply does not give a sh*t what the fans think - definitely a virtue in a GM, but whoo boy, he's putting himself on the line with this one. This move makes lots of cap sense. As others have said, this frees up $$$ to sign Pleks or a replacement for Pleks; or else a decent W, which this team desperately needs. It also makes some sense in hockey terms, inasmuch as the Habs' system is weak. In one swoop we've added a substantial, possibly-NHL-ready forward with some jam and what looks to be a less talented, but definitely tough-assed young forward. This is a major infusion to our system at F. It's a classic act to deal from an area of strength in order to address and area of weakness. Having said that, if neither of these guys cracks the top-6 next year, Gauthier has just hurt our team in the short-term. This would *seem* to be confirmation of a hypothesis I floated early this season, i.e., that the UFA frenzy last year was the platform for a stealth rebuild. But if Ellis makes an impact next season, this trade will be more than that. That's the good news. Like others, though, I am worried about Price, who has NOT responded well to the challenges the Habs have given him so far. Now they're giving him another one, putting him in a make-or-break position. Obviously we need to sign a Raycroft-type to bring some kind of stability to the nets should Price and the guy from Hamilton stumble. I think Gauthier is gambling that the team can play better D in front of Price now that it has a season of chemistry under its belt. But this raises the next question: given the now-absolute imperative of protecting Price from destruction, are we forced to keep Hamrlik at least until Markov returns? If so, does that *really* represent an improvement of our cap situation? Food for thought. Again...colour me stunned.

I actually kinda like your crazy solution in the top-6 - interesting thinking there - but Emelin isn't coming, so this won't work on the back end. (Also, Spacek is our #3 on D). In any case, these sorts of speculative posts can be fun, but they don't have anything to do with reality, so while it's amusing to contemplate, I doubt our future looks anything like this.

Yeah, the cap situation offers ZERO reason to trade either goalie given the cap situation. In fact, if the cap is the issue, then you trade Halak, not Price. The ONLY reason to trade Price is if you want this team to contend within its 3-4-year window, think that adding a top-6 forward is a major key to making that happen, and can turn Price into that top-6 forward. To me, this would be a reasonable (if chancy) hockey move. You do NOT trade Price as part of a move to replace Plekanec or anyone else. That is Toronto Maple Leafs logic, depleting key young assets in order to keep the team where it is - even though where it is isn't good enough. You trade Price ONLY if doing so adds a major missing element to the existing core (or equivalent, after Pleks has been replaced).

Well, I can see the argument for trading Price for a Carter or a Giroulx. The logic is that this core has a 3-4 year window and that, if we can add an impact top-6 forward in addition to Subban - and assuming that Pouliot and/or Pacioretty come along, Markov isn't continually injured, and Halak doesn't regress - we'd have a real chance of contending in that span. The downside is that you end up dealing away a player who could become the equivalent of Roberto Luongo over the next decade. Nonetheless, you can't just keep deferring gratification forever; I'd be prepared to live with either deal assuming that somehow the cap effects could be made to work. What I worry about is that Price will be dealt away in order to replace Plekanec, or that we'll paste over the loss of Pleks with a second-rate substitute (Lombardi, Koivu) while trading Price for a Carter or equivalent and calling that an 'upgrade.' These would be lateral moves that have the net effect of trading away Price to keep the team standing still. If we acquire Sharp - and there have been rumours for some time, so we probably are in fact sniffing around - it will be to replace Andrei Kostitsyn, who I'd expect to see moved shortly thereafter. If I were Gauthier, I would still be pushing Pittsburgh for Jordan Staal and I still don't see why the Kostityns would be of no interest as part of a package to Pittsburgh, who desperately need wingers. But I'm probably falling into Fanboy Fantasyland here.

Hmm. While Vinny is better cap value on an annual basis than Gomez, he still has a ridiculous contract that could prove much more damaging in the long-term (you're on the hook for 7.7 mil until 2020!). Worse, we're still left with the dilemma of our #2 guy, meaning we'd still have this damned headache down the middle...AND we've have kissed goodbye to Price. Not crazy about the idea, in short.

While I ultimately think the Habs want to sign Pleks and probably should go as high as 5.5 mil in their quest to do so, what I'd really like to see is the Habs showing some lateral thinking and doing something like trading the Kostitsyns to the Penguins in return for Jordan Staal. A move like that would create major holes on the wing, of course, and those holes would need to be fixed with further moves, but it would be interesting and worth trying in order to fix both the size issue and the long-standing sore at C. The Habs have certainly been courageous on the UFA market but we haven't seen a really bold, ambitious trade of that kind during the Gainey-Gauthier era. For better or worse, though, nothing in Gauthier's resume suggests much inclination to pursue that kind of strike. He's more the small-but-steady-improvement type. Still, both Cup finalists this season are organizations that never fear to make a big, bold move. Maybe we could stand a bit of that as we fully enter an era of up-against-the-cap perambulations. If you're going to be a Chicago/Philly type of organization and take the cap-be-damned approach, maybe you need to be willing to take ballsy risks along with it.

20 days and counting re: Pleks. We'll find out what Gauthier is made of very shortly.

BAH!