The Chicoutimi Cucumber

The Luongo deal is not likely to turn out as badly as some people think. First of all, elite players these days generally play at a high level until well into their mid 30s. Second, even if he slips a bit, there will always be some stupid-assed team desperate for goaltending and willing to take on a Cup and Gold Medal winner provided he hasn't completely lost the plot. Third, nothing in Luongo's profile suggests that he would accept a substantially diminished role - he would quite likely retire rather than cling on as a useless has-been. At most, the contract would be a problem for a year or two as Luongo grapples with his diminished capacities. Meanwhile, you've enjoyed years of paying below cap value for a high-end netminder. As for Schneider, it is typical of Canucks fans - all fans, really - to assume that you can deal away a proven star goalie in favour of a raw rookie and get comparable results. I remember 1993, when a significant portion of the fanbase wanted to trade Roy, and this with Red Light Racicot as our fall back position. Gillis locked up his cornerstone player at a modest cap hit by taking advantage of that loophole in the CBA regarding term length before Bettman et al. closed it up. That's good GMing, pure and simple. The Leafs or the Habs would have opened the vault to sign the Sedins. Don't kid yourself, that was a coup by Vancouver. (Incidentally, Vancouver fans have been agitating for years to unload the 'Sedin Sisters' too Jesus wept). The Canucks deserve credit for creating an environment in which players are willing to take a hometown discount. Contrast that with Markov; he wanted to stay in Montreal, yes, but the Habs still had to pay fair market value to sign him (and will probably have to do so again). The Canucks aren't perfect, but their cap management has been light years ahead of ours.

BTH, they do count frames. This was confirmed by, I think, Eric Duhatschek. I don't object to that in principle, but dlbalr's post exposes the sheer absurdity of the whole business - as though a player is supposed to understand the difference between a fraction of a second when deciding to lay a hit. Dlbalr's post reads like satire. You may as well expect players to calculate how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Players are completely confused about what is a suspendable or even a legal hit and what isn't. And I believe Rome when he says he was just 'finishing his check' and thought it was a hockey play. Of course he did; he grew up watching Scott Stevens get hailed as a hero for doing exactly that. Like every other player, he's been trained relentlessly in an ethos of 'punishing the opposition' and 'finishing your check' as an absolute, and I'll bet you he has never once heard a coach say something like, 'finish your check but make sure the check is CLEAN.' And that's because the league has utterly failed to establish two key principles: first, what is and is not a clean hit; and second, that ONLY clean hits are acceptable. In a weird way, Rome is a victim here too. He has been deprived of his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play in a Stanley Cup Final by a completely arbitrary disciplinary system.

No, but what IS good cap management is signing the Luongo AND the Sedins at well under market value in terms of cap hit. Three gigantic pieces of the core, locked up at relatively cut rates - that's awesome. The hell of it is, this team will be elite for years to come in part because of those deals. Also because they locked up Kesler slightly before he hit his full stride (more luck than skill there, arguably; but the bottom line is that Luongo, the Sedins and Kesler are all under contract long-term at disproportionately low cap hits - basically the opposite of Montreal's situation).

If we add another quality forward, then Darche *probably* becomes the odd man out. Although at least he seizes his opportunities and brings it every night. Unlike some I could mention (cough...POULIOT). Personally I'd rather take our chances with our current forward rotation and sign both Wiz and Markov, but even that may be peeing in the wind. I look at Vancouver's cap management - both lucky and good - and sigh with envy.

Exactly the same play. Stevens is a hero. Welcome to the NHL. EDIT: as for what the difference is...I dunno, could it be that it's a BRUIN lying on his back twitching? Or maybe that Rome is a marginal player? Step right up, gentlemen, and spin the NHL WHEEL OF ARBITRARY JUSTICE. WHEEEEEEEEE!!!!

The whole thing is laughable (actually, 'tragic' would be a better adjective, since lives and health are at stake). And I agree that the injury to Horton is cosmic justice, although I do not wish Horotn any harm. In any case, this won't help the Bruins. Between this and the 8-1 shellacking, it's Vancouver that is going to come out next game with a sense of aggreieved righteousness. Expect Boston to get dismantled by the Canucks' machine in Game 4. I said Van in 5 going into this thing and 5 it's going to be. EDIT: watching that hit again, I cannot BELIEVE they gave Rome 4 games. Is it an irresponsible hit? 100%. Should he be suspended? 100%. But this hit is NO WORSE than the hit that ended Crosby's season - no suspension - no worse than the Game 7 hit on Halpern - no suspension - no worse than the Torres hit - no suspension - Lucic on Spacek - no suspension - and certainly no worse than then Pacioretty hit - no suspension. For that matter, Scott Stevens is in the Hall of Fame for hits like this. The double standard is absolutely galling. Shame on the NHL for playing Russian Roulette with the lives and well-being of its players.

At that point you move heaven, hell, and earth itself to unload Gomez. In fairness, he should be more marketable then given that his actual salary will drop, if not his cap hit.

$2 mil for a hulking two-time Cup winner with a track record of formidable offensive skills and ZERO proven evidence of being a bad teammate is a worthwhile risk for a team in need of size and a top-6 forward. If he turns out to be poison, cut him loose and be done with it. The only thing I would do is talk to him first about JM's system and get assurances that he'll buy in. Anyway it's almost surely a moot point.

I think you exaggerate Spacek's badness. He is still a useful #5-6 defensive veteran, just not at that price point. Meanwhile, great piece on Gill from Arpon Basu: http://montreal.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110531/mtl_habshub_habit_110531/20110531/?hub=MontrealSports (Incidentally, this article reminds us of the Gomez-Gill clash of 2010, which Gomez decisively lost, and which set the table for this team's JM-defined identity to solidify. It's worth asking: to what extent has Gomez become alienated on this team? Could his on-ice struggles be a result of his privately opting out of the The System but being unable to take his linemates with him? Could that explain why everyone's statistics, except for MaxPac's, plummeted every time they played on Gomer's line: they were playing the system and he wasn't? If so, then ironically Gomez is the last domino of resistance to the JM regime and team culture - and unless he converts on the road to Damascus we should be redoubling our efforts to get rid of him. Not to start yet ANOTHER Gomez thread It's just an angle I hadn't thought about systematically before now).

Spacek will certainly be marketable at the deadline to teams looking for veteran depth on the blueline. Of course, by that point it might pay to keep him around. The return would be modest and vets like him almost always raise their game a couple of notches when the dance begins. If he is to be unloaded, it must be this summer. Your first sentence is where it's at. One of my ongoing frustrations about the Habs is my vague feeling that the organization is not as relentlessly committed to working around the cap as teams like Philly, Chicago, San Jose and especially Vancouver, which has THE best cap management in hockey. When we have a bad contract we should work 24/7, relentlessly, to unload it - move heaven and earth, make it happen; when we want to sign a difference-making player (Wiz) we should do likewise; and I just don't sense that this is the organization's approach. But I could be wrong. There was a discussion here about sending Spacek down and then putting him on re-entry waivers, which would lower his salary to interested teams (albeit leaving us on the hook for half of it - but carrying that for one season wouldn't be that big a deal). That's a possibility. I also agree that dealing him with a middling - not an elite - prospect would be acceptable if it meant locking up Wiz, for whom I'm a big advocate. For that matter, if sending him to minors means re-signing Wiz and giving us possibly THE best defence core in hockey, then you can make an economic argument to Molson for doing it; it could mean 1-2 extra playoff rounds and all the profits that accrue thereby.

It occurs to me that Gill might have accepted less money for a bit longer term. If so, the Habs probably preferred to hedge their bets considering his age and slowness. If he loses a step he will be a pilon. But I'm a big Gill believer - he's not just a gigantic leader and mentor, he's also disproportionately important to the whole bend-don't-break defensive system that is such a key to this team's success.

His game has not discernably declined since he was originally signed; if anything, he's proven more valuable in terms of team dynamics than most of us expected in 2009. And dlbalr is right that a flatlined salary in an escalating cap amounts to a pay cut. Good signing.

The funny thing is, neither of those guys is 100% convincing. Certainly neither of them carries the team, wills it to win, or gets in the opposition's head and projects invincibility in the fashion of Roy or Brodeur. Luongo at least has it in him to be a truly great goalie - he hasn't reliably put it all together though (but don't get me wrong, I'd take him on my team). What I'm really saying is that neither team got here by virtue of their goaltending. They are where they deserve to be based on their overall roster and if you inserted another good goalie in their nets, they'd probably still be here. Otherwise put: Price outplayed both of them wall to wall this season IMHO.

Well, I do think there are better and worse coaches. I've always felt that Therrien was a clown with us and a clown with Pittsburgh, just disguised by his great roster. Boudreau is another guy who is somewhat suspect, because his teams have no track record of playing with structure and seem prone to panic whenever they're faced with a challenge. Pierre Pagé misread his bench in Game 6 against the Habs in 1993 and watched his team collapse at least partly in consequence. Jean Perron has been derided as a joke despite the 1986 Cup, with players on that team saying the real coaches were Gainey and Robinson, and apart from a one-season abortion in Quebec he never worked the NHL again. Carbo had massive problems getting his nucleus to buy whatever the hell he was selling, and the fact that JM's first task was to instil a culture of hard work and discipline suggests that Carbo really didn't get the job done (not to say it was all his fault, but surely he bears some responsibility; and he too has yet to work again). Conversely, while Bowman did not win in Buffalo his arrival DID coincide with improvement to the team. Alain Vigneault squeezed excellent results from a mediocre Habs team in the 90s, was then inexplicably ignored by NHL GMs until Vancouver wisely scooped him up, and now he is getting excellent results with a strong Canucks team. What Bylsma accomplished with a decimated Pens squad is surely remarkable. JM, meanwhile, has provided a system in which his team always has a chance to do major playoff damage. And so on. A lot of times it's a question less of coaching excellence per se than of right coach for the right team. For instance, Pat Burns seems to have lost the room by 1992. When Demers came in, he seemed to mark a breath of fresh air from Burns's more hard-assed approach and was exactly what the team needed. Then again, the team has also acquired a new first line thanks to brilliant GMing by Serge Savard. Still, players from the 1993 team have praised Demers's contribution, his successful use of positive psychology and motivational techniques. Whether a rookie Boucher would have been the right man for our veteran-laden core is, I think, a good question. Maybe guys like Gio and Gill and Hammer are better-suited to a seasoned veteran like Martin, who has been through as many wars as they have. None of this is to deny that the main onus falls on the players, not the coach. I just want to resist the idea that coaches are interchangeable parts. I agree that Boucher's rise has been meteoric and impressive, but JC and Wamsley are right that he landed in the perfect situation. Coaching in Tampa is NOT equivalent to Montreal (the toughest gig in hockey). We also should not forget that our existing coach surely maxed out the potential of his decimated roster this season, and that lots of coaches look great for a year or two before their act wears thin. To invert illWill's metaphor, there's something to be said with sticking to a relationship than you know works, instead of running off with the sexy new babe. Full props to Boucher but I'm not sure we need to be ripping our hair out that we don't have him at this juncture.

I haven't watched much of Tampa Bay, due to time zone issues, but most analysts suggest that Boucher's vaunted system (supposedly soooo much better than JM's) is based precisely on defensive clamp-down-once-you've-got-the-lead hockey. If this is correct I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for them to suddenly go all firewagon on Boston's ass. However, again, I'm speaking from hearsay rather than my own assessment. What about all you Boucher watchers out there? How 'defensive' is his famous system anyway?

2011 seems to be the Year of the Stanchion.

100%. That's why I added, in my original post, "But I suppose every fanbase/organization looks like a bunch of jerks to those on the outside." Heck, Montreal fans often drive me crazy and I AM one. But (as you know) when you live in a city that cheers for a different team, you really get a sharp read on how idiotic that team's fans are. Which is part of the reason why I find the Canucks annoying (their corporate identity and celebration of mediocrity being other reasons). The Bertuzzi thing was the defining moment for me - not that that idiot went bananas, but the way the fans self-righteously rallied to the defence of this scumbag. I'll admit that I like to think Habs fans would have shown more class, but they probably wouldn't. Anyway, how I feel is irrelevant, unfortunately. The Canuckleheads are winning it all this year and I'll just have to hold my nose all summer.

Yeah, the sight of a fanbase that has relentlessly bitched about the Sedins for their entire time in Vancouver, while simultaneously worshipping that fraudluent thug Bertuzzi - if I scored a goal for every time I heard someone say 'Moore's faking it' I'd be Rocket Richard - as well as whining about Kessler's and Luongo's contracts, to say nothing of completely panicking over the Chicago series - suddenly acting like they've been on the bandwagon all along...it's really a bit rich. Then there's the spectacle of a franchise whose symbol is designed as a logo for their corporate owners (Orca Bay Enterprises) and has never been able to settle on a decent uni, and retires the numbers of mediocrities like Smyl and Naslund. All told, not too cool. But I suppose every fanbase/organization looks like a bunch of jerks to those on the outside. My sympathies actually incline toward the Bruins on this. I think you do have to respect your Great Opponents, and they've been a tremendous rival for us over decades and brought out the best in us. They are Original Six, too, and as noxious as they are, they're ridiculously overdue. I won't deny that just in terms of team make-up, though, Vancouver is more likeable: only one thug (Torres), dues paid in full and a ton of skill. It's more the franchise/fanbase that are unspeakably lame.

No, I think Boston is a stronger overall team than Tampa, and their size up front makes them a better matchup against Vancouver's fleet but not especially hulking blueline. You're right beyond that; Boston's policy of deliberately attempting to injure opponents (a policy the NHL chooses to reward) also makes them more likely than Tampa to win (although Vancouver does have Torres, who at least raises the possibility of a tit-for-tat in the injury department). Anyway, like I say, while I give the Bruins a better shot than Tampa, it's still only about a 30% chance; no one is beating the Canucks. What's funny about Game 7 OT losses is that everyone acts, going forward, as if the outcome was inevitable. I remember a quote from one of the Bruins to the effect that he expected Philly to be more difficult than Montreal because of their size - surely a testamony to the power of ideology (big = good) over reality (which is that the Habs came within one shot of eliminating Boston). Similarly, while Vancouver will be full value for this Cup, it's only by divine grace that they averted the single most catastrophic playoff collapse in NHL history (an OT loss to Chicago after being up 3-0 in the series). Having said that, the Bruins won 3 of the last 4 against us, so that probably helps to support the narrative of Inevitable Bruins Victory. I also don't think you can infer that we necessarily would have beaten Washington. So yeah, it's frustrating, but there's a big jump from being a Round 1 Game 7 OT loser to reaching the Finals. Me, I'd rather see Boston win than the Canucks - but then again I live in Vancouver and have to suffer their idiot fanbase on a daily basis.

Yeah, I'm not sure why the Habs seem to like to wait until the last minute to lock up the guys they want (although I concede that this is common enough practice - look at the Canucks re-signing the Sedins at the 11th hour; and I suppose it's possible that even where both sides want a deal done, it's in the advantasge of the player to push it down to the wire for the purposes of getting the best deal). I certainly hope that when the time is right they will lock up PK and Price in the way that the Flyers did with Richards. But as for Markov, I'm not too worried; he had a great opportunity to go UFA earlier in his career at a time when the Habs sucked much worse than they do now, and he made it pretty clear he wanted to stick around. I'm pretty sure the Habs's players believe they can contend. So while I'm sure his agent will use all the leverage he can the likeliest outcome is #79 remains with us. The size of his contract is another question. The extra $3 mil on the cap could make a big difference for us in terms of either dumping Gomez to a team that needs to reach the floor, or in terms of adding a forward with size, or even signing Wiz. We'll see.

MAB's a specialist. Those kind of players are both tantalizing and incredibly frustrating. C.f. Sheldon Souray. A poor PP can destroy your team's chances of even making the playoffs; MAB's defensive play can ruin your chances of winning once you're there. Indeed, you could make an argument that a truly strong team will not carry such players - it's a sign of organizational inadequacy that you have to 'make do.' In any case, I prefer to see the Bruins advance because I think they have a better chance than Tampa Bay of beating Vancouver. Ultimately, though, no one will defeat the Canucks, barring injury.

In the glory days, the Habs' position was always that they would choose the best player, but if two players were comparable, then all other things being equal they would pick the French one. I don't think anybody would have a problem with that.

Doh, I knew that Clearly my brain has gone into 'Summer Cucumber' mode. Carry on.

Ya know what? You make a good case. And if they move Gomez this season, I won't cry about it, that's for sure. However, the lack of any good internal replacement (there might be no surer way of ruining Eller in particular than asking this of him at this stage)along with (perhaps) a desire to be perceived by the room as having been fair to Gomez, as well as his actual take-home salary this season as opposed to next summer when it drops, all lead to a move next summer as being more realistic. This doesn't mean that dumping him know wouldn't be better, though. As for Spacek - his salary is conceivably more digestable for Molson; why has sending him to the minors not been more discussed?

A lot of this particular round of Gomez talk stems from analysis of the cap crunch we are likely to face in 2012 when Price et al. are up for new contracts. I expect that people will flip out when I say this, but for my money this is an abstract future problem and should not really inform decision-making today, nor should fans get worked up into knots about it. I say this because of my wider philosophy of cap management, which, as may be familiar by now, is to sign who you want NOW and ruthlessly purge as necessary later (C.f. Chicago, Philly, even Vancouver). Habs29 is absolutely correct that Gomez's production would be easy to replace, so in a way we will be in a good position by next season - able to move heaven and earth to ship him out and toss Eller or Desharnais or some mediocre/cheaper UFA into the vacuum. Meanwhile, keep him around for next season; if he recovers his game, so much the better, because when he is playing well he is a very useful player. In short, his contract is crippling longer-term but not apt to be a franchise-crushing millstone THIS season. I was encouraged to read that Gauthier has been negotiating with Wisniewski. Although the likelihood is that it's just exploratory, this shows that management has its head on straight - not just dismissing options out of hand because of the cap, as some fans tend to do, but willing to diligently explore every avenue to sign and keep the players we need. Conceivably this is even a signal that Gauthier is willing to exceed the cap in the summer and make the murderous choices to get back under it by fall, which is exactly the attitude I support. It's a long shot...but imagine if we had Wiz, Markov, Gorges, PK, AND Emelin, along with Weber and whomever? Holy crow. If Emelin pans out that's a Cup-worthy D.