The Chicoutimi Cucumber

Happy to help

Bipolar. I meant bipolar. No offence meant.

Mike Richards for Halak and Pleks Let's be serious. I doubt that Pleks would accept one of these 7-year front-loaded deals. Most of those go to players who will be, like, 40 when the deal expires. Pleks will be 34 and potentially still highly productive. To pull off that stunt you'd likely have to give him something like a 12-year deal, with big money for 5-6 seasons followed by diminshing returns Do you really want to make that investment on a guy who has never done one single thing in the playoffs and who got 39 points last season? All signs point to Bob being unable to re-sign this guy. I'll defer final judgement until the matter is resolved; but all I can say is that we'd better not have a repeat of the Souray/Komisarek/Streit scenario where a highly valuable asset is allowed to walk for no return in a season in which the Habs have zero chance of winning the Cup.

It's easy to pull for a team that gives 100% almost every night (except for those occasional catastrophic games where they mail it in - which happens to all teams now and then in this NHL ridiculous schedule). However, if we lose to Pittsburgh all will be doom and gloom in Habsland again. I'm finding the hysterical schizophrenia especially amusing this season.

Incredible performances by Roy. Aislin, The Gazette's brilliant editorial cartoonist, drew a cartoon of Roy filling the entire net. Sadly (if understandably) Saint Patrick flamed out in game 7. (For some reason, what I remember of that game was Brisebois poking a guy with his stick and receiving a devastating retailatory whack that had him crumple like a house of cards. It seemed to be a metaphor for the whole series). I also remember Roy's being asked whether the team could win if he played merely "human." Roy's reply: dat's a good question...followed by lethal, accusatory silence. Yikes! (However, my memories could be hazy here - I'm sure Wamsley can set me straight if I've got the chronology wrong).

I'm shocked by Mara's +/-. In my mind, he is a very solid, useful player, a canny pick-up by Bob. But that stats don't bear that out. Spacek, that's another grave body blow. But if you look at his track record, it was only a matter of time before he got hurt. The best we can hope for is that it's only a few games and that MAB et al. can play over their heads temporarily to compensate for those lost minutes. Meanwhile, we'd better just pray to the good Lord that Hamrlik stays healthy. If he goes down, the ship goes down with him. What did Roy say about Gionta?

Yep, I agree that it's an optimistic scenario. Still, Florida is basically a B.S. organization, Horton (for all his youth) has been around a long time and may either be souring on Florida or they on him, etc.. Weird things happen with players who come into an organization very early - witness the general and mutual fatigue with Latendresse. More realistically, we'd have to sweeten the pot a bit. Which makes the whole notion much less attractive.

Horton for Pleks makes sense if indeed Horton has three years left on his deal. That represents solid cap value, and he would bring a different dimension that our lineup sorely needs. Pleks will likely command more than $4-mil per, so that's just the sort of deal Bob should be eyeing, if it's a possibility.

Cool story, seb. Wamsley's right, though, not necessarily about chicken legs but that a certain healthy scepticism is the appropriate approach to Pouliot. He has a track record of failure up until now (unlike Latendresse, who had proven himself to be a solid third-liner in the NHL). It's a Gainey gamble, but damn, we're overdue for one of those to pay off.

Yeah, and Kovalenko? Ruscinsky? Marius Czerkawski??? WHERE?? One guy who did nothing for me was Stephane Lebeau :puke:

Well, hold on there. First, they may have a pre-game routine and not like to muck it up. Second, they might well have felt a bit like intruders doing that - it could have an air of crashing someone else's party. (For instance, if I were a Glen Metropolit, basically a nothing in historical hockey terms, I can readily imagine myself feeling awkward inserting myself into a reminiscing session between Larry Robinson and Ken Dryden on a day like this). And I've been in that lounge, it's pretty small and intimate, doesn't lend itself to a swarm of twentysomethings barging in. Third, the players may have other, ongoing opportunities to hobnob with the greats. Then again, I'm pretty sure guys like the Kostityns don't give a sh*t. I asked this before and nobody answered, so I'll give it one more try: Did anyone else notice Bob Gainey looking kind of isolated out there? I SWEAR I saw him averting Jarvis. Did he talk to Carbo at all? Or am I being melodramatic? Hard to revel in the glory days when you've fired a bunch of the guys on the ice with you, I guess.

That Cammy, he seems to genuinely want to embrace the whole Montreal Canadiens thing. And he has the mojo to use it as an inspiration instead of wilting under the "pressure." :hlogo: I'm sooo tired of players fading instead of stepping up like men. Tonight Cammy and the rest stepped up and it was good to see. It's easy to think that players just see it as a job, but wise ones will understand that, in playing here, they're part of something greater than themselves and that, potentially, it can be something that enriches the rest of their lives. I wonder if a Sergei Kostitsyn can even comprehend that concept.

Yeah, I'm starting to get nervous about Latendresse. Not that I wish him ill or anything, but if he suddenly emerges as a bona fide, clear-cut top-6 forward - and Pouilot doesn't - it may become more than I can take as a fan. Not another asset wasted!!!! :puke:

Yeah, the leaders - or the guys who need to be leaders - delivered tonight. Cammy is the team's best player and man, did he rise to the occasion, as the best player should. Gomez did exactly what Gainey acquired him to do, quietly make things happen. Moen and Metropolit delivered the desperate extra effort you need from "energy" guys. Gill was an absolute rock defensively. And Price was unreal. Key guys delivered key performances, and maybe with more of our key guys actually in the lineup, we can see that more often. One can hope.

It's only fitting that, on the 100th anniversary, the Montreal Canadiens pulverize the Boston Bruins. :hlogo: Maybe the hockey gods haven't forgotten us completely. Yet. Two notes: Price was a BEAST, eerily Roy-like out there. And so, let it be said, was Hal Gill, a bona-fide Macguire-style MONSTER on the 5-on-3. Personally, I think Hal Gill, however maligned and sometimes erratic he is, means a whole lot to this team.

Pouilot is a swing-for-the-fences acquisition. Boom or bust. I really hope he blossoms, because we're long overdue for some good old fashioned luck when it comes to these things.

Oh, I had a couple of tears, all right. And goosebumps when all those former greats stepped onto the ice in full uniform! That was just so great. It was truly touching to see Lach and Bouchard. Only the Habs can do this stuff :hlogo: Is it just me or did anybody else notice that Bob Gainey looked kinda lonely out there? I swear I saw him averting the eyes of Doug Jarvis. And did he interact with Carbo at all? Forlorn, man. Watching this, I had two further sentiments. One is the realization of just how blasted hungry I am as a fan for another Stanley Cup. I'll bet I want it worse than some of the current players, g*dammit!! I also felt a bit queasy. Like: that's IT. The past is officially past. The ceremonies have been marked, the jerseys retired, the legends honoured, the whole thing wrapped up in style. But now, going forward there is nothing but the future...and it looks like mediocrity as far as the eye can see. How I would love for this intuition to be proven wrong :hlogo: :hlogo: :hlogo:

Best of the best. Agreed. That leaves out Cournoyer and Bouchard...possibly even Serge Savard (although he has extra standing as a "builder"). I dunno, maybe I'm too particular. What I'm suggesting is that we are now on the path toward allowing sentiment rather than rigorous standards to dictate retirements. That way lies #11, the most beloved player of his generation. Oh well, I suppose now is not the night for crankiness.

So anyone who was an all star Cup-winning Canadien should have their number retired? This isn't the New Jersey Devils. To have your sweater in the rafters you should rank with Harvey, Richard, Morenz, Lafleur, Dryden, Roy, et al.. "Merely excellent" players need not apply. Koivu will be retired. Mark my words.

Well spoken. (For the record, I *do* think that re-integrating a bunch of injured players is difficult and DOES often lead a team to struggle briefly - especially when the team never gelled in the first place. However, we're getting to the point where the entire season hangs in the balance, so KoZed's attitude really is the bottom line).

Lach deserves it, but Butch Bouchard...? 4 All-Star berths in 15 years, no significant individual honours, no real mythic dimension: what gives??? (I'll tell you what gives: politics. They want to retire a French Canadian hero along with Lach on this 'special night.') If Bouchard gets in, how does a Koivu stay out? This is a very significant dropping of the standard as far as I can see, compounding the earlier error with Cournoyer. Goddammit, can't they do ANYTHING right any more?

Horrible, but he's had slow starts before, so let's wait a little longer before we start crapping on his head.

Wamsley, I think that blowing up the core comes down in significant measure to the decline of Koivu and Kovalev, especially the former. Presumably Bob had no interest in re-signing Saku Koivu for any duration of time because Saku Koivu is no longer a top-6 player. Presumably he was willing to let Kovalev walk for related reasons. Locking those guys in for 2-3 more seasons would mean accepting steeply-diminishing returns from the veteran core over that span. Given the (assumed) desire to remain competitive during the rebuild, this wouldn't have been an option. (It's easy to say that he should have re-signed those guys to cheap contracts for only one season, of course. Easy, and totally unrealistic). As for the young vets Gainey has moved, I think he just gradually concluded that they were never going to become elite players. Patience, yes, but at some point you cut bait. Personally, I think Gainey was correct that the old core was not a good bet to be competitive over a 2-3 year span. Koivu especially had to be replaced.

I think Wamsley's position that BG can't be trusted with a second rebuild is reasonable and defensible. However, in my view rebuilding is not an exact science and therefore I tend to shy away from a punitive attitude toward failure. For instance, Bob had faith that Carbo could make the jump in a relatively short time frame. He based this, presumably, on his extensive previous experience with Carbo (and perhaps his sense that a guy with extensive experience in Montreal might be the right person). Lever and Jarvis also had credentials that suggested they were good choices. Obviously these decisions didn't work out, but I don't think that makes Bob an idiot or means that his decision was idiotic. Similarly, players such as Higgins, the Kostitsyns, Streit, Lats and Komisarek were all highly-regarded as prospects and the crop of young players Gainey and Timmins assembled was universally viewed as one of the best in hockey. We can therefore infer that they were reasonable draft picks - not obvious blunders or idiotic choices. Philosophers refer to this process of making reasonable-yet-unpredictable choices in a murky world as the "burden of jugement." Gainey has generally made what seem to be reasonable decisions given radically imperfect information. Now, one can take a purely results-oriented view and say "you only get one try." Like I say, that's a reasonable conclusion. But given the inherent unpredictability of a rebuild, the real issue to me is whether the reasons for the earlier failure have been identified and fixed. I think it's reasonable to argue that Gainey seems to have identified coaching (and perhaps veteran leadership/team culture) as the principal causes behind the failure of Rebuild 1.0 and has taken comprehensive steps to address those underlying problems. On that basis, I think it's equally reasonable to give Bob the opportunity to try again. We can also argue that our drafting has just sucked. Maybe. Or maybe the real issue has been in player development. Again: either view is reasonable, given that none of us really "knows" the truth of the matter. So we have an honest disagreement here. If I see Gainey dumping youth and picks in a desperate drive to make the playoffs, then I will definitely swing to the Wamsley side. For now, I'm still with Bob.

You don't need to finish last to rebuild. It's a myth. 40 years of Habs dynasties proves it. Detroit and New Jersey prove it, along with lesser examples such as Anaheim, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Boston, etc.. Finishing last is also no guarantee of successful rebuilding. See Columbus, Atlanta, etc.. IF we are indeed "rebuilding in disguise," it's really just fine by me.