The Chicoutimi Cucumber

A beautifully written post, toronthab. With all due respect, though, it does make me sound like more of a Gainey-booster than I intended to be in my earlier post! I share your admiration for Gainey as a man and agree with a lot of what you say, but in the end I'm no longer out to defend his overall performance as GM. No, my claim, which I've been making consistently for a while now (and I apologize if it's getting tiresome) is that the overwhelming problem of the Gainey era is abysmal player development. I just don't think lack of vision has been the problem; and I think a lot of the specific mistakes people criticize (Souray, Komisarek, Streit, Ribeiro, Samsonov, yada yada yada) would be that big a deal in hindsight if the Habs had been able to bring up high-end young players over the last five years. It's been a crippling weakness that has sabotaged the whole Gainey program. As for the current team - I just don't know. I think Bergeron will help the PP, which will help the team win. I also think we as fans need to be consistent; just as, in the years past, some of us have criticized the team for winning games despite playing poorly, it occurs to me that we're now doing the opposite - attacking the team for losing games despite playing pretty good hockey. Now that the dismay of last night is behind me, I think maybe patience remains our best course.

I think the Nords are bad news for the Habs. A rivalry that intense can create all sorts of pathologies. Remember Alfie Turcotte? Remember the arguments that the team that won the provincial rivalry in the playoffs tended to have nothing left for a Cup run? Remember Pierre Mondu? For that matter, do we Habs fans *really* want the Nordiques encroaching on the Habs's revenue base? I dunno, I could do without the 3-ring circus.

Hey, as late as the fall of 2008 it looked as though the development program was right on track. That turned out to be an illusion, created in part by Kovalev's unreal performance in 2007-08. Also the loss of Streit hurt, and bad. Once the veil was lifted Bob was remorseless in destroying all those who seemed tied to the failure. I don't think loyalty is his problem. That Timmins remains suggests that Bob believes the problem has been more one of development than drafting. I sure hope he's right, but there are definitely grounds for questioning Gainey's judgement at this point. He certainly has not proven to be an above-average evaluator of player OR coaching talent at either the professional or amateur levels in his time with us.

OK. Has Gainey been more-or-less coherent in his thinking? That's the fascinating question Wamsley raises. Until 2008, he was building with youth. Specific mistakes (not trading Huet and Souray) are explicable as compromises with the basic vision, based on specific calculations at the time, rather than out-and-out contradictions or confusions. After all, there ARE short-term goals as well. Bottom line is, the plot seemed pretty coherent until 2008. After 07-08, he changed visions. The team looking like a contender, in the summer of 08 he made a series of moves designed to bolster specific weaknesses. Again: no real confusion, no real contradiction. That's how it's done. At some point, building stops and 'going for it' begins. In 08-09 he saw his new vision through to the bitter end by acquiring Schneider and hoping the team could get healthy and get its psychology in order. That's not confusion, it's consistency. It was also disastrous, and Wamsley can say it makes Gainey a corporate peon, but Gainey isn't God. He works in the real world. In the real world, the Habs could not simply throw in the towel in February of Year 100 . Period. I understand Wamsley's disappointment, but I don't believe that anybody would have done differently. Firing Carbo was also in no way inconsistent. It made sense given the short-term objectives of 2008-09 - the team had by all accounts quit on Carbo. So they needed a change to have any chance. It also made sense according to the longer-term developmental logic. Yes, the original vision was that the young players would become 'Carbo's team' and blossom under his tutelage. Unfortunately almost every young player of the Carbo-Gainey era turned out to be a disappointment, so clearly something was awry on that front. No inconsistency at all, then. In fact, the Martin-Boucher structure seems deliberately designed to address the abysmal failings of the previous coaching regimes on this front. This amounts to correcting mistakes, not 'inconsistency.' There have been a LOT of mistakes. Carbo. Ribeiro. Souray. Huet. Not negotiating with RFAs. Etc. But that's a problem of execution, not vision. Wamsley points out that IF the 08-09 team really was a contender on paper, then Bob should have kept it together; doing otherwise was, again, inconsistent. But I say no. Gainey may simply, and quite reasonably, have concluded that the window for that particular core - Koivu in particular - was closed or due to close. There is NO inconsistency in saying, 'these players can do it this year,' while also saying, 'if they don't win, they are too old to re-sign for another 2-3 years.' Players change and decline. This may be why Bob talked so much about getting younger when he signed all those UFAs. 2008-09 was Saku Koivu's last chance. Once you replace your #1 C, you can reasonably change other parts to fit. Which is what happened. No real inconsistency there either. The difficulty is in discerning the vision for the 2009-10 season and going forward. Are we built to 'win now?' Or is Bob quietly trying another rebuild, this time with the new core in place of the old one, with Pacioretty, D'agostini, Weber, Subaan, etc., supposed to play the roles of Higgins, Pleks, Komisarek, etc.? This is the first time in the Gainey era that there does not seem to be a very compelling vision either way. This team could only 'win now' if everything went right (which it already hasn't). And the young talent seems far too weak to represent any sort of convincing 'rebuild.' But if there is confusion here it's of very recent vintage. And in fact, I don't think there *is* confusion. What there is, is a strained attempt to paper over the complete and utter failure of the first rebuild in terms of developing elite talent. The real issue is that neither of the earlier visions worked. The pre-2008 vision failed to yield real elite players. The 2008-09 vision failed to yield a winner. So now what? I agree that NOW Bob may be flying by the seat of his pants. But it's not through lack of vision. It's through the failure of those visions and the limited hand that he's been left to play as a result. Small difference, but interesting to ponder. As for Bob's motives? Come on. The guy wants to win and believes he can: that's why we stays on. I don't believe for one instant that that attribute of Gainey's personality has changed one iota.

Higgins for Hossa...yeah, but that would have been moving a (perceived) BIG young piece for a short-term rental. It woud have been defensible; but I don't see it as self-evident. We agree that moving Huet was mistake, but obviously Bob truly believed that Price was the Golden Child. He was wrong. But again, that doesn't speak to confused vision. Tanguay was a long-term move, but I believe that once the decision was made to change the core, Tanguay no longer looked like a fit. He's too much like Gomez. We were better off with a scorer, i.e., Cammalleri. Here's the real difference between us on this. I don't see 'vision' as an all or nothing proposition. 'Going for broke' doesn't necessarily mean decimating the team's young core for two months of short-term help. It means moving selected assets and picks for targeted players who address specific weaknesses. For Year 100 Bob brought in a #2 C, a proven scoring winger, and the league's most feared enforcer, each move designed to relieve specific problems. Meanwhile, he retained the Komisareks, Plekanecs, and Higgins of the world. Seemed like pretty coherent thinking to me. The *problem* - the awful, shattering problem - is that when Year 100 went bust, he could not do what normal logic would have required, which was moving out a lot of those impending UFAs for assets. That has nothing to do with Gainey and everything to do with the specific, bizarre circumstances of the Montreal Canadiens as an organization at that particular historical moment. No GM could have blown it all up in midstream last year. It would have meant missing the playoffs and therefore career suicide. If there is confused vision here, it's not Gainey's, but rather the collective reality of all things :hlogo: I saw all this at the time. And that was one reason why last year's collapse made me so sick to my stomach. It meant the end of the Gainey Rebuild with almost nothing to show for it. But again I'm not convinced it speaks to confusion on the GMs part. It's more a mix of a few questionable decisions and bad luck, and - mostly - bad player development. Execution has been the problem more than vision IMHO. Not that it makes a difference, we're still in the same old crapper.

Souray was a mistake, but Bob was trying to get his team into the playoffs - possibly with an eye to attracting future UFAs. I'm with BTH on that. Komisarek could not have been dealt. Gainey simply could NOT throw in the towel on Year 100, no matter what. He had to make the dance and not a human being alive would have done differently in his shoes. Wamsley, we DO have to bear in mind that all moves relating to Lang and Tanguay had to do with going for broke in a season when practically everyone involved with hockey predicted that the Habs would contend. Under the circumstances, Bob did what most people probably would support, in principle: sacrifice picks and problematic young assets (Grabs) in order to upgrade for a realistic Cup run. That it didn't work isn't really Bob's fault, and those moves should be discounted in terms of assessing his 'long term vision.' What happened there was that he was shifting paradigms - going from builder to the logic of 'win now' - which is something that every GM needs to do sooner or later. Again, didn't work, but it doesn't mean he is or was confused. You're right about the Streit/Huet inconsistency - I said at the time that dealing Huet was dumb - but I guess Bob figured he could re-sign Streit, or else that Huet was redundant given Price's strong performance. I don't know, to me these are specific decisions, more or less defensible given the facts at the time (well, not Huet), more than indicators of long-term vision or lack thereof. Bob probably figured that Streit was a moderately useful guy to keep for a Cup run given his versatility, while Huet had been decisively supplanted by Price. Alas, another wrong decision. But not necessarily a sign of confusion. Having said that, I remain ennervated by the Gainey regime's inability to develop elite talent, period. Long-term vision is utlimately useless if your young players are mediocre: that has become the basic tragedy of the Gainey regime, and explains our present situation much more than managerial confusion or lack of vision. In any case: Bergeron could be that extra little ingredient from the blueline that gets us a couple of PP goals and edges us over into the W column. Lots to be said for staying cool for a bit longer.

DOH, my bad.

I think Gainey HAD long-term vision. But the much-heralded young guns turned out to be third-liners and fifth defencemen, every last one of them. That put him in the desperate position of trying to replace the decaying, losing core by free agency. And frankly, those guys AREN'T the problem so far, whatever their long-term implications may be. I think you can defend a trade based on the catastrophic X-factor of a grave, long-term injury to Markov. Many teams *would* pull the trigger under those circumstances, regardless of what happened in the summer. But not if the trade involves dealing away young players with real (as opposed to more hypothetical) potential or high picks. This is why I bring up the idea of trading Spacek. It would be embarassing, but not if it was part of a wider strategy to get younger at D and better at forward. Anyway, like I say, I'm so demoralized at this moment that I probably will regret saying this in the morning.

IMHO, the Achilles' Heel in the short term is Spacek, who was brought in to back up Markov and ease the pains should Markov get hurt or falter. That decision looks like a total miscalculation at this point - he seems to be a #4 D-man at best - and it might be worth pulling the trigger, even this early on, to try to fix that. I'd rather lose with a Cam Barker who at least has youth in his favour than a Jaroslav Spacek. By the way, he is injury prone; wait until HE gets hurt. You're right, though. If they blow the next three, HEAD FOR THE EXITS.

:nono: However, I AM pretty down about this. I *thought* we've have a spirited, competitive team, not a contender but a potential spoiler. Poof, out goes Markov. Out goes everything. I have suffered for more than a decade with this team. I'm not sure I have it in me to suffer another decade. Right now I want Bob to make another deal. Package Spacek, try to get a top-6 forward (Frolov?). Then try to get Cam Barker, some promising young D like that who can actually play. I'm probably not thinking rationally, but this D just isn't good enough without Markov and it's hurting our forwards. That 5 on 3 was a sorry display of mediocre decision-making from the points. UGH. We need wins. We need 'em soon. Are the Molsons willing to spend to the cap on a bottom-feeding team? Cripes, Bob could be gone by Christmas if this keeps up.

Well, the salary they paid Huet shows that they cannot assess goaltending talent. That could work in our favour.

All true. But right now we're 'finding ways to lose.' If that doesn't change soon it won't matter what we do.

I predicted a first-half crisis, but I didn't expect it this early. :puke: What's frustrating is that this team has dominated its opponents for significant stretches more than once this season. It happened against Colorado, and in the first period tonight - and yet we failed to come out with more than a one-goal lead. All it takes then is a bad bounce (Colorado) or penalty trouble (Ottawa) and you're scrambling. This is a universal problem in hockey: if you dominate for a long stretch and don't get rewarded, the air goes out of the balloon and you're in trouble. I have NO doubt that with Markov we'd be at least .500 at this point. But that doesn't do us any good. As it stands, this team may have too many of the same kind of player up front. This was flagged all along as a potential problem, but I think our offensive impotence is a bit surprising and best explained in those terms. It's too *easy* to play against a team that is throwing the same kind of attackers at you shift after shift. Contrast that with, say, Boston last season, which hurled Lucic, Ryder, Kessel, and Savard - all fundamentally different kinds of players - at you. Makes it hard to develop a single game plan for defensive purposes. To be competitive on the 'same kind of player' model, maybe you need to be like Detroit, throwing SO many players of elite or near-elite calibre at the opposition that they're simply overwhelmed. As it is we can't do that. Just a theory. Beyond that, Spacek is trying but he just isn't good enough to serve as a #1 D-man in Markov's absence. He could prove to be Gainey's biggest off-season mistake. That Cam Barker idea looks better and better.

The issue is not that we let guys get away as UFAs. Every team does that, and this has become another one of those silly red herrings that fans and media throw around, listing the guys we let go without mentioning the guys we added. It's a mug's game designed to make Gainey look stupid. No, the issue is partly that we failed to get much back for Souray and Komisarek - two guys on crappy teams who would have bagged HUGE returns - and also lost Beachemin, Ribeiro, Hainsey and Grabovski while getting little back. But the real point, as I repeat ad nauseum, is the absence of any elite talent developed from within. ANY franchise in that position is going to have to start resorting to patch-up jobs and overpaid UFAs after a while. This is the trap Gainey's fallen into.

Is it time to panic yet? A dozen new players and we still can't win without Markov... :puke:

Price is in no way to blame for this loss. In fact he hasn't cost us ANY wins this season as far as I can recall. He's doing his job - albeit not as well as some hot goalies might be doing it. For that, he is accused of being everything from an alocholic to an AHL netminder. This whole debate is ridiculous IMHO.

Hey, you may be right. But the Gomez deal was made to address a catastrophic organizational weakness that he had not been able to address through the draft, i.e., the need to replace a declining Koivu. I don't see that as short-term thinking. I'm sure Bob made the move because he thought it would solve our problem at C for years to come. (We can argue whether Gomez is good enough to do that, but I believe this was Gainey's motivation). That's a bit different from dumping youth to 'win now' - or at least make the playoffs

Glad you agree that the really serious problems lie elsewhere, not between the pipes. My objection is that, this being the Habs's case, WAAAAY too much attention has been given over by fans and media to criticizing or defending Price. It's blown out of proportion. I mean, you've got a sizeable chunk of the fanbase that seems to think Price is 'the key' to whatever ails the Habs. This was the case in that famous series against Philly two seasons ago and to a lesser extent in the second half of last season. But as an analysis of *this* season, it's just nuts. It is valid to debate the relative merits of Carey Price vs. Halak or other NHL goalies, but the amount of energy being expended on this is totally out of proportion. Let's move on!!!

Many of Stevens's legendary hits were actually elbows anyway. It was a sad time for hockey when those hits were being celebrated as great examples of how the game should be played. A disgrace. The point of hits is not to ruin people's lives anyway; it is to take players out of the play and inflict punishment that makes them back off the next time around. There's a difference.

The Jackets have a great fan base. It's suffered lately due to the crippling recession in Ohio, but credit where due, that's a great hockey town. Nonetheless it's no Montreal. Not to be rude, but I'm getting pretty sick of this Price debate. Indeed, I have a hard time seeing it as more than just another version of the scapegoating disease. Clearly Price is a good young goalie. He's not yet among the NHL's rarified elite. But even if he were, he would *still* be constantly criticized because of the ridiculous expectations that Habs fans force on their goalies. As Wamsley points out, this is a town that booed Ken Dryden and Patrick Roy, and I know for a fact that a solid chunk of Montreal's fan base NEVER thought Roy was all that great until AFTER he had been shipped out of town. Price hasn't been ruined; so arguments that the Habs have mishandled him are by definition overstated. The Habs don't have any better options anyway. And I don't think he's our major problem by any means (lack of depth up front and defensive-zone issues, these are REAL problems - and underlying it all is our track-record of bad drafting/player development). So what is the point of all this mooning over Huet, crying for Saviour Halak, or yelling at Bob for having too much faith in the young man? Stop whining about possible mistakes made two years ago and start worrying about the REAL weaknesses on this team; that'd be my humble suggestion.

For me, this loss can be explained by bad bounces - those WERE weird goals and in my view Price played well enough to win - and the ongoing problem that we're lacking 1-2 top-6 forwards. Kostitsyn had one great shift leading to the second Plekanec goal, so full credit for that; but in the early going we have consistently lacked that extra bit of secondary scoring. It may yet come. If Kosty can continue improving, then we'll be missing ONE top-6 forward instead of two. Nonetheless, this problem may have to be addressed before we go too much further. On balance, the Habs looked pretty good in defeat. It's not like TO where you have a hard time imagining the team ever winning a game. .500 before Markov comes back is surely realistic, but we need the bounces to start going our way, and soon. If this keeps up we get a media firestorm, players clutching their sticks, and possible disaster. Random thoughts: Hamrlik, Gomez, Gionta, Moen, Plekanec and Mara strike me as players who are either rounding into form or have been pleasant surprises from the get-go this season; if any of them get hurt or falter, we could be in HUGE trouble. Pacioretty is looking better in the last couple of games. Expect the 4th line to be more competitive at home now that Martin has the last change. Meanwhile, some questions: 1. What's the scoop with Spacek? I never paid much attention to this guy before the Habs signed him, but I know that he was much-loved by fans in Columbus and that he was Buffalo's de facto #1 D-man last season. Scouting reports routinely cite his 'hard point shot.' On that basis, I figured Bob had done well to sign him, giving us a legitimate puck-moving defenceman and PP QB to back up Markov. But so far this season, while he hasn't played badly, I haven't seen many signs of a particularly efficient contributor to our transitional game, nor have I seen any especially impressive point-presence on the PP. Heck, I rate Mara as a better signing at this point. He's gone from being a possible secret weapon to being a somewhat anonymous contributor to a middling defence corps. Is this the best we can expect??? 2. What is with the refereeing? I don't mean the specific bungles last night. I mean the general increase in holding, interference, and other ills that the 'new NHL' was supposed to purge. Am I wrong to think the game is being called differently these days? Can the NHL please make up its %^&*%&*%*%* mind? (Needless to say, clutching and grabbing works to the disadvantage of the Habs' smallish forwards). 3. Should we be getting worried about Cammalleri? 4 assists in 6 games and a relatively quiet night last night, when I'd have expected him to be especially hyped-up. Apart from those great plays in Game 1, he hasn't looked like the $6-million-man. Not trying to slag him, but it won't be long before these questions start to get raised by the remorseless Montreal media.

I have to admit, I was one of the ones who wanted Komisarek re-signed. But his performance in TO so far is proving his critics right and redounding to Gainey's credit for refusing to overpay. It's just possible that, where our talent-evaluation process went awry with Streit, it was spot on with Komisarek. Time will tell, though. But so far I'm lovin' it.

The last few posts have been spot on. I've been saying for a while: all the other stuff - trades, handling of RFAs, etc. - is tangential to the REAL problem of the Gainey regime, which is its singular failure to either draft or develop ANY elite talent at any position (except maybe goal). Opinions differ over whether the drafting side has been bad or the development side, or both. Beats me. Either way, though, this failure is the reason why Gainey had to sign 2/3 of a first line and half a defence corps as UFAs, often at high prices, as well as take on the worst contract in all of hockey. He had to, because he had no young top-6 forwards in the system and zero top-4 defencemen. It's just sad. Contrast that with, say, Anaheim, which has an entire first line of home-grown talent, and you see the problem in a nutshell. If I were the Molsons, I'd sit down with Bob. I wouldn't say a thing about all his UFA signings. I would ask for an explanation of these mediocre drafting/development results. And then I would ask what steps he has taken or will take to ensure that the next five years do NOT leave us with a bunch of Russians who have no interest in playing in the NHL and a bunch of pretty-good third-liners, marginal second-liners, and 5th defencemen. My decision to fire him or to keep him on would be based to a significant degree on how convincing his answers to these questions are. (It looks like the coaching changes on the farm and the big club have been made with player development in mind. So there's a decent chance Bob would indeed have good answers. But these are the questions that need to be asked; they hold the key to understanding the crashing failure of the Gainey Rebuild).

What's funny is how the media went along. Look, I like both Komisarek and Beauchemin as defencemen, and I *think* they'll probably start looking better as things progress, but both come with the same huge asterisk: each established himself as top-4 defencemen only after being paired with all-star-calibre partners. It is amazing in retrospect that more was not made of that question. Pierre MacGuire even went so far as to suggest that markov would be 'exposed' without Komisarek. The mind reels.

That's using the old noodle! And note the bungled attempt at 'truculence' that started the whole mess only to see Komi on his arse along the boards. Does a habs fan good.