The Chicoutimi Cucumber

Yeah, it's a good question, what to do with this guy?? On the one hand he's what, 24? Lots of time to grow up and figure it out. That's the case for patience. On the other hand, there are a lot of warning flags here (hanging with mobsters, sulking because his brother was sent down, general inconsistency and worse, laziness) suggesting he suffers from that all-too-prevalent Russian - or in this case Belarusan - disease. The technical term is "Idontgiveashit-itis." There's no known cure. Remember we'd be getting a talented and relatively young player back. Even if Kosty breaks out, is his ceiling that much higher than Frolov's? Beats me, but it wouldn't be a question of dumping Kosty for a broken-down Ninimaa. Tough call, this one.

Richer was suididal?? That explains a lot. He was easily the most talented Canadien since Guy Lafleur, rivalled only by Koivu before his knee injury in 1996 (*that* Koivu probably was top-5 in the NHL) and Kovalev on his good nights. But I came to hate his guts because he was so erratic, without the redeeming charm of Kovalev. In fact, no trade by Reggie Fool aggravated me as much as the Odelein for Richer deal, which got rid of our only tough defenceman and a team leader in favour of a soft, one-dimensional head-case on a team that already had decent offence. Oh well, sh*t under the bridge.

But his ass looks like it's made of asbestos. It's fire-proof.

But he's another head-case who has been serving on the Kings' third line, for heaven's sake. We could come out ahead simply because of the RH shot thing. But it sounds like a classic case of trading headaches. Not saying it'd be a bad move, but we'd need not to be dazzled by the rep Frolov created a few seasons ago when he emerged as a 'future star.' Anyway: these Frolov rumours have been percolating on and off for long enough - just as the Lang and Tanguay rumours did - that I definitely believe Gainey is interested. I won't be surprised at all if he's a habs before too long.

Right. What's so 'perplexing' about that? Typical media analysis. If the Habs were the Wings, they'd take the time actually to think through the logic of the move, but the narrative around the canadiens is 'franchise in never-ending chaos' so the 'experts' feel they don't have to bother.

Hear hear! Savard's tenure has been sadly underrated by Habs fans. The guy had us a contender every single year except 1995, when his first line got old overnight. I guess Serge gets too little respect because of two high-profile disastrous trades (the Recchi deal and the Chelios deal), both of which were likely the result of ownership pressure (certainly, the Chelios deal was). Or maybe more likely, fans in the Savard era had been so spoiled by the dynasty years that they confused mere excellence with mediocrity. Anyway, I still miss the Serge Savard days. The Habs were then what New Jersey has been for the last decade, a perennial danger to go deep and a team the rest of the league hated to play against.

:puke: :puke: :puke: And BTH, I just don't see Bob being *that* desperate to keep his job. He strikes me more as the type who pursues his course and lets the chips fall where they may.

They should give Laraque #27 if he wants it. For God's sake. There is no greater sign of the decline of the Montreal Canadiens than this hysterical love affair for Alexei Kovalev. The great teams of the past would have shipped him out of town for draft picks at the first opportunity. I myself loved Kovy for his entertainment value, but come ON, the guy won nothing and had two horrible seasons with ye Habs. This is ridiculous.

Personally I think this rumour is bunk anyway, but the rumour involved SERGEI Kostitsyn, not his brother. That's what I was responding to. I agree, Andrei + Pacioretty for Boyes would be crazy.

I like KoZed's general outlook on this. His question of how you set criteria is a good one. He demands a second-round showing. Fair enough, but what if the team happens to be rocked with injuries like it was last season? Do we then fire Bob? Or what if the team has a horrible first half and then puts on a terrific second half charge, only to fall a point or two short of the playoffs? Couldn't you argue that the second half - when presumably the team has gelled and Markov is back - is the truer indicator of the team Bob has assembled? Would it make sense to fire a GM under those circumstances, with a team that seems ready to take the big leap? If we fail to make the playoffs, firing Bob will be defensible, but even then, depending on the situation, I wouldn't necessarily be happy about it. While he has been guilty of questionable asset management and his player development has been pretty bad, he has taken very clear steps to improve in the latter area and he *does* bring stability, respect, and general competence to the organization, and he is impervious to media and fan influence - huge pluses in this pathological hockey environment. In the end, then, I think you have to look at the context and not just impose a fixed 'target' that Bob must meet in order to keep his job. Personally, what I really want coming out of this season is some sense that the team is, if not a contender, then on the cusp of contending - kinda the feeling I had at the end of 2008. If we exit 2009-10 feeling that this is a so-so team and a so-so organization highly unlikely to have a serious at winning within the next 2-3 years, then that'll mean Bob has locked us into a non-championship-calibre core with minimal cap flexibility for improvement in the forseeable future and few can't-miss prospects in the system. The moment we conclude this definitively, we have no choice but to conclude that he should go. He'll have condemned us to mediocrity for another generation.

I agree; I might do it without the 1st overall pick though. Whether St. Louis would is another question. We need a second line all right. I do hope Gainey gives the staff time to work with A. Kostitsyn before pulling the trigger. But a guy like Boyes *could* be just what the doctor ordered.

Yeah, those criticisms of Carbo were silly.People seem to think it's still 1966 and that teams go around with rigidly fixed line combos. In fact every NHL coach moves players around the roster and mixes and matches his lines, including trying things like that. You can lament the culture of overcoaching currently prevalent in the NHL - I for one do - but you can't criticize a coach for doing things that all normal coaches do. (Carbo deserved to be fired for other reasons, e.g., his team was a disaster, the young players regressed under his tutelage, he had to go crying - preposterously - to daddy Bob over Kovy, and - most damningly - he lost the room. Any other franchise would have fired him before we did. NOT saying he did nothing right. Just that teams don't collapse like that, and coaches don't lose the room, without heads rolling, period).

+100. This sounds great. Don't just dump the kid. Treat him like a kid who needs guidance, mentoring, coaching. Teach him to be a man. How can we lose? The sad thought is that this sort of thing WASN'T being done before. That would explain a lot of our wasted prospects.

Nicely done. If he replies, expect rudeness - I politely e-mailed him years ago after he inexplicably failed to mention a major trade involving Donald Audette, asking why he hadn't mentioned it. He commanded me 'not to tell him what to write about' and basically to F off. Not a sweetheart. But you're right, his current campaign against Price is just more of the sort of media idiocy that gives Montreal a bad name. Say what you like about Bob, at least he has the cojones to call out these slavering media jackals and defends his players to the hilt.

Who cares about Begin anyway? The lamentations over Begin have little to do with hockey and everything to do with ethnic self-assertion. Otherwise put, if he was English he'd have been forgotten by now. The guy is an often-injured quality fourth liner, in no way a difference-maker. It's all silly.

I hope this guy's sex life is not as premature as his journalism. That's all i can say.

All the moves from summer 2008 look bad because Bob was 'going for it.' He had reason to think his team was close to being a contender and made a series of excellent moves to try to put it over the top. Didn't work, and I certainly respect your blanket opposition to surrendering first-rounders, but I really think Bob made the right decision with the info he had. That's the trouble with 'going for it' - it usually fails to work out; but you have to try, surely. And unlike the average numbskull fan I'm not going to condemn the GM retroactively for it. Souray was a mistake and I said it at the time. Good call, Chris. Komisarek also should have been moved at the deadline, but realistically in Year 100 Gainey HAD to keep him for the stretch drive/playoff run even though they were lost causes. As for Ryder, he lost his job to Kostitsyn. Gainey had the choice of paying $4 mil for a guy when he had a cheaper and apparently better alternative already on the team. That decision only looks questionable because Kosty has regressed. This wasn't something Bob could anticipate. IF Gainey had developed a couple of elite forwards from within the system and a couple of bona-fide top-4 d-men, we wouldn't even be having this discussion. All these 'lost players' wouldn't matter much at all because they'd have been replaced by comparable or superior talent from within. So I come back to my original point. THE reason for firing Gainey is poor player development. The other stuff is beside the point.

Hey! Doctorate in what? I had to write two massive 'qualifying exams' as part of the process for mine - my eyeglasses prescription increased by a couple of notches and it was the end of the relaxing sleep of my youth I feel your pain, brother!

I'm surprised you omit Bob's single biggest failure: the failure to draft and/or develop a SINGLE elite-level hockey player except perhaps Streit and Price. At most one top-4 defenceman, and not a single unambiguous top-6 foward has been produced in the entire Gainey era. That is unacceptable and the single biggest justification - maybe the ONLY truly compelling justification - for firing Bob. Nonetheless, I'm reluctant to say he should be canned. But we need to see young players progressing, and soon. By the way, the team is VASTLY better in every respect than it was under Houle. Houle was not fit to run a used car lot. Gainey has restored the franchise to such respectability that it can attract a raft of UFAs AND a sitting GM to coach it. You've forgotten just how low we sank under Houle. Bob has built a solid NHL team and organization. But he has failed to build a winner, and that really hurts.

I know nothing about it, but my own guess is that the Habs aren't doing the right kind of psychological profiling of these guys. There must have been a way to get some sense of whether guys like Emelin and Valetenko had any deep desire to play here, for instance. I know Gainey had sized up Higgins and Price as men of iron character - what happened? Just a thought. Meanwhile, amusing rumour of the day: http://legrandclub.rds.ca/profils/370134/posts/40063 Boyes? Sure!

And according to Habs I/O Martin said that Hamrlik is injured. I'm gonna go curl into a fetal position now

You said it, fellow BC soul brother! You said it. We are a mediocre developmental organization and now it really shows.

Looks like a team with one excellent scoring line, one above-average checking line, and ZILCH after that (except maybe one lively second-line C wasted due to no linemates). Some middling defencemen missing their leader. Hamrlik is showing signs of stepping up, though. And a goalie who may indeed best be described, as per Todd, as 'fragile.' I noticed in the Edmonton game that he was off his angles and exaggerating his motion again - although he calmed down in the third. Clearly the Vancouver blowout was on his mind. I don't like that. So there could be ups and downs between the pipes again. Good coach determined to mould a team with character. Slacking off will NOT go rewarded any more. And that's the best part. We need secondary scoring and an NHL-calibre fourth line desperately. Too bad we can't afford to deal any more picks/prospects.

Dandy would be a great addition. Eats fourth-line minutes efficiently. I have no faith in these kids anyway. Sign that sucker, Bob.

Kostitsyn WAS benched for the entire third period. That may be one reason for the slightly odd line matchups late in the game- we were missing one of our supposed 'top 6.' And a good move by Martin it was. I LOVE the fact that the Country Club Canadiens is clearly being shut down by the new coach. If the team takes a night off: bag skate! If a player floats around out there: benched! It's painful and it may even costs us a win or two, stapling talented players to the bench, but you have to do it if you want to build a winning culture. It's up to Kosty to learn. Or bugger off like his pissy-faced punk of a brother. One guy I do like on our D is Paul Mara. He seems to bring a solid all-around game and if he was benched that was indeed stupid. Still not seeing Spacek as the guy who got 45 points last season, though. Gill is getting a bad press and it's not wholly warranted. Yes, he was an odd choice to have out there at game's end. But I find people are zeroing in on his stumbles and not enough on the good plays he does make. Perhaps I'm too forgiving; never did play the 'whipping boy' game. Speaking of which, Gomez is fun, and he'll put up points, but damn, he seems to lose a *lot* of battles along the boards. It really is just astonishing to me that anyone gave him $8 mil/year. Defies understanding. Pacioretty had one great shift where he powered past the D and drove for the net. If he keeps doing THAT I may let up a bit on the 'habs can't develop young players' theme. But I've seen this movie - young player shows flashes now and then - 1000 times and I'm not betting on Pacioretty at this point... That second period was demoralizing as hell. But in the first and third we actually outclassed Edmonton in every respect except goaltending (Price was good in the third, he seemed to calm down). A loss to build on...maybe? Yet the team has soooo many holes. No second line. No fourth line. The disappearance of the Kostitsyns has really hurt our depth. So has the loss of Higgins. Il n'y a pas de releve!! Looks like we're gonna be riding The Big Three all season, for better or worse.