The Chicoutimi Cucumber

I'm hazy on the specifics, but there was some story going around that Robinson had inquired about openings behind the Habs' bench and had not been taken up on it. I think we can all agree that we'd like to see Big Bird back with les glorieux. Most likely, it had to do with Jacques Martin wanting people he felt comfortable with. His prerogative, and considering the number of people who want raw rookie Kirk Muller to replace one of the winningest active coaches, it was probably a wise strategic move by JM to keep Robinson at a distance - if indeed that's what happened.

Like I said, sending him down without having a replacement lined up is dumb. Sending him down *this season* is also sheer lunacy (unless you magically garner a 2nd-line C at the deadline - but even then, the consequences for team chemistry at a crucial portion of the season are unknowable). None of this should rule out making a move for a replacement during the summer and *then* either moving him, should anybody wish to claim him for a song, or just burying him in the minors. Habs29 is too stridently negative for me, but he's spot on to say that Gomez this season has been one of the very worst second line C in the NHL. Bringing in even a middling-quality guy as a replacement, and then spelling that guy off with Desharnais as need be, would make vastly better sense in hockey terms because of the salary it would free up. Teams like Chicago and Philly have indeed been willing to carry bloated contracts and nevertheless succeed. But they have also shown a willingness to be absolutely ruthless with players who they no longer feel help their team (e.g., Huet, Leighton). I have no problem with the former, but it needs to be combined with the latter. Will this scare away UFAs? Why would it? Gomez has earned himself no better. At the end of the day, UFAs respect a winner - look at how they're willing to go to franchises like Philly and Boston that have a track record of treating their players like dirt.

Dumont does indeed show every sign of being done. He's pushing 33 after a long career and his numbers went into preciptious decline last season, a pattern which has intensified this year. Those aren't good signs. He is also on a team starved for offence; so without having claimed to observe Nashville closely, he probably was given every chance to find his game and played himself off the top lines. Unless, indeed, it's a mutual salary dump (as it would be with Spacek involved, say) - or else a rental acquired for minimal cost on our part - it's hard to see why the Habs would make this move.

Agreed. The kid is a beast like we haven't seen in Montreal since the arrival of Saku Koivu. The only issue with PK concerns what goes on between the ears. If he allows the combination of Montreal + all the success get to his head, then at some point he will regress and perhaps crash and burn. This is where the internal leadership of guys like Gill is so key. (And yeah, Robinson wouldn't hurt ) But there is no question in my mind that he has it in him to be a top-10 NHL defenceman of his generation. In about 20 years of watching as a conscious adult, I've never seen a rookie defenceman come in and make such an impact on the Habs. Not Chelios, not Desjardins - nobody. He's the real thing, if you ask me.

On Gomez: you can't just 'get rid of him.' You need a replacement. Desharnais may or may not have it in him to be that replacement. This is the *only* reason why dumping him in the minors - not this season, but afterwards, or at some point into next season if he continues to struggle - is a bad idea in hockey terms. Almost any 2nd-line C out there would be an improvement. And if that replacement costs (say) $5 mil in salary, you garner yourself another $2 mil and change to play with. (If the replacement is Desharnais, then you clear over $6 million, and are perhaps in a position to build a real contender next season, assuming DD can cut it). Some people seem unable to come to grips with the depths of Gomer's suckage this season. He's been unacceptable. Period. If a replacement is viable, then you do whatever it takes to dump him and his salary. The only caveat is if he has been playing injured - of which I haven't heard any suggestion.

Although he could well turn out to be the best of the bunch, PK will never win. His numbers, as Habs29 says, aren't spectacular; he was benched for five games earlier this season; and he's a notorious bigmouth who has been proclaimed to lack 'respect for the code' by the usual legion of ignorant morons. Even if his numbers were great, the selection committee would take the less controversial choices.

Count me among the pro-Desharnais, anti-Gomez crowd. True, the former is an unproven commodity, but Gomez has been a disgrace pretty much all season long. JM either has a pathological love of veterans, or a pathological mistrust of rookies, or he is intent on keeping Gomez a participant in the hope that he finally gets going come playoffs. I can understand it (I think), but if Gomer has a bad playoff and Desharnais keeps playing well we should be actively exploring ways to get rid of the baked Alaskan. Auld has the coolest helmet of any Habs goalie in the post-mask era. And that's about the only thing about him that's any good.

All very interesting, but I respect Bergeron's hockey insights about as much as I respect that of Ernie and Bert. This is a man who predicted that Mike Ribeiro was going to be better than Wayne Gretzky

I like the idea of dressing Auld, myself. Give him a chance to bounce back from last game. And if he fails to come through, then you know that you need a different solution as backup. Assuming Price needs a couple more games off before the playoffs, I wouldn't rule out calling up Sanford at some point - he was tolerably decent as Luongo's backup, and it's not clear at all that Auld is an upgrade on him. I hate to say it, but in retrospect keeping Cedric Desjardins might have been a better move in pure hockey terms, given how mediocre Auld has been this season.

It does seem unlikely. Surely the probabilities (there's that word again) favour the argument that the Habs have already passed through the worst of this slump. It's an error to extrapolate the future from the what happens to be the worst 10 game-stretch of the season. The only reason for thinking otherwise is that the bulk of our remaining games are on the road - an ominous factor considering our road record. But paranoia aside, rational analysis suggests we'll be fine. (It's almost like we've been fans of a bubble team for so long, we don't know how to cope with the cushion).

So you're looking at probabilities: if I fire 400 quality shots to your 200, then all other things being equal, I am likely to outscore you. 'Luck' is the term you use to desginate situations where the outcome does not match the probability. (Personally, I think my use of the term - as an unpredictable X-factor that turns events in favour of one party over another - is closer to common useage, but whatever). Here's another way to look at it. Your goalie sucks. Mine is awesome. Therefore, all other things are NOT equal: we are not equal at this key position. So you need 600 shots to my 200. But you only get 400 shots; and so you lose. But I don't see the label 'luck' being the best way to describe the gulf between your suckage and my excellence in nets. Also, Wamsley - and you know I love ya - there seems to be some slippage in your analysis of last year's playoffs. When we traded Halak, I expressed anxiety because in my book Halak, unlike Price, had proven he could excel in the clutch, and I seem to recall you arguing that Halak was the beneficiary of excellent team play rather than the single transcendant variable that created our playoff success. Yet now you seem to be arguing the reverse. Am I misrepresenting you, or - ?

+1. This guy coaches us to within 3 games of the Finals and then gets results that surpass those predicted for us by 'experts' despite an injury-ravaged lineup, and HE DESERVES TO BE FIRED because he benched David Desharnais. Wow, there's some quality analysis. I maintain that if he didn't come across as so suffocatingly boring on TV, half the haters wouldn't be haters. It's a classic case of confusing image and substance.

Hmmm. I'm not sure what we're arguing about. I would never deny that the 1993 team was better than the 2009 team, for instance. The real issue seems to be what 'luck' means. The 1993 Habs were a damned strong club that was full value for the Cup win - I share your aggravation at the media narrative that they were mediocrities carried on Roy's back. However, the fact remains that they were lucky to draw Buffalo and the Islanders instead of Boston and Pittsburgh. Lucky. They were also lucky - let's face it - that a guy like Paul DiPietro came out of nowhere and made a significant contribution. Lucky, in the sense that these were unpredictable X-factors that turned the Habs' way. So 'luck' to me refers to exceptual circumstances that break in your favour. A team can have all the breaks go its way - horrible, series-destroying calls against the opposition, for instance, or a great playoff draw, or the opponents suffering massive and crippling injuries. I don't particularly recall seeing that happen against the Caps or the Pens. (Losing Markov sure wasn't a break, except of the literal kind, against Pittsburgh). What I do recall is goalies that couldn't stop a beachball and one team (Washington) that was manifestly overconfident, relying on sheer talent to win, which is always a playoff kiss of death. A goal post here or there...sure, but you can say that about any team that wins anything. Team Canada was 'lucky' to beat Team USA for the Gold on that analysis. All that proves is that the series were close. If your criterion is that you're always lucky to win a close series, then I just don't buy it. But this isn't your actual view, of course. Your idea seems to be that a team has to reach some threshold of objectively-measurable excellence before its playoff victories can be deemed something other than 'luck.' So a team that finishes 19th overall and proceeds to upset two heavy hitters is by definition 'lucky,' while a team that finishes 6th overall and does the same is not. I'm still not sure I accept this, necessarily. First of all, the current team has bobbed at around 10th overall for most of the season, so where does this leave us? But more to the point, I accept that the 2009-10 Habs were not an elite team in the regular season - who would argue that? But equating them to 2002 is also unfair. The reality lies somewhere in the middle. Last year's team was artifically bad during the regular season due to massive chemistry and adjustment issues. This year's team is arguably more representative. And what this year's team is, it seems to me, is a better-than-bubble team that is a significant notch below the handful of really strong NHL clubs, but is also capable of playing a game that beats most of those teams on any given night, especially if they are unprepared or get bad netminding. Now we come to the shots against. This was a source of controversy last playoff and I suppose it will never go away. I don't think the game plan was to give the Caps 70 shots a night. But I DO think, first of all, that goaltending counts (do the 93 Habs win with Niemi?) and secondly, that the game plan all along was to collapse down the middle, keep the other guys to the perimeter, and wait patiently for chances and bury the ones you get. It's a game plan that concedes the superior talent to the opposition and is predicated on neutralizing that talent as much as possible. Rope-a-Dope. Over an 80 game schedule, it's a recipe for injury, exhaustion and defeat. But it can work very nicely over 7 games when you have Gill and Gorges, Markov and Halak/Price on the back end and hornets like Cammy and Gio up front. As it happens, it did work. You need good coaching, excellent goaltending, the right of kind of talent - Florida could never have done it - and total team buy-in. I just don't see what's so 'lucky' about all that. The difference with 2002 is that these guys are not pieces of crap relying 100% on superb goaltending and an extraordinary emotional boost supplied by the near-death of your best player to cancer. On those grounds, while the Habs cannot be considered 'favourites' in any playoff matchup, neither can they be viewed as insane unpstarts if they do win. Their 'A' game is unorthodox but meanginfully capable of beating all but the very strongest teams in a playoff series.

Shit, any team that wants Gomez is doing us a favour. Even if Jovo has an ACL tear, make that deal!!

The wins against Washington and Pittsburgh were not 'luck.' In the first place, both of those teams got absolutely garbage goaltending, while our goaltending was stellar. You can call that 'luck' if you want; but it's no different than (say) Gomez and Plekanec sucking ass while the other team's top C perform spectacularly. When your key player(s) outduels the opponent's key player(s), you deserve to win, period. You may as well say the 1971 Cup was luck because Dryden schooled his counterparts. Second, the Habs beat those teams in exactly the way we beat Vancouver: playing a 'bend but don't break' defensive system predicated on surrendering lots of shots and puck possession, but protecting the goalie very well, while counter-punching effectively on offence. This makes the other team look good, but in fact gives us a solid chance of beating them, as the Vancouver game and the playoffs demonstrate. Third, the Habs played with absolute team commitment, while Washington was not prepared. Therefore they deserved to lose. Not 'luck.' Pittsburgh was better prepared, but had no answer to the above combination. IF Washington had been prepared they might have beat us. In this sense, you're right; and if they play that series over, the Caps would have been better positioned to win. But really, what does that prove? It's like saying that Team Russia might do better if we played the 2010 Olympics all over again. In hockey as in life, you only get so many chances and then you're dead. The team that takes advantage of its opening is the one that 'deserves' to win. Pittsburgh, meanwhile - no way they would ever beat us with that goaltending. We beat the Penguins without Markov, too. How is that 'luck?' Our best player out? That run was no more 'lucky' than 1993 or 1986. In fact, less luck was involved, because in 86 and 93 we enjoyed good draws, with the heavily favoured teams knocked off by others. In 2009 we were the team that upset the big boys. Twice. It all crashed to an end against Philly because first, Philly is simply a terrible draw for us, and second, Philly was the inverse of Washington in that they WERE fully prepared. Don't forget the brutal back-to-back scheduling for Game One of that series either; and also, beating three powerhouses in a row is a tall order for any club. Now as for this season: we need to plan for a playoff drive that does not include facing Philadelphia. If we play with the same commitment as last season and manage not to draw Philly, we do have a chance of going deep again. This is not 2002.

Die Leafs die!!!

It's pretty well assumed out here in the west that LA is looking to make a significant move. They've had a disappointing season after being pegged as 'the new Chicago' - they want to win, to take that jump to heavy-duty contender; they also, I believe, have cap space to burn; and they are rolling in young assets and picks. The perfect, highly-motivated deadline-day partner. I for one will be surprised if Richards or some other big name isn't a King by Monday. I could see them kicking the tires on Kostitsyn. And yeah, the hard-hitting Brown would be an AWESOME acquisition. But really, it's a long shot that we have anything to offer them.

I live in the Vancouver area and watched this guy for a while. Trust me, you're not missing anything.

Sopel seems like a useful pick-up - a shot-blocker par excellence, with a Cup ring and lots of experience, is exactly complementary to the nature of our team. He builds on our already-impressive ability to shut down the middle and protect the goalie. While he's obviously nothing great, he seems so peculiarly well-suited to our team identity that this has to be rated a canny move by PG. (This, incidentally, is likely among the reasons they wanted no part of Kovalev: he is the exact antithesis of our team identity). I remember when Sopel was regarded as a high-risk offensive defenceman a la John Michael Liles. Funny how careers go The UFA factor is a bit mind-bending, though. While not as extreme, it's vaguely reminiscent of 2009, when half the team was pending UFAs. In any case, assuming that players who try Montreal first tend to be more receptive to staying here, this adds to our options come summer. Macguire said Kosty is in play. He's no Ezekiel but I assume he's professional enough not to make stuff up; so a further move wouldn't shock me.

OK, I'm sold. I picked the wrong link to make the point...but the point stands. Hickey is an ass, and does indeed exemplify the kind of shoddy thinking that passes for 'analysis' in too much of the 'old media.' My error was to jump on an article that agreed with the point I wanted to make, without worrying too much about the thought process underpinning the agreement.

Basu is certainly more insightful in offering an explanation for the neglect of Desharnais against Vancouver (i.e., line matchups, rather than just irrationality by Martin). But I'd note that both agree that Desharnais appears to be under-utilized based on his performance, in favour of the over-use of Gomez (based, again, on performance). In short, DD appears to be getting a bit of the short end of the stick. The Vancouver game was a particularly striking example of this emerging trend. I sympathize with what is presumably JM's position, namely that he (as Basu puts it) 'trusts' proven veteran and Cup champion Gomez over the tiny and unproven Desharnais, and wants to give Gomez every chance to get into his groove, because if he does, we know that he can make a big difference. I'm certainly not in a frothing rage over this. Still, I *would* like to see Desharnais given a bit more opportunity in light of Gomez's collossal FAIL this season. As Basu points out, we need to know whether Desharnais can indeed be counted on in clutch situations such as the third period of the Vancouver game, because it is no longer clear that Gomez ever will emerge from his torpor.

I agree with BTH that if the Habs are going to address the Gomez situation, they will do it in the off-season (or, as per one of my theories, at the quarter pole of next season). But when you hear that Brad Richards and possibly Paul Stastny are in play, you do kinda get Trade Deadline envy. Quality 1-1a C right there, and here we are with Gomer Pyle.(*wistful sigh*)

Yeah. I just can't understand the Halpern call, though. I mean, if you're going to call a penalty that will make it a 5 on 3 - basically coming as close to guaranteeing a goal as you can get as an official - at least be sure the infraction is signficant. A marginal call leading to a 5 on 3 is just bush league, period. EDIT: I just noted Fathead Hickey making the case for Desharnais in this context here: http://www.montrealgazette.com/sports/Desharnais+getting+credit+deserves/4333925/story.html The guy's bang on.

No, the dodgy hooking call - which stuck us with a 5-on-3 disadvantage - was on Halpern. What a bad call. But Pouliot cross-checked a guy away from the puck. Totally dumb penalty in a tight game we needed to win and he deserved to be stapled to the bench. But why staple Desharnais with him? Something to do with not wanting to muck up the balance on the other lines, maybe? Anyhow - in a game like that I don't blame the coach for going with what he thinks will win, and I can't criticize him for delivering the goods!