The Chicoutimi Cucumber

I'd have Weber ahead of Subban on my depth chart at this stage. At least he has some bona-fide NHL experience and looked pretty good. The only plus side here is that by facing an unholy crisis of this kind, this early in the season, these players could be forced to come together a lot more quickly and intensely than before. Everyone will realize that with the Key Cog out of the lineup for an extended period, they're facing total debacle unless everyone raises their game. It's just possible that this will be the magic bullet that creates the "chemistry" we need: desperation. Nonetheless, anyone who had the Habs finishing 6-8 has to adjust their predictions downwards at this point. :puke: Based on Bob's pattern of behaviour since 2007, he will not sit around but will make a deal for help on D. Watch for one or both of the Kostitsyns to be shipped out of town in return for a blueliner.

Yeah, Pleks looked good, although I had the impression that he started better than he finished. Nonetheless, he looked like the old, GOOD Pleks, not last year's confused loser. It's all moot anyway. With Markov lost the season is a wash.

This is an unmitigated disaster. We'll be lucky to make the playoffs now for sure...and if so then Bob will be lucky to keep his job. And if Markov is permanently damaged, then we can add him to this list: -Donald Audette -Saku Koivu -Robert Lang Premium talents all, their careers compromised or ended by insane injuries. The consequences, as Rene Levesque once said, could be incalculabe. In the short term, everything hinges now on Spacek in particular stepping up and playing for us like he did for Buffalo last season. In the long term, everything hinges on Makov making a full recovery. UNBELIEVABLY BAD LUCK.

I had to watch the game on 'Canadiens Express' last night due to work, so I only got the compressed version. Based on that, a few observations: 1. The Leafs just might be a team that surprises people this year. A startling amount of speed up front. Fortunately, their goaltending is mediocre and they have Mike Komisarek 2. Habs D looked terrible. Before we throw ourselves off a bridge, though, we need to remember the whole 'chemistry' issue. I'll give these guys at least 20 games to gel. Right now, they look like a bunch of individuals - not sure where the other guy is going to be, etc.. 3. Cammalleri came exactly as advertised. Not only was he spectacular in OT, but he made an AMAZING play to save the faceoff and set up the first goal. Gamebraker, baby!! 4. Gill also came as advertised. No mobility, some terrible mistakes...BUT he does rub people out. 5. I thought Mara looked pretty good on the PP; but Spacek didn't impress. Since I was one of those who had him pegged as a 'secret weapon,' I hope to see more from him. 6. Gomez: surprisingly indifferent. Frankly, he looked like a soft, skilled player staying out of traffic. 7. It's becoming increasingly official. The Kostitsyn brothers either do not want to do what it takes to play in the NHL or they do not want to play for the Habs. Andrei's game last night was inexcusable from a player with star talent. I fear that we can chalk them up as yet ANOTHER couple of highly-touted Gainey-era picks that somehow fell short. (And speaking of which - I sure wouldn't mind Grabovksi on my team). 7. Price looked GREAT. On balance, I think we're going to see several games like this for the next few months as the team struggles to get its chemistry straight, particularly on the back end. The good news is that we apparently have the goaltending and gamebreaker offensive talent to squeak out wins even under the circumstances. Nonetheless, there will be endless negativity from some quarters around here until the team starts coming together...we just have to ride it out.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!! Markov injured? Potential surgery? In the first game of the season?? Come ON. How about a bit of luck in Habsland, eh? This is getting ridiculous. Hopefully Hammer gets back quick and he, Spacek, Gorges, and Mara can combine for a tolerably effective puck-moving defence. If you look at our record without Markov, this is truly scary stuff.

Yeah, where's all the sanctimonious media jerk-offs ridiculing the Laffs for their 'smurfs' up front? The double standards proliferate like turds at a dog park.

I'd like to see O'Bryne, who by all accounts has been taking lots of angry pills, really make a statement by laying somebody out. It would give me immense satisfaction to have that signal sent - and also that our system is so good we can churn out Komisarek replacements without batting an eye. Another source of satisfaction would be to see a Gionta beating Komisarek to the outside. Leafs' D is actually pretty good, don't expect us to dominate down low.

Laps is too young. Let him put together 3-4 strong, consistent seasons before we hang the "C" on him. He's also a hothead. Myself, I see Latendresse as a dark horse to be captain some day. Seems like a quieter, more level-headed type. This is a good move. No need to be hasty, especially since Preseason means absolutely diddly-squat in terms of assessing the REAL fibre of the human beings on this team. Let's see how they handle some pressure and adversity before making the final call. My only question is why we were told that the team *would* pick a captain coming out of training camp! I was baffled by that. Nice to see good sense prevail.

That's why we shouldn't trade him. As for "mollycoddling," look, running a team isn't about punishing punks and rewarding sturdy moral fibre, it's about maximizing your assets. Dumping this sort of player in the past has not generally helped us (you telling me we couldn't use Grabovski and Ribeiro in our system?). Better to exhaust every opportunity for helping the player to mature and achieve his potential. I'm sick of losing assets for minimal return.

Sad. Like he's proven ANYTHING at the NHL level. Yet he feels entitled to an NHL spot. A joke. Having said that, I'm really getting tired of Montreal dumping highly-talented but immature young players. Grabovski has already shown signs of maturing into quite an effective 2nd line C. Ribeiro is now an NHL All-Star. Even Hainsey has put together a decent NHL career for himself as a useful offensive defenceman (not that we really need him). I have no desire to add Sergei to this list - especially when you consider that it will probably indirectly cost us his brother, another young guy who needs to grow up. Dumping every immature young player is just another form of bad asset management, analogous to Bob's destructive policy of waiting til the last minute to negotiate with impending UFAs. Gainey, Martin, and maybe a vet like Hamrlik need to make time to talk to the young man and explain to him exactly what is expected and why the organization feels this is the best move for his development. Before we cut him loose, every effort should be made to rehabilitate him, because he *does* have the talent to be quite a good NHLer. Remember: he's a kid.

Here's a perspective I haven't heard much. Price struggled after coming back, probably too soon, from an ankle injury of a sort that is often very difficult for goalies to recover from. Granted, that's not the whole explanation - no doubt the ankle was 100% after a while - but it is a strong causal explanation for post All Star collapse. After a while he was probably pushing it and so getting way off his fundamentals and undermining his confidence. The point is just that Price was the uncontested #1 before that injury. And it might be a bit unfair to relegate him to a #2 status because he struggled in clawing back from that injury - just as it is unfair to treat Halak as though he were some marginal backup to a Luongo. It's more a Roy-Hayward thing. No shame in that.

The Gazette is carrying this rumour. Geez, if this happens, I imagine his brother is next? It's discouraging. Look at the major parts of the rebuild that never even came over here and made the effort: Emelin and Valetenko. Look at the key cogs gone (Higgins and Komisarek); the skilled C given away for minimal return on a franchise desperate for quality depth at C (Ribeiro, Grabovksi); the defencemen tossed away (Beauchemin, Streit, Hainsey); and the 'promising players' who have yet to put together two convincing seasons in a row (Plekanec, the Kostitsyns). The (First?) Great Gainey Rebuild died with a whimper, not a bang. I know, I know, I'm overreacting and probably sound whiny. Every one of those decisions can be justified. Everyone in hockey was drooling over these same players and tentatively proven wrong. But you look at a team like Boston that re-emerged as a contender after, really, only two years in the wilderness, through adept drafting and UFA signings, and you really have to shake your head: why couldn't that happen here? It's like a few bad decisions compounded by lots of bad luck and...poof. (The good news is that Gainey's re-assembled core may provide a far better veteran foundation for Rebuild 2.0. Nonetheless, I still get gloomy from time to time about what a disappointment the past 6 years turned into).

Dandy makes an excellent depth guy in an organization. He may yet be able to find a top-6 role on a weaker team (San Jose is, after all, fairly high on the food chain) but if he's not we should offer him a decent-paying two-way deal and propose a second career for him as AHL mentor and/or 7th defenceman. If he'd rather take that than retire or go to Europe, we'll have ourselves a valuable asset.

Agreed, although I think you're too kind on Price's performance against Philly. Other than that, spot on. As for training camp, I don't think Price should be positioned as having to "prove" himself. He's getting warmed up and shouldn't be relegated to #2 on that basis. People keep forgetting - preseason means absolutely diddly squat. Only if Price looks unconvincing when the regular season starts do I start looking to give Halak #1 G minutes.

Interesting stuff. Especially the Markov comment. What is it that would make Markov reticent to speak last season and now suddenly so much more open? I think a lot of it has to do with entrenched 'leaders' or at least prima donas. Sometimes players need a turnover before they can really feel like it's 'their team'. I forget who it was on the Canucks last season, who commented that people felt a lot more comfortable asserting themselves in the locker room with Trevor Linden and Markus Naslund gone. Similar thing here - and our core was as aging and declining as the Linden/Naslund one, tellingly. Once the Alpha males can no longer deliver, you have to get them out of there. I wrote a lot last year that it reminded me of 1992 - another promising Habs team that collapsed in a stinking heap due to horrible chemistry issues. Lo and behold. Sounds like Gionta will wear the C.

I agree that it's disappointing. I was one of those who was really impressed with this kid when he first came up and thought maybe he could be - if not a star - then a damned good top-6 forward for us. Now you have to wonder whether he'll be gone, yet another "promising young Montreal talent" gone down the organizational drain (Higgins, Komisarek, Grabovski, Ribeiro, possibly Plekaenc, etc., etc. - what the hell happened to the Great Rebuild we were all bragging about two years ago anyway?) One consolation is that even Markov went through this sort of thing. Perhaps Andrei should have a chat with young Sergei.

Undoubtedly true, but I recall his 1989 performance as more "solid" than spectacular and I remember him being criticized for not being anything particularly great in that run. (We were a dominant team then, especially defensively, so Roy hardly carried us in that playoff, which explains why these criticisms were possible - not saying I agree with them especially). I also remember him totally stinking out the joint in the 1992 playoffs in particular and being outgoaltended by Andy Moog for a few other playoff series. Nor was he especially great in 1987 (season + playoffs) or in the 1993 regular season. In fact, I had numerous arguments with several Anglo Montrealers over those years where I had to defend Roy's excellence against the accusation that he was overrated. And let's face it, the guy was never really consistently superb on a nightly basis until after the 1993 run (I recall lots of goals on long shots, etc.). The point being that there IS a legitimate analogy between the kinds of debates we're having about Price and those we used to have about Roy - something Price's critics need to keep in mind.

Halak's definitely a good goalie and I don't see it as self-evident that he won't be a successful #1, or even that his career won't turn out better than Price's. I say that because player development is never an exact science. Nonetheless, I agree with those who say that Price is universally viewed as a potential franchise goalie on the level of Luongo or Brodeur, something no one has ever said about Halak; and that it's sensible to prioritize Price on that basis - especially as Price has looked like an elite #1 goalie for signficiant stretches of his young career already. Having said that, Habsfan is right. Halak should get about 30 games a season: he is not Curtis Sanford, a Luongo backup who plays 8 games a year. I see Halak to Price as Brian Hayward was to Patrick Roy, a damned good #2/#1A guy who both pushed Roy and gave the team a safety net should Roy struggle. It's worth noting, BTW, that EXACTLY the same questions were asked about the team's approach to developing Patrick Roy. For all of 1986, many commentators were grumbling about the club's tendency to dress him over proven vet Doug Soetart. And although Roy's 86 Cup run put paid to most of that, the fact is that Roy was still erratic - rather like Price - and only really permanently established his greatness with the 1993 run. Indeed, as late as the 1993 regular season many people were arguing that the Habs should trade him. So the Price doubters will probably never go away. But his pedigree is impeccable and ultimately he should be the priority, not Halak.

+1 That one awful -34 year he was playing on the wrong side...and never complained or used it as an excuse. Nor was it his fault the Habs were so bad that a secondary offensive defenceman like him was miscast as a #1. Classy guy, good hockey player, and like you say, "true habs" at heart.

This just about says it all. Koivu obviously wasn't the problem in terms of work ethic and commitment. Any fool can see that Koivu exemplified those virtues (and I'm sick of people confusing Koivu's limitations as a 1st-line C with issues of character or "leadership"). He was likely part of the rebellion against Carbo, though, which didn't help - although when it comes to player rebellions against coaches we can't automatically assume the players are wrong. If Carbo can't explain systems or teach young players, then players are right to get him out of there. Yeah, much of the Habs' game last season was ridiculous, including that lazy milling around the blueline, the Canada-sized gap between forwards and D in the defensive zone, routinely bungled dump-ins, predictable reliance on the long pass, etc., etc.. It's enough to make you want to puke just remembering it. Martin determined to root out all of that and good on him.

But the personnel are wildly different. So even then we'd be comparing apples and oranges; they're not coaching the same guys. In other words, who is to say that Carbo wouldn't have had great results with these guys, any more than Martin would have had better results with the previous bunch? If Martin bombs it "proves" nothing about Carbo. My point is that the new coach claims that the team has root and branch issues with work ethic, discipline, and professionalism. This suggests that Martin would give Carbo a failing grade. Judging by what we saw on the ice, and considering the respective levels of experience of both coaches, Martin is probably right - although it's possible these are self-serving PR messages by him, or else a strategy for motivating players and getting more out of them. Was it all Carbo's fault? Seems unlikely, but the captain deserves some blame when the ship sinks and you wouldn't have known that from the "Saint Carbo the Martyr" crowd last season.

Yeah, not trying to demonize Carbo. (And I don't think Martin is either, necessarily). But whether or not he "struggled to communicate" or just erroneously "assumed" that players were MEN like he was/is and didn't need to have their hands held, the net result was apparently a lazy, out of shape squad. Chris may be right that Carbo inherited a mess; but if so then his job was presumably to fix it. Water under the bridge, I guess.

http://www.habsinsideout.com/main/21599 "Changing the culture." "Fitness levels not what they need to be." "Playing a more physically demanding system" than beofre, based on (imagine that!!!) support for the puck carrier and short, crisp passes. Etc., etc., etc.. It seems obvious that in Martin's estimation this team has been allowed to wallow in bad working habits, poor conditioning, and outright laziness. "Changing the culture" amounts to a resounding condemnation of the previous coaching regime and (perhaps) team leadership. Maybe Martin is full of BS, but between a guy with years of experience as coach/GM, and a great player who had one terrific season as coach and two outright disasters, I know whose coaching opinion I respect more. I said at the time that any other organization would have fired Carbo long before Gainey did. And I wonder what all those who leapt to Carbo's defence and painted him as the tragic martyr to Gainey's folly will think if/when they actually see a team playing a DISCIPLINED AND EFFECTIVE SYSTEM out there on the ice.

Yeah, I've thought about that too. In Lapierre's case, he experienced mortifying personal failure a year earlier than the rest of the team (having been demoted in 2007-08), so he may have just been ahead of that curve. Hopefully the Kostitsyns in particular learn from his example. What's really impressive, when you think about it, is Latendresse. I know a lot of people are frustrated by his slow progression. But here's a kid who arrived in Montreal as the Anointed One. French-Canadian kid. Had the whole city at his feet. It's the classic Pierre Larouche recipe for brattiness, immaturity, and career self-destruction. But instead he has quietly put his head down, worked hard, accepted his role, never thought he was more than he was, and has gradually developed into a solid third-liner with hope for more. He seems committed to learning and never seemed to expect to be handed anything. I was also really impressed with his comments last year, when he said that players who don't live in Montreal year-round don't understand what it is to miss the playoffs, and what a disaster that is for the player's own private life. He's showing signs of developing into the Conscience of the Team, a Quebecois who really and truly understands the responsibilities involved in wearing the :hlogo: For all that we'd envisaged Higgins and Komisarek as the core of the rebuild, these two players may yet turn out to be the real heart and soul of the Gainey era.

On Pyatt: I remember when the Gomez trade was made and everybody was ripping out their hair, I did some Internet research into Pyatt, and I remember thinking that, from what I was reading, this barely-mentioned "throw-in" looked like a player that could actually help the Habs out someday. Nice to think that maybe Bob didn't just deplete the system, he actually got a good prospect back, in addition to the best player in that deal.