The Chicoutimi Cucumber

It burns my bacon that Carbo drove that guy out of town. Yet another casualty of the Gainey-era failed rebuild.

I can certainly see Burns needing a change of scenery. Maybe A. Kostitysn would interest the offence-starved Wild?

Yep. People forget that Sergei has some bona fide NHL-level talent. It's his brain that is messed up. And if you want to see HOW messed up, read this interview: http://www.ruefrontenac.com/sports/canadie...lak-latendresse Let's see. He says that the Halak trade is a big mistake because Halak 'showed all season that he is stronger than Price;' that Chipchura and Latendresse are proof that 'management doesn't know how to handle young players;' and that his being benched had 'very little to do with me' and was an arbitrary decision by a coach who maybe 'doesn't like my face.' So in one fell swoop he manages to insult management, coach, and Price, while refusing to take the slightest responsibility for his own performance. This might be the most contemptible set of public claims from a habs I've seen in a long time. What a pr*ck!!!

'Get the rights'...blech. Unless you lock the guy up that's stupid, and V. won't come cheap (although he would be a huge upgrade on D). Odd that Pouliot hasn't gotten an offer, but it's too early to be alarmed.

Yes, that is a real low-blow against Kostitsyn. But in general it's a good blog and often quite funny.

The sad fact is that we need TWO wingers - one to replace Andrei and one to replace Pouliot - if we wanted to be assured of being a really dangerous team. Having said that, if Frolov gives us at least one legitimate top-6 winger for the second line, I could live with simply dumping (or demoting) the Krapstitsyns. We'd then have to cross our fingers on some progression from Pouliot, but that may be a gamble worth taking - in a cap system cheap young guys HAVE to produce. Then again perhaps I'm being insufficiently patient with Andrei, who may simply need to be separated from his moron of a brother in order to become a solid professional (but check out http://habsloyalist.blogspot.com/, where it's suggested that Andrei may actually be developmentally 'challenged!' )

I leave this to the goalie connaiseurs, but I never thought much of Lalime myself. What we need for Price is a #1A guy - serious insurance should Price immolate again. Biron would be perfect but may be too expensive. Ellis and Mason would be my other immediate choices.

'The Buff' is a guy who seems only to do anything during the playoffs. At face value, that is the wrong kind of player for a team like Atlanta - they need guys who come to play every night during the season and contribute to the right kind of culture. Oh well, Waddell never does anything that makes sense, so what's new.

I remember Wamsley's position on the new core and respectfully disagreeing with it then - but also conceding that it certainly was a defensible, well-thought-out position. Wamsley gets a busload of respect from me in general, and specifically for being willing to critically re-evaluate his earlier argument in light of subsequent events. He is a true student of the game and an all-time great poster on this site. As for the cap: I've watched it for long enough now to have concluded that it's actually a bigger mistake to be too conservative than too bold in the cap system. The first inkling was when we didn't sign Jason Arnott at something like $4 mil because we were worried about the cap hit - a decision I've regretted ever since. And just this spring the Stanley Cup Finals featured two of the WORST cap management organizations in the entire league. That pretty much says it all.

I can tell you the source of those rumours - moronic Canuckleheads jumping from the fact of the Canucks' hiring of Rollie Melanson to the conclusion that the next move is to 'unload' Luongo for Price. Just goes to show, some fans are even dumber than habs' fans. :hlogo:

If Koivu is willing to sign dirt-cheap AND willing to be a polyvalent player, deployed at C or the wings as needed, then I certainly would take him back. I could see Koivu in that specific role being a really useful jack-of-all-trades type - offering secondary scoring from the wing in the top-6, excellent 3rd-4th line work, stepping up as 2nd-line C in the event of injuries, etc.. However, given our tight cap situation and the unlikelihood of his accepting the terms I just outlined, I'd say there's about a 1% chance of this happening.

This thread has gotten into some interesting territory. I think a lot of it boils down, for me, to the spirit behind one's comments as much as the comments themselves. What bugs me is when fans take an adamant, 100% certain attitude that Move X is self-evidently a disaster and that the GM must be a blithering jackass to make it. Very rarely, in my experience, have Gainey or Gauthier (or before them, Serge Savard) made decisions that were OBVIOUSLY moronic. What they are doing is making decisions with necessarily limited information and with necessarily limited options, in a context marked by radical uncertainty. Take trading Halak. We don't KNOW whether last season was Halak's peak, whether he will become the next Huet or the next Hasek or something in between. We don't KNOW whether Price will emerge as a compelling #1 G he has always been projected to be. We don't even know how good Eller will be. Nobody knows these things. So the GM makes a calculated gamble, based on his assessment of the future probabilities as well as his knowledge of the needs of the overall team system (e.g., the need for high-value young players) and the salary cap situation (keep halak, lose Pleks). Gauthier has more info and research at his fingertips than we do, but ultimately he is still making his best guess about outcomes. Beyond that, decisions have to be measured against the real options available, not some fantasyland ideal. For instance, we can say that we'd rather have size down the middle than Gomez and Pleks. Fine. I agree. But it's one thing to say that, another thing to make it happen. The most likely result of losing Plekanec would simply have been a much weaker team down the middle for the forseeable future, not the magical acquisition of some 6'8 version of Malkin who (unlike Malkin) scores 5 points per game in the playoffs. Only the truly inept GMs - the Houles and the Milburys - regularly make decisions that are self-evidently absurd. The idea that Gainey or Gauthier are in this category is nonsense. It is 100% legitimate for fans to question that best guess based on their own sense of these factors. What is NOT legitimate in my opinion is acting as though there IS no uncertainty here and as though some vastly superior option to a given outcome is always readily available. I hate it when fans take the attitude that it's just obvious what should be done when it hardly ever is. That attitude speaks to a glib arrogance rooted mainly in ignorance of the complexities of the issue. So, honest disagreement? Sure. Righteously demanding Gauthier's head on a platter for making tough calls or going around like Chicken Little because we just signed our 27-year-old leading scorer to a 6-year deal at below market value? Ludicrous.

Given that Pleks is not overpaid - if anything he is UNDERpaid - it would be absolutely bizarre for him to become the whipping boy. (As for Gomez, he is obviously overpaid but a lot of fans also seem to have chosen to be blinded by dollars signs and totally ignore his many excellent qualities: blinding speed, excellent rushes, outstanding playmaking, leadership.) I find it interesting that the overall tone on French-language blogs and online posts is vastly more positive about the Pleks signing than English-language posts. What's with that?

Hmmm. I'm not crazy about that. Presumably that's why we were able to sign him at LESS than market rate (yes, Chicken Little, you read right). Hopefully it's a limited NTC - but I doubt it.

Like BTH and Wamsley, I am baffled by all the negativity. Honestly, I thought he'd make significantly over $5 mil per on the open market. Considering the Montreal tax stuff, he's probably underpaid. There is an element of risk here because of his 39-point regression two years ago. But I don't buy all the "he chokes in the clutch" stuff. They say that about practically EVERY young player learning how to succeed in the post-season. They said it about Datsyuk for a couple of years. People are forgetting that he played injured, has been on a learning curve, played without adequate wingers for much of the stretch/playoffs, and is only now entering his prime (which is typical of fans' attitudes toward players that come up through the system - Pleks is only turning 28 but he seems to have been around forever). If he continues to play as he did this season that will be a good contract. If his game continues to develop it will be a really good contract. This is a sensible GMing move and instead of freaking out Habs fans should be happy the team has locked up this hard-working and exciting forward for his prime years - just as we did with Cammallerri. Solid stuff.

Yup. Just what you want in a marginal player: lots of character and experience. He usually makes the smart, simple play but he was obviously overused in the playoffs. Good little asset.

It's quite possible that Gauthier wanted Eller all along and, having a good general sense that he wouldn't do any better than that particular player in return for Halak, pursued him. According to this story, the Blues tried hard to bargain him down from Eller: http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/st...8D?OpenDocument If that's the case, I see nothing wrong with it. A lot of the media criticism centres on the idea that the Habs should have got a ROSTER PLAYER for Halak. But in addition to the well-documented weak market for goalies - not just now, but as a general rule, goalies are inexplicably undervalued in the NHL - this criticism overlooks the small matter of the salary cap. Gauthier clearly wants to add bargain-basement quality young guys to the roster because this is the only way to win in a cap system. Until I hear clowns like PJ Stock factoring in these considerations, I will continue to ignore their babblings.

Fair enough, but the thing with Halak is that he always does better when he's getting a lot of action. He's a Cujo type - the type who looks great behind shoddy D but questionable playing behind the Detroit Red Wings. So I wouldn't rule out his looking heroic even if the Blues do turn out to stink.

What's crazy is that, before the internet, the UFA era of massive player mobility, and bloated media coverage of everything from trade deadline day to draft day, hockey fans pretty much turned to other matters over the summer. Now you can obssess over les canadiens 365 days a year. Given that the Expos used to be my other major sports preoccupation, this is probably a good thing for my psyche if not my productivity :hlogo:

No kidding. So why is Florida shopping him around? Either he wants out, or it's to try to stickpile high-end prospects/draft picks - ? If the latter, we're uncompetitive. If they want immediate help, then maybe we can make a play.

Horton is indeed a no-brainer. It depends on what Florida wants. If it's roster players they're after, I'm sure Andrei Kostitsyn and his brother will be at least mildly tempting. But I don't know much about Florida, so you're probably right.

I think BTH wins this thread with his careful analysis of the options facing the Habs in this cap-tightened era. Once you read that post, it is - or should be - simply impossible to revert back to a knee-jerk 'what an awful trade' reaction a la Todd and Fisher. In the end the trade is impossible to evaluate on anything other than a theoretical basis, because NONE of the players involved are proven commodities. Halak just came through his first pro season (really, half-season) as a #1 goalie - not exactly a towering body of work. Price is a work in progress. Eller and Shultz are prospects. So all you can do is analyze it the way BTH has done. And once that's done, you see this trade makes a lot of sense. The ultimate outcome could take any number of shapes. E.g., -Halak regresses and Price develops. We win. -Halak stays where he is and Price comes up to his level. We win. -Halak stays where he is, Price stumbles, Eller emerges as a major player. We win or lose depending on whether we can fix the situation in net. -Halak stays where he is, Price stumbles, Eller emerges as merely OK. Whether or not we patch up the hole in net, we lose. And there are plenty of other scenarios. What bugs me is that the fans and media themselves are an independent variable here and there is considerable danger that they will work to validate their own hypothesis, by putting so much heat on Price that he will simply not be able to survive. Then, once the kid has been broken by a level of mass hostility that would break ANYONE, the people who have broken him will righteously declaim that this 'proves' what a bad trade Gauthier made. As Wamsley said, the Habs MUST be attuned to this possibility and protect him. I remember when Price did his FU to the crowd and Roy commented that this showed 'he's not well surrounded.' Gainey's big mistake with Price wasn't in playing him, it was in not adequately mentoring and protecting him from the jackals of the Bell Centre and the perils of Montreal. The Habs' future depends on their not repeating this mistake. Fortunately, the leadership core of the new team seems very strong. That could make all the difference.

I do not think the Habs will pursue Marleau. Not with that cap hit and with Eller clearly pencilled in as a future #2 C. If we have to replace Pleks it will be with a moderately-priced option who doesn't need to be signed to a really long-term deal. I therefore agree that Jokinen is a very interesting possibility given the history (and success) with Martin, and could conceivably be had more cheaply than Pleks by maybe $1-1.5 mil. (Keep in mind that Plekanec will quite likely bag grossly inflated dollars given his status as Top UFA C Available. Meanwhile, Jokinen's value may be artifically low). The Habs still desperately need an upgrade on the wings, and it would not surprise me at all if Gauthier decides to let Pleks walk and rolls the dice on a Plan B (Jokinen) or C (Lombardi) at centre while trying to translate the money saved between Halak and Pleks into an upgrade there. All bets are off, in other words. By moving Halak Gauthier made, to me anyway, a HUGE statement. He's a big picture guy prepared to be ruthless in a cap system, and the players are all moveable parts.

I agree. You can certainly criticize this trade, but Fisher didn't seem to take seriously ANY the variables the Habs were dealing with. Sad to say, but the great man is clearly now just reposing in his armchair spouting off. People who are familiar with Eller seem to be a lot more positive of this deal. Alas, the Gazette hacks aren't among those. But part of the problem is that I don't subscribe to the dominant media narrative that Halak single-handedly stole two series. I agree that he delivered an all-time great performance in Game 6 vs. Washington. Other than that, we saw a goalie who made the most out of a team playing a bizarre defensive system that surrendered a lot puck possession and a lot of shots, but made a point of surrendering very few rebounds or really dangerous chances from in close. This is not to denigrade Halak's performance by any means; it's just to say that the Habs enhanced his performance, not unlike the way Philly's choke-hold make Leighton look like a Conn Smythe candidate. (Of course Halak is 2x the goalie Leighton is; I'm drawing an analogy here). I believe the Habs held their own against washington and were the better TEAM against Pittsburgh. But if you just accept that halak won everything by himself, then I suppose you would freak out over this trade.

That is indeed a terrific article. Biron, Ellis, and Mason all strike me as solid options, especially the first and third as they can play a lot of games if needed. (Theodore is a really interesting idea, but do we really want that circus?) When you look at the projected cap hits and the respectable quality and quantity of credible backups/#1A guys out there, you realize the cap-managment wisdom of choosing to move the likely-to-be-more-expensive Halak. A Price/Mason-or-Biron platoon should give good results. At first glance you think it should be Biron, if only to take some heat off for the Halak deal. But then you stop to think - hold on, if Price hits a rough patch, can you imagine the media howls for French Superstar Biron to take over the reins as #1, and the concomitant bile spewed Price's way? (It'd be even worse with Theo). Might be better to avoid all that and go with stolidly anglo Mason, probably the best of these choices off the top of my head.