The Chicoutimi Cucumber

If these players were not sucking ass, it wouldn't come up. The rule is that you can do whatever the hell you want IF YOU'RE WINNING. These players need, first, to figure that out; and second, to understand that that principle can only result in making them better. I'm sick of this 'why would anyone want to play in Montreal' stuff. If you win, Montreal is an *incredible* place to play hockey. I can't express my contempt for hockey players who would rather be comfortable losers than winners. Montreal fans hold their players accountable for stinking out the joint, and well they should, especially when those players are capable of soooo much more.

The is so obviously a good move I don't understand the controversy. The Habs have WAY too many young players who clearly were not prepared to bring their A game this season; it's one of many things that have gone wrong. Sergei has accomplished jacksh*t in his career so far and is entitled to absolutely nothing. If he is a man, he will take his lumps and come back prepared to do the things that got him here. If he isn't, then we don't want him on our team to begin with. Way to go, Bob.

Great move. Bob has correctly identified the obvious, namely that Kovalev is the single biggest problem the Habs have. Whether this move is designed simply to remove a cancer from the locker room; or to humiliate Kovalev and demonstrate that the team will not tolerate his BS; or genuinely to rest him up; or as a prelude to a deal - it's all good. As far as I'm concerned, if we get high picks for Kovalev, that's really just fine. The guy has been a sulky piece of crap for most of the season and he's an impending UFA - what have we got to lose?

I don't understand Gainey's critics. They seem to think he is to be blamed for not landing a big superstar. But he's assembled a team that was expected to compete for the Conference title and the Cup. (That it has failed to gel has nothing to do with his general managing per se; the point is he has moved us from a bottom-feeding club to a team that could reasonably attract these expectations. He cannot control what goes on in the room, nor what coaches do, nor the internal psyches of immature babies). As for the 'superstar' thing, one look at contracts like those given to Briere and Gomez, and what albatrosses those are around their teams' necks, suggests that we should be relieved rather than angry at Bob's failure/refusal to sign those deals. Gainey is universally respected and a winner par excellence. I have no doubt that he is as disgusted as the rest of us with the team's performance. The difference is that he doesn't fly off the handle and make panic moves. We're in good hands. Thank heaven.

Avery Well, honestly, I fail to see how Koivu is 'holding us back.' He has three points in two games and was one of the only half-decent Habs against Vancouver. I also don't understand how our only legitimate top-6 centreman is 'holding us back.' It's like saying Markov is 'holding us back' because he's not that great a PP quarterback. It amazes me how often people lump Koivu and Kovalev together, like they're both 'equally to blame.' I mean, whatever you think of Koivu, come on. It's overpoweringly obvious which one of those guys is a moody, erratic head-case of epic proportions. Koivu, meanwhile, remains what he's long been - a dedicated-but-small #2 C being used as a #1. As for the idea that he's out of gas, I didn't hear too many people saying that when he was steadily producing before his injury. I'm not willing to infer from this slump that he can no longer produce at an effective clip - although he obviously is not the man of the future. Should we have kept Ribeiro? Absolutely, unless he really was a 'cancer in the room' as they say (and I've heard lots of speculation about that, but none that I especially believe). Then again, I notice your qualifier - 'get him a guy like Morrow.' Sure. Bob could just go to the corner Power Foward Store and ask for one extra-good Brendan Morrow. All things considered, maybe it was worth gambling on Plekanec. Looked like a good gamble until this season.

I think the plan all along has been to let Kovalev walk and re-sign Tanguay, who is probably a more valuable asset than Kovalev, all around, in any case. But now that Tanguay has witnessed the sheer horror of a slump in Montreal, he may think better of it - let's hope not. I agree that we can't evaluate the results until at least the end of the current trading period. I just hope Bob isn't feeling any pressure from the men upstairs to 'do something.' The organization has been exemplary since he took over and I sometimes worry that the Centennial hype, etc., will alter that. This trade is less than fully reassuring in that respect, but like AC says, time will tell.

I forgot the Huet pick. Maybe our position hasn't been eroded *that* badly (not, at least, if we re-sign Tanguay).

Cap considerations certainly suggest another trade in the works. I will be amazed if Kovalev is not gone (but the numbers now forbid my favourite fantasy scenario of Kovy for Picks, the flip the Picks as part of a deal for Pronger - bah! ) - and presumably he will be moved in a way that saves the Habs money. Either that, or Gainey's gone the Bobby Clarke route: deal first and solve cap problems later. Either that, or the wild rumours that Bob himself might be in jeapoardy of being fired have some substance and he's just trying to save his ass. Either that, or Schneider is the fourth horseman of the apocalypse. Whatever, it's all good.

This thread gets worse all the time.

You'd trade a 2nd and 3rd pick for a middling rental on a team that is unlikely to go really deep in the playoffs? It just seems like too much to me. In fairness, I haven't tabulated carefully all the picks we've dealt away and acquired over the last couple of years, but we lost a 2nd rounder for Lang, two high-ish picks for Tanguay, now a 2nd and 3rd for a few weeks' use of Schneider (who I like). Then we got a 2nd rounder back for Grabs. So we seem to have surrendered a 1st rounder, two 2nd rounders, and a 3rd rounder from our draft portfolio in the next couple of years - which is a lot if you ask me, especially given that this team seems to be some distance from actually being Cup-worthy. (Of course, much hinges here on the 'conditions' of that conditional pick, I suppose).

Well, I had the misfortune of being there. I saw a Habs team that at least played decently for certain stretches of time (signs of life, then), but: 1. Lost way, way, way too many one-on-one battles, in all three zones. Ridiculous. 2. Could not connect on passes to save its life, in all three zones. Ridiculous. The former problem is more disturbing than the latter, and it would be my major point of emphasis if I were the coach. Win the battle, then worry about making the play.

Unless Gainey gets those picks back somewhere down the line, this is a terrible deal. We've traded away more than enough picks as it is - especially considering that this team is obviously NOT Cup material. I have no interest in watching this team gradually degenerate because we lack the talent in the system to replace players lost to age or free agency. This is the first time Bob makes a move that I feel really is marked by short-term panic rather than longer-term analysis. Medium to long term: bad bad bad. Having said all that, Schneider will certainly help us in the present. He's playing top-4 minutes in Atlanta and has gotten on a roll lately. He's on the downside but not a total has-been like Brisebois. Just as importantly, he's a Cup winner who understands Montreal and will not be phased by all the BS. Short term: good. Provided he stays healthy.

Gee, I wish we could get back to juicy rumours in this thread instead of off-topic speculation on the per centage of Habs fans that live outside Quebec. At least rumours offer some glimmer of hope that the immediate future will be better than the abysmal present. Come on, I want some straws to grasp!! :puke:

Well said. Anyone proposing that we just ditch Koivu and bank on Lang is simply not thinking straight. Lang is very high risk; he was already in that danger zone of old age, liable to have his talent evaporate over the summer. Add the injury to this and he is a long shot to come back in anything like his former glory.

BTH, you're certainly right to say that Carbo is highly unlikely to get fired, for the very reasons you state. I'm just suggesting that under normal circumstances, on a normal team, when the GM and coach have a conventional, business relationship instead of this mentor-student thing, the GM would be thinking about a coaching change right about now. And I was also giving some reasons for why this would be a reasonable course of action. The parallel with the 1992 team - another highly-touted club expected to go deep that imploded utterly in the second half - is interesting. That team, in addition to being fed up with Pat Burns, had deep internal divisions. Whether it's Koivu-Kovalev or some other combination (I can almost guarantee that Kovalev is part of the problem, whatever it is) this team may have a comparable rift. Certainly that would explain the grotesque/comical lack of cohesion on the ice. We may never know exactly what's gone on here. But it isn't normal. Good teams in slumps don't surrender 40+ shots nightly. This is ridiculous.

If your team is surrendering 40+ shots practically every night, on an endless losing streak and playing in complete disarray in its own end, and impotently on offence, despite having a fairly high talent level, then I'm sorry, but the coach *is* the logical target. Now I understand the argument that 'this team' has already gotten Julien and Therrien fired, so the problem is clearly with the players, not the coach. Without denying that the players may be the essential problem, I would make the following points: 1. In what sense is the 'core' is the same now as it was under Therrien or Julien? Koivu, Markov, and Kovalev, OK. But isn't the rest of club substantially different? So does it even make sense to talk in terms of seamless continuity between now and then? Some have even mentioned Vigneault in this connection. But surely there's been massive personnel turnaround since then. Arguably this is a different team. 2. Therrien, Julien, and Carbo were all rookie NHL coaches. That may be relevant in contemplating their firing from Montreal. That the first two have gone on to impressive success doesn't mean that their current success doesn't owe to lessons learned on their first job (and by the way, don't try to tell me that Therrien was a good coach for us. Julien certainly was, but he also had Higgins on the 4th line and Komi as a 6th defenceman - in short, he wasn't developing the young players the way he needed to). Given the learning curve involved, it's hardly surprising these guys got fired; and maybe the lesson is, hire a seasoned coach if you are serious about winning in Montreal? 3. Even the best coaches get tuned out eventually. It happened to Pat Burns here in 1992.. It happened to Gainey in Dallas. It even happened, if I remember right, to Scotty Bowman on Buffalo. The list goes on. Whatever Carbo's merits, it's possible he's simply lost the team. If so, you can fume about it all you like, but there is nothing to be gained in clinging to a coach when the room has quit on him. Now I'm actually not trying to argue that Carbo must be fired. I tend to waver on the point. But the current state of the Habs' game is completely unacceptable and looks disturbingly like the game of a team that is either not fundamentally sound in terms of systems and roles (coaching) or else has tuned out the coach (coaching). It's not the losing - it's losing in total confusion, panic, and disarray that leads to this conclusion. I think that, in a perfect world, I would trade Kovalev first, since he will not be re-signed in any case, and see how that affects the chemistry. If that shock treatment doesn't work, surely Carbo ought to be next?

Boone offers a fine analysis: http://habsinsideout.com/boone/15528 Two points of note: "Props to the Captain and props to one of his new linemates. Tom the Bomb pressured the Colorado defence for loose pucks and had four shots on goal, the last and most accurate of which was a 180-footer from his knees. As to the third member of the line, Pierre McGuire, between the benches for TSN, quoted the Colorado players as saying "Kovalev doesn't want to go tonight." They couldn't have found the Artiste's indifference and non-involvement surprising if they read scouting reports." I think teams have been making this observation about Kovalev for most of this season. It's likely only a surprise to teams in the west who haven't paid attention. Finally, there's this nugget: "Look, I'm not a Carbo basher. He was a great player and he's a very intelligent man who's learning to be a very good coach. Timeout on one of the Canadiens' 458 icings was a good call. But line-juggling in mid-February is absurd. And when Patrice Brisebois is your steadiest defenceman ... The team has issues that were not resolved last night. After 56 games, I can't discern Carbo's system and maybe some players share my confusion. Either that, or they're just not into playing the way their coach wants them to. If the latter is the case, malcontents should be moved before they ruin the kids." Like I keep saying: any other team, Carbo would have been out the door by now. Unless the problem is the second scenario. Note that both statements boil down to the same signal - move Kovalev.

Interesting and well thought-out. But one problem - Kovalev is not Guy Lafleur. I agree with the analysis recently put forward by the Hockey News. Kovy is best suited as part of a second wave attack, a supplemental weapon rather than the go-to guy on offence. Last year may have deluded some people, but if you look at his career he's always been that kind of player. This is why we should look at trading him before we lose him for nothing. Anyway. Horrible game. What we saw there was a team that got a 2-0 lead and then just tried desperately not to lose. Hence, icing after icing - rather than have the confidence to actually make plays and organize a rush, for instance. I've never seen anything quite like that. And come on, 48 shots against, against a piece-of-crap roster like Colorado?? The only hope is that this result relaxes the team a bit. If Halak can follow up with another strong performance against the Canuckleheads - who are semi-desperate themselves and whom I fully expect to school the Habs - maybe the team can actually begin to recover its belief in its ability to win games. But Jesus, it's a sad state of affairs. Lastly: kudos to Brisebois and Dandeneault, two of our most-maligned players, for showing up to play like winners when the entire team has forgotten how to do it. If anyone doubts that Breezer bleeds blue-blanc-et-rouge his attempt to fight Tucker and stand up for Halak, along with his generally gutsy performance when the team needed him most, should disabuse them. And Dandy was never as bad as some of his knockers would have us believe.

I love your confidence!

Hasn't Whitney been accused of being a soft player who fails to take the defensive game seriously and maybe doesn't work as hard as he should? Sounds like a perfect fit

This is one reason for moving Kovalev. He's been treated with kid gloves by Carbo, presumably because Carbonneau correctly recognizes that if you 'punish' Kovalev for not working, or for taking long shifts, or whatever, you lose him for the whole season. But this is a terrible principle if you want to instill an ethos that says 'we play a system and we work like hell.' You can say that all you want, but impressionable young players hear that and then look at Kovalev and see that 2 + 2 = 5. Just a thought. By the way, I forgot to congratulate you on this hilarious and apposite post. Nicely done!

By far the biggest problem is Price, and the biggest reason for Price's struggles is almost certainly the challenge of coming back from a groin injury. Luongo has had a very similar problem in Vancouver after returning from a very similar injury. The difference is that Luongo is a seasoned veteran and Price is a kid who may not yet have the same mental resilience. The best move would be to send Price down for a little while (not going to happen). That elusive 4th defenceman has suddenly become a much more urgent acquisition, but short of someone of Pronger's stature, even a good D-man will not be the magic bullet. More likely he will get sucked into the vortex of failure and mediocrity. The All Star game made me nervous all along for its potential to be a distraction that bumped players off their game. Is it coincidental that we sucked the first two games before the break, and immediately following it? They lost focus and as a result have now lost confidence - a much more serious, harder-to-rectify condition. A coaching change would almost certainly act like shock therapy, jolting us back into the game - which is not to say that it's any sort of solution for whatever the deeper problems are, or that it's fair to Carbo. But in terms of salvaging the season, a coaching change would be the most sensible approach.

I usually agree with Wamsley, but this time I may have to jump ship (respectfully of course). Price's post-All Star play is the single biggest reason for this catastrophic slump. That's not to deny that the whole team is a mess. But part of the reason why it has turned into a mess is from being scored on whenever things break down. Not only has Price failed to make the big save when the team really needs it, he has regularly committed the further sin of letting in softies night after night. Put these elements together, you get a team that no longer has the confidence that it can make a mistake - nor that it can win even if it plays well. The result is an infinity of mistakes. I've seen the same thing in Vancouver. Whenever Luongo struggles, the whole team tends to tank, and a blueline that is normally pretty solid looks horrible, and forwards who are normally tolerably productive look lost at sea. Team confidence and cohesion, in other words, starts from the net. In the bigger picture, I'm becoming extremely worried about Price. He was superb for most of last year and most of this season. He is the cornerstone of the rebuild. And yet we've twice seen his game absolutely collapse - once in the playoffs last year (and our team looks disturbingly reminiscent of how it looked in the later stages of the Philly series), and now following the All Star break. Growth pains, probably, but there is a serious danger here of shattering the kid, obliterating his confidence and turning him into potentially permanently damaged goods. (I find myself painfully reminded of Jose Theodore, who literally overnight lost his touch and has never quite gotten it back). Gainey took a leap of faith in anointing him the #1 without giving him the cushion of a veteran backup. It's turning out to be grave mistake. If this keeps on, his entire development may be at risk. I certainly didn't think he should have started against Edmonton, and at this point I give the ball to Halak and hope like hell that Price can reconcstruct his shattered game. Bring up Denis, sure, but don't expect him to help much. In fact, he's yet another example of the Pascal Leclaire-Jose Theodore school of goaltening, a guy who went from being considered a reliable #1 starter to being barely worthy of NHL employment. So he could hurt Price as much as help him - by exemplifying exactly how not to be. Meanwhile, Bob has to do something. Kovalev is the obvious moveable asset and I wouldn't be at all surprised to find him gone in short order. Any other franchise, of course, would be seriously set to fire the coach.

Well - and if read Wamsley correctly we're in agreement - I stand by my Kovalev-for-picks, picks-for-Pronger scenario. Of course it's easier said than done. But if you want to change the culture of the team, don't start with Koivu - who as far as anyone can tell has ample character - start with the glaringly obvious headcase: Kovalev. Then see where you are. Also, any other franchise would be seriously looking at the coach right now. Not saying it's right, just saying it's a fact.

In retrospect - and I don't pretend that I saw this coming - the absence of a second top-4 rushing defenceman was a serious hole on this team that needed fixing, because without that element, the quick-transition, rush-rush-rush game of last season wasn't going to be nearly as good. The weak PP is a symptom of that deeper underlying problem - a problem that cut to the heart of team identity, in fact. ('If we can't play that game as well anymore, well...now what??') But now it's become more than that. This is an unfolding debacle. I don't blame Koivu, like some around here. But it's very obvious that most of the players who, last season, were hungry and (like Koivu) willing to pay the price by cutting to the inside, going into dangerous areas, taking a hit to make plays, etc., are not willing to do that this season. Kovy, Pleks and the Kostitsyns seem particularly guilty. (Remember Sergei's gaffe on the PP that led to the go-ahead goal? I swear he flinched because he thought he was going to get hit - and then bobbled the puck). In addition to the lack of character, they are also playing like a team that has either lost faith in its coach or has quit on him. Sorry, but I come back to the 1992 team that was both riven with internal divisions and also sick of Pat Burns. These guys looked like that tonight and against TO. I don't know what you do about it. Like I say, any other organization would be beginning to target the coach. It's not the magic bullet, but it might be needed to salvage the season. My preference would still be to trade Kovalev if you can. But, again: this can't continue. That was one of the most dispiriting games I've seen in my years as a Habs fan. Yes, I've been far more crushed by devastating losses in the playoffs, etc.. But I'm hard pressed to think of a more dispiriting effort from a team. They just lost 5-2 to Toronto. They desperately needed a solid bounce-back game, win or lose. And THIS is their response. I don't envy Mr. Gainey tonight.