CerebusClone

I agree with in parts about the impact Kovalev has had on this team, however I don’t agree that it is because of a lack of effort, but a lot more about his selfishness and his lack of hockey sense. Despite his elite-level physical skills (skating, puck handling, shooting …) Kovalev rarely makes the rights plays on the ice which leads to numerous turnovers and missed opportunities. He’s capable of game-breaking plays through individual efforts, but more often than not he gets countered and/or cornered for holding on the puck too long. This is also why I’ve always said that signing Kovalev – or more specifically relying on him as a leading core player – was a mistake. You might as well build a two-storey house on quicksand, it has just about the same probability of holding up. As for Carbonneau’s coaching nightmare, he also has his share of responsibilities, and as long as he keeps deflecting everything on the players and burying his hand in the sand, that is not going to change. This team has not played good quality hockey over the last two years, and the biggest difference between last season and the other two was that Kovalev’s individual efforts worked a lot more often. This group of players is still playing like it was put together a couple weeks ago, and not as a coherent whole. Of course this takes a long time to put into place – as Kozed and others have mentioned it took a few years for the Red Wings to do so – however I don’t see any significant improvement from the day Carbonneau took over…. the fact that he’s still repeating the same old clichés from his debut is evidence of this. Sadly I feel the Canadiens played much better hockey when a few years ago with the likes of Koivu, Zednik, Petrov, near-retirement Gilmour, Perreault, Juneau, Savage, Rivet… teams that were much less talented, but that displayed much more line chemistry and anticipation. On a final note, sometimes I wonder what Carbonneau’s speech would have been like had he won the Jack Adams last year. Would he have given all the credit for his players since after all he admitted that he’s powerless behind the bench, and that they are entirely responsible for the team’s success (or lack of)… would he have said “The guys worked very hard, and this award goes to them”?

It's simple really, when a team improvises and is as unprepared as the Canadiens, they're bound to look terrible against a team that hustles and forechecks as much as the Canes or the Bruins. I've mentioned this often, but I don't see a lack of effort or motivation, however I see a sorry bunch of willing individuals playing chaotic hockey as a whole. Sometimes it looks as if these guys have never played a single game together before as there's no anticipation, no support, and no distinguishable chemistry. Guy Carbonneau re-shuffling his lines again certainly doesn't help while acquiring a new player is a short-term solution at best, one that won't fix the lack of structure in this team. As some have mentioned the first thing we need, before putting in place any kind of system or strategies, is more stability. Instead of trying to punish the AK46-Pleks-Kovy line which has proven chemistry, the coaching staff needs to work with them to make the necessary adjustments so that they can be successful again. The Tanguay-Koivu-Latendresse showed a lot of promise earlier this season, but Carbonneau was waiting for the first sign of them slowing down to insert Higgins in there as he had planed; we need to give that line another chance, and again work with them (including teaching Latendresse to work the net) to optimize efficiency. The third line of Higgins-Lang-S.Kostsitsyn barely got a handful of games together to build any kind of chemistry, patience was required here. Finally in regards to the forth liners, Carbonneau needs to identify his roster and reserve players, they can't continually play on their toes and being scared of becoming healthy scratches, they need to know that they can take a risk without losing their spot if it goes badly. For example, there was no reason to start scratching Maxim Lapierre because of a couple of ordinary games, when he was playing great hockey earlier this season.

Latendresse was working hard - which I also think is the case of every single player on the team this season, a struggling player isn't necessarily a player who does't give the required effort - however he's still playing like a mindless drone. He's been taught to play like a marginal 4th line grinder ever since making it to the NHL, I doubt the coach has taken the time to teach him what he needs to do to suceeds (no, telling a player to go in front of the net is not teaching), and he needs to start believing and owning his hockey skills as well as take chances and initiatives out there. However I do agree that we need to work with Latendresse, and get him into an offensive line with god offensive players to take him under their wing as it was the case with Tanguay and Koivu, or maybe it could be Plekanec and Kovalev. He needs to go into offensive player mode instead of just doing the "little things" to barely keep his roster spot. Mostly I would like Carbonneau and its staff to take some time to teach the kid how to do his job the right way. I was reading a quote from the coach during my lunch today about how Latendresse needs to be get more involved in front of the net and along the boards... well that's all nice and fun, but this are just more useless old cliches that Carbonneau loves to throw out there... the coaches need to start doing their job, and show him how it's done, Guillaume has 170 NHL regular season under his belt, and he obvisouly still doesn't how to do this... just hire a retired power-forward as a consultant if necessary, but do something!

There are plenty of guys who can fight and play hockey, take for example Milan Lucic who has owned the Canadiens ever since the last playoffs; he's been such a tough competitor and pugilist that many Habs fans have labeled him as a talent-less goon unworthy of any comparison to Guillaume Latendresse, but the fact is that this guy is an emerging young hockey star who can also play. As a matter of fact, he was a star player in the WHL, the leader of the Memorial Cup champions, and tournament MVP. There are also some top players in the recent past who would bemore than willing to drop the gloves like like Joe Thornton, Jarome Iginla, Brendan Shanahan, Eric Lindros .... however with time they realised that not only were they more useful on the ice, but the risks of injury was too great. As for the goons of the past such as Ferguson, Nilan, or Probert, I don't think they were necessarily better players than the likes of Brashear, Laraque, or Simon, but they played with better players. When Chris Nilan scored 21 goals, he wasn't playing with marginal players like Dandeneault and Begin, but Carbonneau and Gainey. Actually Laraque and Simon had some offensive success when asked to complete lines with good offensive players in the past.

It's too bad we didn't keep Chipchura in Montreal, I get the feeling that he would do a good job there on the powerplay, not unlike a Tomas Holmstrom or a Paul Gaustad (with a skill level somewhere in between those 2). He's very strong, has a good reach, protects the puck well, rarely loses a battle, and has a knack for picking up garbage goals. I've also mentioned before that I think Andrei Kostsitsyn could do a very good job as the shooter on the powerplay because he possesses such a great shot, a very quick release, and perhaps more importantly because he also has great passing skills; with two guys in Markov and Kostsitsyn who can both shot and feed an open linemate, this would give us a plethora of different options from the blue line. So you keep the Plekanec-Kovalev duo that did such a great job last season on the powerplay, you add a Markov-A.Kostsitsyn duo at the blue line that can generate a lot scoring chances, and you add a large, gritty Chipchura to work the net, do the dirty work, and pick up the garbage goals. I think it has potential...

Didn't try that one, although I drove in front of it yesterday. I went to the one on Taschereau on Saturday, but almost everything I somewhat liked was too busted for my liking

Does anyone know of a great furniture store either in Montreal or on the south shore area, perhaps a liquidation centre where I could find a very good quality dining room set? I had a great store near my house where I got an amazing deal for my bedroom set, but I think they closed a few months... I just spent the entire weekend looking around, but didn't find anything I just had to buy.

I actually agree with most of what KoZed said, however that doesn't mean that we just need to wait and hope that this group binds and merges into a well oiled hockey machine. By no mean did I insinuate that Carbonneau should be fired, that would be absolutely ridiculous, however that doesn’t mean he doesn’t need to improve as a coach. If we want to build a strong winning organization in the long run, which is where we’re heading with the superb work of Pierre Boivin, it must start with a solid foundation today. The Canadiens had an amazing record to start the season despite playing somewhat disorganized hockey. Even the game we won 6-3 against Toronto wasn’t exactly a display of superior hockey, we just score a lot of goals against a weak, confused team that was clearly looking for chemistry and structure. In my opinion we won most games based on superior talent, hard work, and great individual efforts (one night it was Tanguay, another it was Kovalev while sometimes Lang scored some timely goals). While that should be more than good enough for us to contend for first place in the conference, that won’t make us any more ready for the playoffs than we were last year, and doesn’t make us go into the right direction for the future. As I said, I see a lack of preparation heading into most games, I see a lack of structure on the ice (everyone if playing hard… but dumb), and I feel that the way Carbonneau distances himself from the players after each loss is not good for team chemistry nor its confidence level on the longer run, and it could make him lose the respect of his players, especially the veterans. This is not disapproval of Carbonneau, but only things I feel he needs to work on… after all, he’s also inexperienced and going through a learning/growth process…. So yes to stability and long term goals… but today we still need to do things the right today

The thing is that Laraque is not that young anymore, he's become very wealthy over the years (although according to Chris Rock he's rich, not wealthy), and has a great reputation as the league's best and toughest fighter.. all this combined mean that he's not overly motivated to get punched in the face anymore while no one wants to be punched in the face by him... Laraque has become a figure head, a sysbol, more than anything else...

This could be dangerous, all of Toronto could unite to send Mikhail Grabovski as a starter for the All-Star game... I just can't imagine the grin on his face if he were the only non-habs starter for the East, the undesirable ex-habs who broke the fans' dreams to see an all-Canadiens starting lineup

The problem is that Milan Lucic plays over 15 minutes a game (and it will probably increase over time), and usually with some good quality teammates (i.e. Bergeron and Kessel) so you can't match Laraque with those guys. He may be barely good enough to not hurt you on the ice, but he's not helping you either. Also when he jumps on the ice then it's likely his even more useless linemate Dandeneault also will; of course you could play Laraque on a top offensive line, but then you're likely weakening that line while a better player like Latendresse or Sergei Kostsitsyn ends up on the forth line. This is why goons are useless... luckily we have guys like Stewart, Conboy, Quailer, Pacioretty, McDonagh, Stejskal, Chipchura, and a couple more who can play hockey, show some toughness, and are willing to drop the gloves to defend a teammate when necessary.

I fully agree that the Red Wings don’t have superior talent (with the exception of Lidstrom, and maybe also now with the addition of Hossa who wasn’t there in the past), however the difference goes far beyond the commitment level. They go into games fully prepared. They know how their opponents play and what they need to do to win. They have a strong system (and by system I don’t mean telling the players to skate and work hard) and strategies that are well communicated to players, and they make sure everyone knows his role. There are two quotes from Scott Niedermayer that reflect this very well: “He’s a coach who always has his teams prepared going into a game. We always were aware of what he other team was doing and what we needed to do”. I may be wrong about this, but I don’t believe that the Canadiens have a strong game plan adapted to their opponents, honestly I’m not even sure there is any strategy besides skating in a North-South fashion, working hard, and trying to hit everyone we can (regardless if it’s actually beneficial to the situation). ”I really enjoyed playing for Mike. He was a guy that you knew where you stood with him. He put that out there loud and clear. He’s one of my favourite coaches that I played for.” That last quote shows a world of difference with the way Carbonneau coaches in Montreal where a disconcerting large number of players have mentioned they had no idea what the coaching staff expected from them, what they were doing wrong, or what they had to so to get back into the lineup. The latest is Steve Bégin, a regular for the last several years who seems to have no clue why he’s not playing, what he needs to do to get back into the lineup, or what his current role is within the team. Some others include Michael Ryder whom according to him no one talk to, guys like Perezhogin and Samsonov who didn’t what was expected of them on the ice, Latendresse whom according to him Carbonneau hardly ever talked to during his rookie season (you have to work with a 19 year old you graduated early, and communicate constantly with him so that he grows as a player), Rivet who showed up to learn he was a healthy scratch only a few hours before a game, and a few others like Dandeneault or even some youngsters who were sent down without being told what they did wrong and needed to work on. There is one thing I truly hate from Guy Carbonneau, and it’s the way he distances himself from the players. After a loss, he systematically criticizes his players for the lack of effort – in front of the media – sometimes almost trying to humiliate them by saying things such as “Muller and I can’t jump on the ice for them”. It basically shows that he’s not willing to re-evaluate his own work, decisions, and strategies. Again I see a huge contrast with a coach like Mike Babcock. I was reading some post-game scripts and interviews from Babcock from the last playoffs, and he almost always uses the term “WE” in the sense that the players AND himself have to take a look at what didn’t go se well, and what needs to be addressed. You can sense that he and the players form a united group, and that win or lose, it is a group effort. Babcock is also capable to analyze why the team didn’t have so much success at a technical level instead of systematically blaming a lack of effort. For example after a loss against the Penguins during the finals, he explained after the game that Pittsburgh did a great job boxing his players, and how that lead to a very high number of shots, but very few quality chances: “Two things, I'm not a big believer in letting the goalie outplay you. I think when you do, you have to look at yourself and make sure it doesn't happen again. We can't miss the net 41 times like we did. Pound it off him, get a second chance. They're doing a good job trying to box out, and we have to make sure we're going there and being relentless at their net. And that will be our focus and our plan.” I just love this one because this is exactly what happened to us against the Flyers (or even Boston), however our coach simply blamed the lack of effort, failed to see this on a technical level, and thus never made the necessary adjustments which lead us to losing the series. Mike Babcock mentioned three things that the Detroit system is made of (in order): 1. Work ethic 2. Structure 3. Talent We have the work ethic (this is something Carbonneau has done very well, getting everyone working hard every game, and creating good team chemistry) and the talent… but we have no structure whatsoever… again last night I saw a lot of players working hard, but really just individually; as a whole we’re a mess…

First, Lucic isn't a fighter... he's a hockey player who fights, there's a difference. He's an improving sophomore player with good skills (he was a WHL star and Memorial Cup MVP) who's getting more and more responsibilities, getting some powerplay time and sometimes playing on the top offensive lines. Again, Boston had absolutely nothing to gain from losing Lucic for 5 minutes, especially not against a marginal hockey player like Laraque; Laraque did the right thing trying to initiate a fight, and Lucic was very smart to refuse.

Lucic has a history with Komisarek from the last playoffs, but he had absolutely no reason to fight with Laraque. What would Lucic or the Bruins have gained from such a fight, the team was in control, had all the momentum, and it's not like Laraque made a dirty hit on a core Bruins player?

If by true colors you mean that he scored a goal, was a plus 1, was physical, beat Mike Komisarek in a fight, and got the tird star, then yes. Personally I just wish we had players like.. or I should say that I wish that our players similar to him played like that...

Why would they have fought Laraque, Lucic and Thornton were too busy kicking our arses on the scoresheet...

Personally I see three out-possible of-the-box solutions for the powerplay that would have been interesting to look into during training camp or during those long stretches without playing a single game: Solution 1: Using Andrei Kostsitsyn as the shooter playing on the right side of Markov. Markov goes back to doing what he does best while Kostsitsyn gives us many options having not only a powerful shot and a quick release, but great underrated passing skills as well. Idea 2: Using Mike Komisarek as the set-up man on the left side on Markov. These two have proven chemistry, and Komisarek has much better hockey sense and passing skills than he gets credit for. He also has a booming shot that he keeps very low, the kind that generates many rebounds. By swithching them at the blue line, they would both be in a position to either shot or pass. Idea 3: Working with Ryan O'Byrne during practices so that he can become the shooter on the right side of Markov. It might be a little soon, but Burner is not unlike Sheldon Souray who was still not that long ago a defensive defenseman with no apparent offensive potential besides his powerful shot. This is a long shot, and has the potential to piss off a few more experienced players on the team... but there's possibly something there... if not today maybe in 2-3 years.

I agree, for the first time for as long as I can remember Toronto seems to be heading in the right direction with a likable group of young underdogs playing hard, ad the team giving their younger players a chance to improve and show what they can do at the NHL level. They also have an relatively interesting group of young players and prospects (they've improved in recent years) led by Schenn, Kulemin, Grabovski, Ruegsegger, Stralman, Stefanovich, Pogge, Mikus, DiDomenico, and a few more such as wild-card Jimmy Hayes and Chad Rau. We started rebuilding with less than that... The fact that Sundin is forcing the current players to rely on themselves, and show to the organization what they can do... with Sundin, they'd just give him the puck and wait for him to do all the work like it's been the case for the last few years... It's weird but I kinda like the Maple Leafs right now...

You're right that this gets done more often than not - as a matter of fact I find that you usually have little chance to be awarded a project based on a RFP if you were not involved previously during pilot projects, RFIs, etc - however it is not necessarily always because of corrupt practices, bribes or anything like that. Large compagnies as well as ministries usually spend a lot of time working on pilot projects, testing solutions, and working on specifications before they enter the RFP process, they usually know exactly what they want, and more importantly they do not want to get stuck with some inferior cheaper solution that hey know nothing about. This happened to us last year with a Ministry, they wanted to work with us, but some cheap toolkit solution won the RFP by about 10K (out of a lot more). So they wasted months of time and money trying to get that piece of junk software to work, until they they kicked out that lowest bidder. Then they called me to see if our bid was still valid, I met with them, we imlpemented the solution, and they're now very happy. To resume, they lost a LOT of money because they were forced to select the bidder who was a lousy $10,000 lower even though our solution was by far superior (for example our proof of concept took a few hours while the other company's lasted 3 days)...

It's all about confidence, otherwise O'Byrne has all the tools to be a very good defenseman today... his situation this season was exactly like Komisarek's or even Hainsey's a few years ago, he doesn't feel he has the coach's confidence, and he's thinking a lot more about not screwing up than playing his own game. When you're constantly afraid to be benched or scratched, you don't take any chance, you start backing up too quickly which can cost an offensive opportinity, you don't go for that big hit because you might end up in a bad position, you don't want to be too physical because you might take a penalty that could possibly cost the game (and your spot on the roster), you get nervous and get rid of the puck as soon as you can... When confident, O'Byrne can be a force on defense. He's a huge physical presence, he's got great mobility and agility for such a big man, he's a good skater, and he's always been good in the past to make that first pass to initiate transition.

When you're invading and/or imposing your own values on countries who already felt huge hatred towards you for doing just that in the past, then yes it can be a dangerous world. If I'm not mistaken, the goal in Iraq was to take down Saddam Hussein, remove the weapons of mass destruction, and impose a new democratic government (it's kind of ironic to impose democracy)... considering Saddam is dead, there were no weapons, and that the population has voted for a new government a few years ago (and no the US wasn't on that ballot), shouldn't the US be gone by now? By the way, why is it even called "Defense"... when was the last serious threat to the United States that could actually take over the country? Most of those investments have been for offense, to invade, take over, and control other countries (or threaten countries like Syria)... However I agree 100% on your statement regarding the lower bidder... that's someting that even our governments do, and in the end costs a lot more money because they often end up with subpar solutions that barely fulfill the requirements (often with a lot of patching and suspect tweaking), that require much more maintenance and/or labor, that don't integrate eaisly into existing infrastructures, and that often end up in the garbage forcing them to revert to the old systems/processes, switch to the second lowest bidder after months of wasted ressources, or start a whole new RFP process...

You also have to take in account the inflation

Those were two different situations in my opinion. Both Bergeron and Jones were chasing the puck behind the net, Bergeron got there first, and put himself in a very dangerous situation by bending over right in front of Jones who went to finish his check like he would on any similar play. However on Saturday night there was no chase for the puck; Kostopoulos was clearly a few steps behind Van Ryn, and had no chance to reach it before him. Kostopoulos was behind Van Ryn during the entire play, and never stopped skating. Van Ryn got to the puck, stopped before the boards (meanwhile Kostopolos was still going full speed), and barely had time to get rid of the puck as as he was crushed from behind. Although I don't think there was any intention to hurt, it was a stupid, dirty and careless play by Kostopoulos.

I don't think it will ever come up, but I wonder if Sergei Kostsitsyn’s attack on Grabovski could not be interpreted as intentionally trying to injure him. On that play, Grabovski did not have the puck, and Kostsitsyn clearly went out of his way to assault him while he was vulnerable (normally Sergei should have started backwards towards the defensive zone since the puck was heading that way)… this was not a “welcome to the NHL” hit while carrying the puck with his head was down… it was malicious hit on a vulnerable player.

I hope a large part of that meeting was used reviewing tapes, fine-tuning the system, and making sure everybody understands what he has to do... otherwise the guys will likely skate harder for the next couple games, but the underlying problems will remain whole. When the players display sound positioning, when they anticipate each other's reactions, when they're confident, and know how to react to most game situations, they don't need to skate as hard as they can and hit everything they can because they control the pace of the game and have the other need team running around like a bunch of headless chicken. So far this season, I haven't seen the Habs control a single game... (except for the first period against Boston).