REV-G

IMHO, there is no way we should match Carolina's offer. Why should we pay KK $6M this year and nearly that amount next year. Over $11M in two years. Why should we make him the 2nd highest paid forward on our team when he's been a 3d liner and was a healthy scratch at the beginning and end of the playoffs. Why should we gamble he might get much better quicker when he may not. Why upset the room with a player getting more than almost every other forward playing ahead of him. Why pay a player much much more than what he's worth when it seems he may not want to be here. Wouldn't it make more sense to take the 1st and 3d and add our 1st and maybe more and go for Eichel or another good centre probably better than KK and upgrade our team? On a side note, I wonder what we would do if we were in his shoes. These would be my thoughts. 1. If I sign this one year offer sheet, no matter what team I play for, all the other players, fans and media will know I'm not worth that amount of money and it's probably been done more out of payback from a rich owner than anything else. If I don't do really well do I want to, and can I handle, all the comments and criticism from opposing players and fans for the next year? 2. What will accepting this offer sheet do for my career and reputation for the next 5 years in the NHL? 3. If a normal contract for me would be in the $2.5 - $3M range, is the extra $3M or so worth what I'm going to go through? 4. If Montreal matches, what will I face and bear from my teammates, coaches, fans and media if I have another year like the one I just had in Montreal? 5. If I have a average year again, and Carolina doesn't give me a qualifying offer next year and I'm a free agent at 22 years old, will my reputation among the players in the NHL be affected. So personally, I don't know if the extra $2-3M for a young, unproven NHL player with a seemingly good career ahead of him would be worth all the baggage that may attach itself to him because of this. If I was his dad, and healthy, I would have to do a lot of thinking before I encouraged him to sign that offer sheet.

I'm not sure if this has been brought up before in this thread, but do you think we would have any interest in Johnny Gaudreau? There have been rumours for a while about Calgary moving him. Would he fit with us?

That seems vey high for a 3d line centre with low offensive numbers but very good defensively. That may come back to bite them with their salary cap at some point.

If it came down to Hamilton or Seth Jones....who would be the better fit? And if not either of these two, then who?

Over the next two or three weeks or sooner we're probably going to find out what a team is willing to pay Phil Danault. So my question is, what do you think he's worth? I'm guessing every one of us want him back. We all saw what he did and how valuable he was in the playoffs. Without him, we don't win the series we did. I doubt he's a first line centre on any team in the league right now. Defensively, probably the best. Offensively, not so much. I heard a hockey insider say a few weeks back that he thinks Danault is a very, very good 3d line centre now on most teams. If he hits the open market will some other team give him more than we have offered him? If I remember was not MB's offer to him $5 million plus, with term, that he turned down? Then he proceeded to have a so so regular season with low production but then turned it on in the playoffs, defensively with some offence. Will another team really offer him more than we have? Somehow I doubt it. My understanding is that the same offer is still on the table for him. I think being french Canadian has us adding more to the offer than others would. If he hits free agency I think there's a good chance he fields other offers and then comes back to us. But there is certainly a risk. Or, to save him any awkwardness does his agent tell him to take our offer? What do you think?

Lol. I think I was expecting a hockey response/discussion with a little more substance to it!

I wasn't sure where this thread should go so I just put here because it's an observation, opinion about the Maple Leafs and their GM, Kyle Dubas. We've had lots of discussion about our own GM so I wanted to make a comment about Dubas. I'm beginning to think that Shanahan made a mistake when he let Lou Lamoriello go and kept Dubas as his GM. Here's why. In Dubas's first year as GM the Islanders lost Tavares to Toronto and made the Islanders look bad. They lost their star premier player for nothing. Toronto stole him from under their noses, in effect. Win for Dubas? Maybe, maybe not. I believe the top 5 star players Toronto currently has were drafted during Lamoriello's watch with the Leafs. When Shanahan let LL go and kept Dubas look at what has happened since. The Islanders have built a very solid team, made some key trades and have built a younger team with players that made it to the final 4 this year. Lamoriello has been named GM of the year for the past two years. Dubas on the other hand inherited a very talented team, on paper at least, and they did very well this past regular season. But the goal for every team is to get into the playoffs and win rounds to ultimately compete for and win the Stanley Cup. Under Dubas's watch they have failed to win a single round in the playoffs to date. For me the concern for Leaf fans is that at the end of every year everyone talks about the evident weakness the Leafs have and then Dubas goes out and tries to get players to fix it. He doesn't seem to have a plan the way LL or even Bergevin does, like them or not. At least these two GM's have a plan that they have tried to implement. I am beginning to seriously doubt if Dubas has that ability yet. So if you're Shanahan and you've had 4-5 years of this return when do you make a change? You can't keep changing all the players and coaches and at some point not look at the one who is putting all these pieces together, that isn't working when it counts. It's not like they're missing by a little bit, with all their talent they have lost in the first round every year for what, 4 or 5 years in a row. I think that's their probably right now, the GM. If Shanahan had kept LL what would Toronto's story be today? I think they would be contending for the cup. He would have made trades to build the Leafs like he's done with the Islanders. I think they made a mistake. My prediction is that if the same thing happens next year and the Leafs lose in the first round, Dubas will be gone and they will have wasted some very key years when they should have been playing for the cup. Time will tell. We'll see what happens next year. Thoughts?

I don't think that would ever happen. What do former hockey players do after their playing days are over? For most, their first choice is to get a hockey related job. There are 31 GM jobs and slightly less president positions in the NHL so if you have one, and you've finally arrived at a level where you've just had your first genuine hockey success and everyone is talking about how good a job you've done, I don't think you walk away. What is he going to do for the next 15-20 years. Guys like him enjoy the completion and the action. I don't think he's ready to retire. Other than being made president, and if I'm Molson I keep MB where he is best equipped and prepared to be successful, I think MB stays for as long as he can.

I started this post and I believed what I wrote about DD not coming back as our head coach next year. But I honestly never dreamed they could turn it around against Toronto the way they did. And I never imagined they could sweep Winnipeg in 4. Like many people I have had a complete reversal in my thinking. The team has come together in his system in a way that none of us would have believed possible. They seem to be playing for him, within his system and it's all working. This is one of the most amazing playoff turn-arounds that any team has experienced for a while. Even St. Louis a few years ago started their run in January, not at the 4 game mark of the playoffs, behind 3-1 in games. So at this point can anyone say with conviction that DD and MB should not be back next year and have not earned another shot. At the time I first wrote this post I thought I was right. However now, with the turn of events, I think I was wrong, so I'm certain they will both be back next year, and deservedly so. You just never know in sports!!

Interesting, that actually makes sense to me. I didn't do the math, do the contracts even up somewhat?

Let's hope that Molson is reaching out and asking and receiving some good external advice, Serge Savard or Scotty Bowman, people like that. And you would hope that they will tell him something like the following: Part 1: it's time to make major changes staring with a new GM. Then make major changes to our current roster. A significant rebuild but keeping the younger players. Part two: the candidate who gets the job has to give strong evidence in the interviews that he understands that keeping all the veterans isn't the plan. MB wanted to do that and that's why he's not here. The new GM's mandate would be to develop the younger players we have now and trade all the vets for picks or younger pieces to build for the future. Part 3: we must be willing to drop to the bottom of the pile for a year or two to get high picks along with the picks MB has stockpiled and then communicate that to the fans the way the Rangers did a few years back. Part 3: don't interview Pierre McGuire. Very nice guy but not enough GM experience for us. I wonder if that's possible or is in process? Here's hoping....

I've been up and down regarding Bergevin since about his 3d season with us but we've been through his retool, instead of a rebuild, and I think this year should be the final straw. Our team is bad and the older core seems done. We do have some good young players so I think Molson should clean house and remove Bergevin, Ducharme and Timmins and bring in a new GM as soon as possible and let him begin to rebuild. I think I know the answer to this but wouldn't it be amazing if Julien Brisebois wanted to return to his roots and rebuild his home team! Geoff Molson, it's time, we can't wait another year and go through the same thing in a much tougher division next year with Tampa, Boston, Toronto, Carolina, Florida, Ottawa .......all stronger than us and getting stronger. We're willing to suffer through 3 years of pain as long as we see a plan and progress.

This thread isn't primarily about Marc Bergevin and what his future should hold although you can't discuss the coach without overlapping into what he was given to succeed with. But I thought this would be the right time to begin to ask about our head coach position for next season. I think we would all say we are disappointed at the results we've had over this shortened season. With the additions MB made in the offseason many believed this team would challenge for first place in the Canadian division. I heard well known hockey insiders say back in January that Montreal should challenge for top spot, so it wasn't just us diehard fans believing and hoping for great things. We started out great, as we've done before, and then the wheels seem to fall off from what may have been our not realistic lofty expectations (hindsight). Is it the team? Is the older core possibly past their "best by" date? Or is it the coaching, or a combination of both. I believe MB brought in what was needed in the offseason. But maybe it's too little too late. Maybe our older core really has declined that quickly? The coach: My sense is that Dominic has not risen to the occasion and has not surpassed or done as well as his fired predecessor. Is is because he inherited a system that wasn't his, or was it the brutal schedule with little to no practice time, or the many injuries to key people? Probably all of that contributed. Here are my takes on the coach. Nothing personal, I'm sure he's a great guy, just a realistic look and a fan's evaluation at the head coach position. I have this sense that's he's not ready or maybe not suited to be the head guy at this point in the NHL. I feel, for the first time in a long while, the opposite regarding Toronto's head coach. Maybe not a fair comparison given the talent disperity between the two teams. But I have been impressed with Toronto's game plan, their execution and most importantly, they all seem to know their roles and what they are expected to do. They look well organized, for me that means well coached. So I don't think DD should be our head coach next year. Would it work to bring up Joel Bouchard and put DD back as an assistant? I don't know. On another note, maybe it's time to trade off the older guys and spend 2-3 years letting our young guys grow and begin a genuine rebuild. With other teams working hard to constantly improve we can't just sit in no man's land, in the middle of the pack, and not do something dramatic, one way or the other. That's what I think. Agree or disagree?

That's interesting to look back at a post from a year ago and evaluate if anything has changed. I really like the changes MB made and I'll say what many said during the offseason, he checked off all the boxes. Obviously all of want to get better players at all positions but in the real world, I think MB did very well with what he had and what was available and I think we have seen a fairly major uptick in our depth, talent and the obvious needs that we had and were addressed. I think that if they play well as a team we can now compete with anyone. Do we have the best talent? No. But as a group with the system we're playing I think when we play together in our system we can beat anyone. Specifically, we obviously improved our goalie situation. We now have the best goaltending duo in the league. That's what I believe. Our backup can now play against any team and we would expect a win. The fact that Carey Price can have games off to rest, especially in a condensed schedule, will make his life more enjoyable and fun and going into the playoffs, a given for me as long as we're relatively heathy and nothing crazy happens, covid, he will be rested and should be on top of his game. I think we have the best and improved group of defencemen that I have seen for quite some time. I love Romanov but it's still early so we'll need more time but early on he looks great. Again it's early with only having played 3 games but it looks like Anderson was a great pickup and I really like Jake Evans. So when you look at our four lines and the experience waiting on the taxi squad it should give every one of us real hope and an excitement to see what we can do this year. So a year later my take is that I think MB really did step up to the plate and finally spent the money to add needed depth players, two defencmen ( Edmonston and Romanov), two top 6 forwards and probably the best backup goalie in the league. So things have changed and we have to give MB credit. I guess some of us would say, "what took you so long" but that's easy to say for armchair quarterbacks. I know I'm biased but I think we have the best team in Canada. I genuinely like our team better than Toronto's. They may have a stronger top 4 with Matthews, Marner, Taveres and Nylander, but we're better in the remaining 20 players or so, especially with our D-men and especially our goaltending. This year should be a fun year for us. It will be very interesting to see how far we go. Thanks for the question.

I have a question for Commandant and those who follow the draft eligible players closely. I clearly remember Commandant pushing for us to draft Quinn Hughes and without question, in hindsight, that would have been a very very good choice. For this draft who would be your top 3 players you would hope or expect to be available at 16 that we should draft?