tomh009

Pretty close to what I proposed—plus Granlund. @HabsFan4eternity Reinbacher would essentially replace Savard, not Matheson.

Welcome to the forum! On the roster: Demidov, Kapanen or Beck, Reinbacher. I expect to see Dobes as the backup next year, too.

He's still outscoring Anderson, Armia, Heineman and Newhook--and tied with Dach--on a points/game basis.

And Fowler in 2016-17? 🤪

High-danger chances 7-1 for the aHabs in the second.

Indeed. Same for me, I couldn't care less about either one of them.

Columbus gets no love from the prediction models.

According to the Habs' official twitter account Kapanen joined the team yesterday. Whether he will play tonight is still TBD though. Some new Kapanen content here: https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/article/shl-success-could-help-oliver-kapanen-boost-canadiens-secondary-scoring/

I think our last game of the season is against Carolina. I hope St-Louis has something figured out by them so that the Habs won't get suffocated like they did last time.

Barely any shots ... yes, but that had something to do with the Panthers stifling any offence after their second goal, too.

Just like Buffalo.

Hopefully the price on Sportsnet+ will not go up ...

How much are they paying in the current deal?

Since the rock bottom of the 2021-22 season, they have gained roughly 10 points each of last two seasons, and will probably be similar this year, too. There is clearly progress. And the goal was to play meaningful games in March, to be in the mix. That goal, too, has been met. There is work to do, and the team is not ready to contend. But the direction is right, and the progress has not stalled (as measured on the season level).

Sure, you can use 35 games instead and drop Montembeault to 15. But his GSAx/60 is still only 0.1 behind Dostal in #5, which means that a substantial improvement would be quite difficult. Picking up a Hellebuyck, Shesterkin or Thompson would not be cheap. As for allowing some soft goals (and making additional hard saves) doesn't really matter to me: what matters is the total number of goals, whether soft or hard. Save percentage and especially GAA are highly impacted by the defence in front of the goalie. That's why GSAx is a much better metric in evaluating the goaltender as an individual player.

GSAx/60 is 0.285, 12th among NHL starters (I used a minimum of 40 games). And Dostal, in 5th on that list, is 0.389, only 0.1 more goals saved per game. GAA is meaningless, and save percentage is still far less useful than GSAx. Montembeault is the least of our problems.

Alas, he's also CEO and vice-chair of the board ...

Yorkshire! 😊 You're lucky. We lived for three months in a rolled up newspaper in a septic tank. We used to hadta get up a'six in the morning, clean da newspaper, eat a crusta stale bread, go to work down the mill, for a 14 hour day, week in week out for 6 cents a month, and when we got home, our dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt. Luxury. We used to hafta get 'out the lake, 3 am, clean the lake, eat a handful 'o hot gravel, work 20 hours a day at mill, for a penny a month, and dad would beat us about the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were lucky. Well o course we had it tough. We used to have to get up outta shoebox, in middle of night, and lick the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked at mill for 24 hours for a penny a year, When we got home, our dad would slash it in two with bread-knife. Right.. I used to get up in the morning at night at half-past-ten at night, half an hour before I went to bed, Eat a lump of freezing cold poison, work 28 hours a day at mill, and pay da mill owner to let us work there. And when I went home our dad used to murder us in cold blood, each night, and dance about on our graves, singing hallelujah. Yah, you try an tell the young people of today that, and they won't believe you...

If your chances of making the playoffs go down by 20%, surely it's reasonable thar your chances of making the second round also drop by 20%?

From yesterday's Athletic article: “We’re not here without Montembeault,” St. Louis said before the Avalanche game. “This is not the time of year for sending messages. Our group has a lot of confidence, they know I believe in them and I believe in Monty. We’re not here without him.”

Agree that trading for high-end players will usually cost high-end players (though sometimes draft picks can help). But on the flip-side, trading someone like a Caufield or Slafkovsky has risk, too: the new player may not fit in or be happy or produce in the Montreal environment, and then we have taken a step backward. Right now the boys are really playing as a team, playing for each other, and that, too, has value. Given that a band-aid may be sufficient (we may have a 2C in our prospect pool yet) I would hope that Hughes would choose the UFA route. But we shall see ...

Signing Granlund would be another band-aid but would not create any holes ...

Some fans want to trade him. But does Davidson really want to do that?

Granlund might like a long-term contract but what team would be willing to sign him for four or five years at this point?

We won't pick in the 25-28 range. The Cup winner picks 32, the finals loser 31, and the conference finals losers 29-30. 25-28 are the regular-season division winners that did not make it to the conference finals; otherwise the rest of the playoff teams are ranked by regular-season results.