tomh009

If we trade Petry and Weber, who do we have on RD? If we have a lot more depth on RD, somehow I have missed it.

Kinkaid has a .875 record this year, with very limited playing time. Price is .898, Saros .891 and Bobrovsky .884. So where is the dividing line for human garbage? OK, we have different opinions, let's just accept that. Kinkaid is on his way to Laval, so no need to argue this one any more.

Before the season, a lot of people, here and on the Athletic, were saying that Price should be playing no more than 50-55 games in the regular season to avoid exhaustion toward the end. He's currently on track for 67 starts. Yes, that is the death spiral. Very difficult to get out of that. But it is a factor: it's much easier for a backup to play 35-40% of the games than 18%.

Honka not available for this year, as dlbalr says. He's always been on the small side, and he has never been a big scorer, even in junior -- by far, most of his points are assists. But in spite of those, he did get drafted 14th overall. You can read a 2014 scouting report here, and it's pretty much what Habs Fan said. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2106352-julius-honka-prospect-profile-for-dallas-stars-1st-round-pick As to RHD, if we were to be trading our veterans (Weber and/or Petry), we'll need young D on the right side as well. It's not just which players we'd like to have wearing a Habs sweater, but also which ones can be pried loose from their current teams. Honka and Gostisbehere look like they are available. Not many other young top-four D are.

I did believe that he would be an upgrade, and hopefully be able to provide stable backup goaltending. It hasn't worked out that way so far. But one factor working against Kinkaid, and Niemi before him, and possibly Primeau next, is the way Julien utilizes backup goaltenders, with 1-2 week gaps between games. It's much harder for a goalie to keep focus and rhythm when playing only 2-3 times per month.

Certainly a possibility. Julien's plan seems to be get Kinkaid some playing time in Laval, but clearly he's willing to take the risk that someone will claim him.

And the Drouin-Domi-Armia line was doing pretty well -- although Drouin and Armia were generating most of the scoring. But that line got broken up first because of Tatar's demotion, and then Drouin got injured. Armia is tied with Gallagher at 10 goals each at the moment ...

I didn't say Kinkaid has been stellar. But few people expected him to be a huge upgrade. And he really has not played enough (and Price has been playing too much); that likely won't change, either, regardless of whom the Rocket sends up.

Ideally, yes. But it really depends on what we can get in trade for our veterans. Not every team will be interested in our veterans. And I would think we'd be looking for 25-ish defencemen, or younger. (Honka is 23, Gostisbehere 26, Vatanen already 28.)

That was Olofsson. Who had, at that point, played a grand total of about 10 minutes with the Habs. And Julien's system was quite effective for the first 20 games this year, as well as most of last year, until it fell apart after Drouin's injury.

Fixed that for you.

From where? Neither Lindgren or Primeau has been hot recently, even in the AHL.

I don't think he is looking to make any immediate trade. Nor will he be firing Julien anytime soon. At the moment he's en route to Russia, to talk to Romanov among others. And I doubt he'll be firing a coach or negotiating a blockbuster trade while he's there. But Marc Antoine Godin put it well in his article today on the Athletic: To make us into an immediate contender would require trading most of our top prospects and picks. And the result would still be highly uncertain, given (1) our current roster and (2) the nature of rental players. Focusing on the future? That doesn't mean selling everyone, but maybe some combination of Price (yes, NMC), Weber (less of an issue), Petry and Tatar. Of the four, I would prefer to keep Weber for his leadership qualities, but that may not be an option. And try to add some reasonably-young players (Gostisbehere? Honka?) that could form the future core, especially for D.

At this point ... I think she needs two guns ...

Yes. I do hope it's Lindgren coming up. Not because I'm super confident in his abilities, but I would rather protect Primeau as we are hoping he is our future #1 ...

A good third line is still valuable. We should just avoid illusions about what a third line can achieve.

I thought you want a lottery pick?

We really know very little of what goes on behind the scenes, that much is true. But we do know that our special teams' play has been our weakest point last season and this season.

Lehkonen is +3 during our losing streak. 🤨

I'd give NJ Kirk Muller if we could get Mirco Mueller, NHL or not! Actually, maybe if they just gave us a bag of pucks ...

I agree with your assessment as to a panic move. I do hope that this might push Bergevin into making a less-than-panic move to improve our D sometime later this season.

I thought you still had the rope stashed away in your shed?

They were executing for two periods against one of the league's top teams. But once Boston scored, the balloon deflated and all their confidence in the system (and in themselves) was gone.

Realistically, I don't think Bergevin's head is on the line quite yet. Regardless of whether or not it should be.

On D, I really think the issue is the personnel. Can we get Gostisbehere? Or Vatanen? Sadly we'll probably have to overpay in our current predicament but it might be necessary to do that.