tomh009

Hockey IQ is also a good attribute. Not talented? I'll wait and see before passing judgement.

… or he may further develop his game yet, making someone else expendable. This is the exciting thing, we don’t have all our hopes based on a single draft pick, we actually have a lot of strong prospects, especially on D.

That's the Pronman redraft, the Wheeler 2019 redraft has Caufield at #5. Well done in any case.

Next ... Krejci?

But if our bottom pairing is as good as other teams' second pairing, I see that as a big plus. At the moment, though, we have a lot of D prospects--more than I remember having in a very long time--and it's not clear yet where they will fit, and who will be moved. I expect Hughes doesn't know yet, either, but maybe he will after this season.

Was Karlsson actually stupid? Or just taking advantage of stupid?

I can't see them trading for a RD at the moment, when we have at least four (Tourigny would make five) credible young players/prospects on the right side, Savard on the roster for another two seasons and some left-side D flexible to play on the right. Maybe in a year or two if some of those prospects don't pan out, but not now.

However, they terminated him for behaviour, not for addiction. But this will be AZ employment and human rights laws, I have no familiarity with those anyway.

Lights were on but there was no one at home ...

I would not be entirely unhappy with a team that is consistently in the top 10 in the NHL regular season--and solidly in the playoffs from year to year--though I would certainly hope for more than that.

The proof of the pudding will be in the eating, let’s see how he looks in the training camp.

And knowing that you need to leave the US before your visa expires…that’s not rocket science, either.

Not having an injury-riddled team would make a big difference already. Anyway, the regular-season prediction contest will come soon enough, and we can all cast our own predictions.

Team members who have condemned the incident: Conor Timmins, Victor Mete, Cale Makar, Dante Fabbro, Carter Hart, Cal Foote, Robert Thomas, Jonah Gadjovich Team members who have stayed silent: Alex Formenton, Sam Steel, Max Comtois, Tyler Steenburgen, Drake Batherson, Michael McLeod, Boris Katchouk, Brett Howden No (current) Habs on either list, though.

I suspect the kind of “character” that Bergevin looked for was also different from what Hughes wants now.

Hit and run maybe, but that's quite a litany of charges after that.

I assume he would still be able to play in Laval even without the clearance? In any case, I think it's unlikely that he's going to get any kind of long-term suspension from the NHL given how lightly more serious offences are handled by the league. But we shall see.

A few comments by Rob Ramage about Mailloux from this morning’s Rocket article in The Athletic: “It seemed like (London Knights GM) Mark Hunter had me on speed dial. I said to Logan, I think I’ve seen you more in the last two years than my son. He had a great year. Every time you watched him, whether it was myself, Frankie (Bouillon) or Nick (Carrière), he just looked like an NHL player out there. The biggest thing is he needs to play; he hasn’t played a lot of hockey the last three years.” Clearly Mailloux has been getting a lot of attention from the Habs’ organization over the past year. Now we should see what he’s capable of in Laval.

You might want to add a flag or indicator for AHL contracts. Some of those players will definitely end up starting the season in TR.

😂😂😂

Chicago did the opposite with DeBrincat: his salary was back end-loaded, $9M in the final year, so the qualifying offer was huge.

There is no free lunch … you pay now or you pay later. If Newhook turns out great and the Habs are a contender, we sign him to a UFA contract during his last year—or trade him somewhere else if we can’t make a deal.

31+37 is worth maybe the same as a 25th overall pick, which is a massive difference in value from 7th overall.

Absolutely. But the big problem was the price he paid for DeBrincat to start, I think, without the certainty of an extension. Now he was stuck--with a problem of his own making.

They do lose, yes, but it's really not a shock. A player with two years remaining should always be more valuable than one with a single year. Dorion thought he could entice DeBrincat to sign an extension, but his gamble didn't pay off.