JCPetit

Good show by Fucale.

My take on Big Mac: if he was a Leafs prospect he would easily make the team.

DSP looks faster than last spring.

Big Mac showing good hockey sense. Excellent wrist shot too. Once again he looks comfortable playing with the pros.

Prust was not the player he used to be. His type of game is difficult to play and he probably is an older athlete than his age because of that.

IMO both defensemen have good value. Emelin is well known for his physical play. Paired with a good partner, he might help a lot of teams out there. Mike Bossy would keep him with the team. «He is the only one to hit», does he say. Gilbert is not physical, but he is right-handed, has good mobility and can make a decent pass. A big plus for him: he looked at his best last season during the playoffs.

Not a bad signing. I guess that we will let go of one defenseman on the left side. Maybe Emelin, although I think that it would be time to trade Markov. Emelin is still useful, because he is the only one who regularly throws his weight on the board. Markov has slowed quite a bit and is not getting younger. We also have to make room to Beaulieu and Tinordi...

I can't agree more.

The article is good, and confirms what I say IMO. Some goalies have better value than others, of course, but they are established players. A prospect like Fucale has not proved that he can play in the NHL. His value is at best marginal, like I said. He could be useful if included in a larger deal though. It remains to be seen...

Fucale has a marginal trade value. He has talent, but has never played in the NHL. Also, he is a goalie and goalies rarely deserve large compensations in a trade. Remember Halak?

Big Mac doesn't need the MVP to convince me that he will be able to help the team pretty soon. I don't care what the naysayers think, I have seen what I have seen and my opinion is set: he has got what it takes to make the step to the NHL.

I certainly did not suggest anything of the sort. I don't mind small players if they are very talented and are tough to play against, like Gallagher. Obviously, Plekanec and DD don't have the talent to pivot the first lines, and (like it or not) they are easily pushed around when the going gets tough. You seem to dislike Big Mac because he has been selected earlier in the draft than he should have, according to your evaluation of his abilities. Let me remind you that sometimes it is a good idea to pick an under-estimated player earlier in the draft. Take P.K. Subban, for example. He has been drafted in the 2nd round. If you look at the players selected before him, I am quite sure that a large number of GM would have like to select him very early in the 1st round, if they had known how he would blossom in the NHL.Big Mac is a talented, strong, physical and tough young prospect. Nobody knows if he will make it, but if he does I am convinced that he will give the coach a lot more options to manage his team. To say otherwise doesn't make much sense to me.

Lack of skill, particularly at center, is quite obvious. I won't dispute that. But guys like Desharnais and Plekanec are certainly easy to push around. It's been a big problem in the series and during the season, against the Western Conference teams. Talent and size, we need both.

A number of scouts and coaches had good comments about McCarron this week. Alain Chainey, Michel Bergeron, Philippe Boucher, to name a few, but also the Oshawa Generals' coach. If he can improve his conditionning and skating ability, I am confident that he will get at least a few games with the big club next season. It's fun to see a prospect who won't be easily pushed out of play when he will graduate. We can be sure of one thing: nobody will say that Big Mac is «trop petite». LOL

It's obvious that Big Mac has improved enormously in the last year and a half. I hope that he will be able to get a little bit quicker on his feet, particularly on the first strides. It could make quite a difference for him, because he already has respectable top speed.

IMO Big Mac might very well make the team as soon as next fall. In his two training camps with the Habs he has looked very good with more mature players. As I wrote earlier, I believe that he is the kind of athletes who will profit from being paired with better teammates. I see him as a 3rd of 4th line winger to begin his pro career. If he shows the same ability at the higher level to win a high percentage of draws, he might get an opportunity to center a line earlier than we think.

Fucale has a good game too. Looks better than Oshawa's goalie so far.

MC looks very good in front of the net, screening the goalie. We have nobody on the current team willing to do that. He could make the team just by doing that on a constant basis with the Habs, next season.

2-1 Oshawa after the 1st period. Guess who has one goal and one assist? The goal was a deflection in front of the net, and the assist a nice pass on a two on one. I like Big Mac a lot.

McCarron has skills, no doubt about it. The big man is still a project, but he is coming along surprisingly well.

Excellent commentary about McCarron from Alain Chainey, a former Quebec Nordiques scout, excellent athlete himself, between the periods of the Oshawa-Rimouski game, this afternoon in Quebec City. Chainey really likes what he sees in Big Mac. According to him, he has the tools to become an excellent 3rd line center. He is really surprised by the quality of his hands and believe that with time he can even center a 2nd line. Particularly impressed with his face-offs skills. His skating is also adequate for such a big man, but there is room for improvement. His involvement in the game is first rate. All in all, a very promising prospect, really improved from what he had seen earlier. Good news.

I would not touch Ribeiro with a 12 foot pole.

So, Michael Bossy is idiotic?

This thread does not make a lot of sense to me. Bergevin has been doing a helluva job so far IMO. Of course, the guy is not perfect, but let's be patient here. The team is going in the right direction.

The Plekanec fans can't accept the reality: their man was not in the good chair on the 1st line. If we had a real contender, he would do very good centering the 3rd line. Having Plekanec or DD centering our best two lines is a demonstration of the real quality of the team, which is probably very close to average if you place another goalie than Price in the net. Price is the reason why we had an excellent regular season. He deserves the Hart Trophy hand over fist. And he will get it. The choice is easy.