Kiwihab

Amen to that, although I bet I'll end up watching again. Its kind of like when you're throwing up vowing to never drink again, and yet you still do lol

Man I can't wait for this season to be over. I'm such a sad sack that I can't stop watching the habs self destruct. Can't wait for a fresh start with a new GM and coach to at least start heading in the right direction. it's really "dead men walking" at the moment. (null)

Steve Hindle on hockeybuzz (I know, shouldn't be looking at that site, but just like playboy I only read it for the articles lol) was talking about packaging up a bunch of our 2nd round picks and a prospect or two, and trading up for another top 10 pick in this years draft. Do you guys think this is realistic? 2 top 10 picks would certainly help the rebuild. (null)

While I'm not anti Carter the thing that would worry me is that if they are letting Gauthier make these sorts of deals, it would indicate he is staying on next year. Otherwise any new GM would have minimal flexability to set a direction for the team as the bulk of the cap would be commited into half a dozen players for the next 2-3 years and presumably Carter would cost us some youth eg Patches, Subban etc and maybe our 1st round pick. I am fine with Gauthier selling off UFA's for the best deals he can get, but if he is making longer term/higher value trades, then I worry about getting a new GM. Imagine the job interview: Molsen: We need you to come in and turn this team around. You have $8:50 in cap space and we are committed to Jeff Carter for the next 10 years, after trading all our young guys to get him our number 2 center is Scott Gomez and our best D-Man is Kaberle. Don't worry though, we paid heaps for them so they must be good eh? Hey, where are you going? Saying all that it is an Eklund rumour so could just as easily move that to the trade propoasl thread rather than the rumour thread.

OK - that makes sense, thanks

I don't really understand why the players would be interested in this? Whats in it for them, besides the potential of 30 of them having reduced contracts?

I'm sure Gomez could teach them alot about contract negotiations lol. (null)

While being as excited as anyone during the cup run a couple of years ago and last years series against the Bruins, I would dispute that "Thats what its all about". I think what its all about would preferrably be building a team that contends most years aka Detroit, Philly, San Jose and has a genuine shot at the title rather than a miracle run at it once a decade. I think most people would agree we don't need a total blow up of the team which is why alot of people are pushing to tank, as one or two key players is potentially all we need to be a contending team. I agree with you that losing Markov has been a huge loss, and although I agree that we are not getting production out of Gomez, you cannot say that is bad luck (as in the Markov situation) as we traded for him after presumably scouting him first. What I think we have (and have had for the last few years) is a bubble team that can occasionally play above itself. I for one would like to see us pick as high as possible this year to build our forwards around a genuine big number 1 centre. Saying all that, I would still be excited if we made another run, but part of me would also be sad that we missed a genuine opportunity to make our team alot better for a long while. With the cap now, there are not many opportunities to trade for stars without crippling your team long term and getting a high draft pick is probably the most realistic way we could get a star in the near future. PS: I don't think most fans are Cup or bust. I just think we want to see a team that contends.

Maybe he's looking for a job lol (null)

While tanking is never something to cheer about, I absolutely understand why people are advocating this. We have had such a dissapointing season that it seems we might as well endure a bit more to gain a franchise changing player. What I am more interested in is your comment about hoping for the leafs, making you no fan of this team. Hypothetically, if we came to the last game of the season and were out of the playoffs, and losing to the leafs meant getting top pick, would you still advocate that hoping we lose means you are not a HABs fan? I get the whole leafs/bruins hatred thing and could never support either team, but in my opinion people hoping we tank (even if this includes losing to the leafs) can still be habs fans (they just can see the big picture, not just the next game)

Seems to me that while we're obviously not as physical as Boston or Philly, we are also not as skilled as say Detroit or Vancouver. (even with Markov back) Equally we are not as fast as Edmonton or the Rangers. We seem to be stuck in the middle and until we get a GM who decides what sort of team we are going to be and works toward that, it is hard to see us breaking out of the middle of the pack. (null)

Thanks for the answers. Commandant I hope you're right about no lockout, although bearing in mind it is a higher possibility than most other years, it makes this year a great one to tank.

Excuse my ignorance folks, but what happens if next season is lost due to lockout/strike? Do we get 2 drafts in the same order as this year? Eg if we got 1st pick would we get it 2 drafts in a row? (null)

I agree. If there was a strong francophone GM with a strong personality aka Roy then I think it would take alot of pressure off finding a French speaking coach. Particularly if the GM told the media (in French) to drop the language thing or there would be no more access to habs players. (null)

I know you aren't supposed to talk about streams here, and excuse me if this is in the wrong thread (admins could move it if neccessary) but I don't know of any other way besides streaming to watch games if you live outside North America and selected parts of Europe. NHL Center Ice is only available in North America, and they don't seem to have any plans to extend in the near future (I emailed them and they were pretty dissinterested and gave me legal jargon about broadcast rights outside USA/Canada) Anyways, not really promoting illegal streaming as most of the time it is pretty erratic but if anyone out there knows of legal ways to download or watch games (particularly habs of course) I would love to hear it.

I know what you mean about the ltir. I guess I was more thinking of him suffering ongoing concussion problems in which case he would be out long term. I agree that him being out of shape and having lots of niggling injuries would be the worst case situation although I think it could be worth taking that risk for his potential upside. I know he hasn't played alot this year but when he did he seemed to be scoring at a good rate. (null)

I must admit to being a bit of a fan of Lats so may cloud judgement here, but I do think it works for Minny in that they get a player to help with their playoff push. They can also evaluate him in their system for the remainder of the season and would get the first shot at resigning him if he is successful. If not they just let him go. For us, well we at least get something back for Kostitsyn and at a lower cap hit. Next season I could see 3 main scenarios for Latendresse: 1. He is out of shape and injury prone as per now in which case we at least get some LTIR relief (I can hear the screams now about Markov etc) - this is probably the worst case scenario. 2. He comes back healthy, but still streaky, in which case he is a serviceable 3rd liner who can play on the top two lines when required. 3. Under new coaching staff and inspired by Cole, he has a breakout year and becomes the goal crashing beast we know he has the physical potential to be. Worth a shot I think

For a beer: To Minnesota Wild A Kostitsyn To Montreal G Lattendresse They get a healthy top 6 forward. We get bigger next year. (null)

I'm sure there's a train spotter out there who knows, but when did we last win an overtime or shoot out game? It seems like forever. (null)

What I'm struggling with at the moment is to stay optomistic about the future. Right now we seem to have no plan going forward. We seem totally reactive in our trades (Kaberle reeks of desparation and now Cammalleri looks a bit the same). We have fired our coach and immediately thrown the replacement under a bus by calling him temporary and saying there will be a bilingual coach next year. We don't seem to have superstar talent on the farm and the current team are average at best. Throw in the language issue with any future Coach or GM candidate and its hard to imagine why any UFA would choose to come here. I could handle tanking if there was some sort of plan that the fans could decipher, but at the moment that is not clear at all. (For all his faults, I like the way Burke tells the fans about why he made moves and how they fit into his plan for the Laffs, here we get to work it out as we go along) Hopefully I am just in a temporary low because my high hopes for the season have crashed and burned. Maybe in the next month or so, ownership either gets behind Gauthier or gets rid of him, but I hope whoever is the GM could at least outline the plan going forward. PS: I don't really follow the draft prospects that closely, but is the next Crosby, Datsyk or Malkin in next years draft prospects lol?

Using the logic you outlined above we would have to assume they are making calls for a new GM right now. I.e they haven't publicly supported him yet) I would guess the pool of bilingual GM candidates would be as small as the pool of bilingual coaches. (null)

Fantastic news. We always seem to let these type of guys go. Great also that Gorges is willing to commit long term to the habs. (null)

I think the problem is all of this is happening mid season. If ownership really want to start fresh then they should be looking for the best replacements and by definition the people (GM's and coaches) available now are ones that have already been fired this year. If they are looking to change things up, I think they should wait till the end of the season and get the best available people then. (null)

I would be interested to hear from the site members who actually live in Quebec what the average Quebecer feels about this. i.e do they really want a french speaking coach over the best coach? Or is this a media beat up?

Just wanted to give my 2 cents worth on the new coach thing. I have read several message boards and various news reports about why we should or should not have a french speaking coach. (I must say that everytime the language thing appears, it seems to rip some scabs off old wounds and things get pretty nasty pretty quickly) As an English only speaking New Zealander who did not grow up with hockey, my first reaction is the logical one that "the best coach, regardless of language should be hired" -easy. When I think about it a bit more, I think it's not that simple. If it was all about winning we could all just support the redwings or penguins or whoever was flavour of the day. As someone who started supporting the HAB's in the late eighties I think I can safely say I didn't jump on the bandwagon of a winning team. (one cup in all that time) I just remember the excitement of going to the forum (only once) it was all so great to be among that crowd of largely french speaking fans and yet feel part of the beast, and of course once I was hooked I became fascinated with the teams history and characters. All of this is a bit of a long winded way of saying a large part of my personal attachement to the HABs is the cultural differences and politics that are unlike almost any team in sport. Montreal is not some sterile, no history team like Tampa or Pheonix and a part of me would be sad to see that proud history diminished. The other part of me of course would like to see us win another cup, but in my ideal world it would be with someone like Guy Boucher at the helm. I realise there are lots of logical arguements against the above statements but I do understand how alot of French speaking fans would like a French speaking coach. Anyway, just my personal opinion. Remember we all support the same team, so not too nasty to each other (especially at Christmas lol)