TurdBurglar

I did notice we had 2 goals scored on low percentage shots. Which was great for a little bit, but we still lost. My point all along is when low percentage shots is a significant part of our total shot count, we have problems. Granted any shot on net can go in, high scoring team look for higher percentage shots. I don't like how we're depending on low percentage shots to make or break our offense. It's like playing Russian roulette with 5 bullets in a 6 shooter and expecting to live. @Commandant: While thing did get out of hand and I do apologize for it, I would also like to point out the only name callings your referring to was by you. Also you have to understand your comments come across as irritating when you demand more comparisons but fail to do any research to prove your point. This isn't in any way, shape or form a jab, at you, just informing you how, from my perspective, this got out of hand. Hope you can accept my apology.

Some reports were bringing McCabe to Montreal, maybe this deal did it in or maybe it's a compliment to McCabe?

So according to you, with context, getting scored on twice a game isn't a problem because the league average is over 2 GA/G. Since you can't see clearing the puck instead of passing it to go on offense, I'll dumb it down for you. The context is about turnovers, you know when you give the puck to the other team. In this game in the first period there were 7 occasions where a pass could have been made to go on offense, but instead the puck was cleared out of the zone forfeiting possession, you know the thing where you have the puck one requirement to scoring a goal, giving the other team another chance to attack us. Since this turnover thing is a mystery to you, the more times we give the puck away willingly the less chances we get on offense and the more chances they get on offense. When we have possession of the puck we can then attempt to put it in the other team's net. Without the puck we cannot put it in the other team's net. Therefore having the puck is beneficial. When dumping the puck out of the zone when a pass is available we just gave up a chance to go on offense. Does all chances end up in goal? No, sometimes not even a shot, but as I already pointed out you need to have the puck to shoot it at the net. It doesn't matter what the league average is in turnovers(electing to give up possession by dumping the puck instead of retaining possession by passing to a teammate), we could have the lowest amount BUT every single one is bad. There are stats that are good and ones that are bad. A good example of a good stats is goals for, they help us win games, a bad stat is goals against, they help us lose games. Turnovers in our favor help achieve goals for, turnovers against us, help us achieve goals against. Can I make it any clearer? Do you get it now? In the case of what our defense is doing when recovering the puck, league-wide averages mean nothing, it's bad, the more it happens the worse it is. Now to address the counter-attack issue, a big key to a successful counter-attack strategy is frequently recovering the puck and making passes to the forwards so they can take a shot for a possible goal. Now, if the forwards are breaking out but no pass comes, there is no offense. That being said how can you use a counter-attack strategy when nearly half of your chances to counter attack are given away (see turnovers above). Granted you have a point about how most of our goals are scored on the rush, in CONTEXT, most of the 5-on-5 goals in the league are scored on the rush, therefore by your point of CONTEXT, we are NOT using a counter-attack strategy, we are doing the same as every other team, but failing to produce much when in the zone 5-on-5. Now on to your "big picture." The big picture is players are saying Martin's system is too restrictive. That means he doesn't want much of anything done outside of his system. Therefore this dumping the puck out instead of passing, by the sheer frequency, is clearly a part of his plan. Bringing me back to my point the whole time, Martin is coaching a broken system (if it's counter-attack giving the puck away on purpose is against the strategy). if the coach is coaching a system thats broken, it does not work, clearly (11-11-7), then the coach has to go. You say he's doing an acceptable job, yet being out of the playoffs is not acceptable. See the problem here, need me to dumb it down for you some more? You can call me a punk all you want, the truth is your hockey knowledge is truly not as refined as you believe it is. You've yet to make 1 valid point as to how Martin is doing a good job. You defend him blindly, with no reason. You can point out the forwards are underachieving, but why are they underachieving? You can point out the defensive core green, but why is it 2 of the 3 replacement defensemen are making strong cases to stay in the lineup? You point out our injured defensive core is hurting our powerplay, doesn't the power play unit have 5 members on each unit? Isn't 7 of the 10 power play players healthy? So by this information our powerplay should improve by 30% due to 3 of 10 players being changed. Why isn't Subban scoring on the powerplay? Guess it wouldn't mean anything to you to tell you the power play strategy isn't working. Better players would results in a better powerplay, but not even close to what we are used to. Remember last year we used a rotating umbrella powerplay? This year it's a weird 1-3-1 or 1-2-2 or 2-1-2. It changes and none work. Would you believe me if I tell you Subban's biggest problem is the bulk of his PP goals came from top of the circle? This year he's firing from the blue line. Cammalleri was on fire last year in Kovelev's spot, opposite Subban, this year he's on the boards or in front of the net. These problems are COACHING DECISIONS, not player decisions. The COACH is making bad decisions in strategy and the team's record is clearly reflecting it. So now you explain to me how bad coaching decisions isn't the coach's fault.

I guessed 5-3 score, it's gonna be 4-3. Whether or not we win tonight I believe Martin is gone by end of next week. Be surprised if he's behind the bench Saturday if we blow a 3 goal lead and lose tonight.

So your a year older than me, but your speculating nature leads you to believe I'm a teenager, rich. I've been doing nothing but being credible. I was offering statistics to back what I'm saying, while you offered nothing, not 1 statistic to show your remotely right. Funny how I'm pulling statistics and number from various websites, while your only stats is "show me more because I don't believe you." You get caught contradicting yourself, then you say it's sarcastic. Funny thing is you edited your post to put in a question mark to make it look like you were being sarcastic. I've met many people like you, if this wasn't a forum where you could look back at what you already said, you would be the first to say your saying what I am and I was saying what your were all along. Your a person to switch stories when wrong, like your doing. Over 1,000 posts in a hockey forum and you are showing you can't watch a game an properly analyze it. How is that attacking your hockey knowledge? If pointing out a fact is attacking then I guess I am. You believe Martin isn't a problem on this team and doesn't need to go. You believe our bad record and PP is due to 3 injured defensemen. In all 3 counts you are wrong.

Thats you describing a counter-attack style, saying we're doing it and calling it "quick strike." Need I say more? You want proof, proof, proof, yet you contradict yourself and demand more proof. Learn a bit more about hockey before arguing about it please.

Saying we're a counter-attack team when we're not making passes to counter attack is a ridicules claim. You made it I'm showing you your wrong once again. I'm doing this because of your ridiculous notions, you have everything to back up here. So we're winning off of shots goalies normally stop, which causes us to not win over half of our games, and now these shots are acceptable? LOL Shows just how much you really know about hockey.

So track every other team and tell me I'm wrong. I'm throwing stats at you while you offer nothing back other than the speculation that we're not the only ones doing it. So show me some numbers stating we're doing the exact same thing as every other team bacause all your doing now is arguing with no basis what-so-ever. Here's an interesting fact for you, first period of this game we've dumped the puck out instead of making a pass 8 times, Vancouver has done it twice. Coincidentally we're being outshot 13-7.

Gonna update this post as the game progresses. I said I would count the bad shots and post it, gonna also count dump outs where a pass could have been made and resulting icings. Bad shots: 4 Dump outs when pass could have been easily made: 10 Icings due to these dump outs: 2 1 bad shot not counted was St.Denis' goal, even bad shots can go in sometimes, but it was left out for arguments sake. Don't quote this until after the game please.

I expect a high goal total. With a target on his back and more and more rumors about a shake-up, Martin needs to take chances. I expect us to open up, lay off the defensive game a bit. Martin can't afford another lackluster game or even another loss. Either we're gonna get scored on alot or both teams are gonna score alot. I'm predicting a 5-3 game, not sure for who.

It's not a stat without context. Their 24th in shot %, 24th in goals for, but 10th in shots. In the bottom 10 teams in the league in shot%, 3 are currently in a playoff spot, and all 3 have less goals against. If a high number of shots and low scoring percent doesn't mean alot of bad quality of shots to you, I don't know what does. Instead of guessing something, look it up first. If I could find the stats on actual scoring chances I guarantee you it would further support what I'm saying. What's next? Are you gonna pitch the notion that all goalies somehow have amazing nights against Montreal nearly every game? I never said it was just Gill, Gorges and Subban, I said their doing it also. If all 6 defensemen are doing it, their being instructed to do it, not just the rookies as you speculate.

In the defensive zone the habs don't get to lose puck very often. All 5 players are encompassing the slot and when the puck goes to the corner or behind the net they get beat to the puck more times than not. Watch the games. So it's not the coaches game to dump it out when recovering the puck in their own zone, so who's game is it? There's no looking for a pass when they recover the puck. They either dump it behind the net, hoping someone is there or out of the zone, causing icings and turnovers. Your not seeing the 3-4 icings a period due to this? Sometimes two in a row? The biggest problem is it's Gorges, Subban and Gill doing this also, you know the 3 experienced defesemen we have on the ice now? Are you forgetting the failed dumps out fo the zone that make it to the other team's defensemen, staying in the zone? That isn't in any way,. shape or form a pass to a teammate. All I have to say about this is watch other teams play. I watch Montreal, Edmonton and Vancouver games, in that priority. The low percentage shots aren't the nice, hard point shots. It's the weak wrist shots from the point and the abundant shots from bad angles. I'll count tonight and post how many low percentage shots they take. I'm glad you have faith in Martin. Martin has a system in place that is not working. You put this system he is using now on any team and they will have a record like ours. He has his regular system modified because he doesn't trust this team. Last year players were scoring timely goals with his system and it worked, this year they are not so he's coaching more defense, less offense to not lose. He has no intention on winning, just not losing. Whether you want to believe it or not, what the players are doing on the ice is what Martin is telling them to do. What their doing isn't working obviously, so what the coach is coaching isn't working. How does a coach coaching a system thats not working make the coach a good coach? Martin's motto right now has to be, "if it's broke, don't fix it."

How do you get to lose pucks in the defensive zone? Putting pressure on the other team when their in our defensive zone, something that hasn't been done all year. Instead all 5 players are in the slot, in no position to force turnovers, one key piece to the counter attack game your saying we're using. Instead of making quick passes out of the zone setting up offense, we're dumping it out of the zone to nobody to relieve the pressure put on by not putting pressure on their offense. To summarize, Martin is using a counter attack offensive strategy, without forcing turn overs and giving the puck to the other team when the puck is turned over. Your defending a coach implementing a broken system? We get better chances on the PK because for some reason we're using pressure on the PK and not using pressure 5-on-5. The only reason we have a high number of shots in a game is nearly half of them aren't shots that should be taken. A perfect example is Eller's weak wrist shot from just inside the blue line last night. These kind of shots shouldn't be taken, but we take at least 10 of them a game. Cut 10 shots off our average, 30.2 shots a game, and we're at 20.2 shots a game that should be taken. If statistically we were getting 20 shots a game everyone would be pointing at the shot count as to why we're not scoring. Quantity does NOT mean quality.

Gomez's NTC is a pretty weak one. He gives a list of 3 teams he doesn't want to be traded to, the other 26 are fair game. Only circumstance where he would be required to waive the NTC is if Gauthier strikes a deal with 1 of the 3 teams on Gomez's list. Pretty easy to get around really. The hardest part is finding a team thats interested in taking on him with this contract.

I don't think you should be able to trade money, it's a gamble you take when you sign a player for a large amount of money. It's also a chance you take when you make the stupid move of acquiring an underachieving-overpaid player. There is always a solution to Gomez. Waive him and hope someone picks him up, if not, send him to the minors. We just freed up roughly 5.3M(off the top of my head, may be off 200kish either way). With the 4M we still have from the off season, thats roughly 9.2M in cap space we can have. While I would flip if Gallagher gets traded because his offense is something we need and could be playing as early as next year, I wouldn't be totally against it if it brought in a true susperstar #1 center, like a Lecavalier, a Staal, or a Getzlaf. It would need to be a superstar center, not another 2nd-3rd line aged center posing as a first line center. Other than that I wouldn't be alright with Gallagher being traded away.

So what your saying is roughtly 1/4 his NHL experience (don't forget playoff) is on a forward line. While you think it shouldn't kill the kid, a simple switch from winger to center, or vice versa, can mess up a player's game completely, yet you somehow believe a switch from defense to forward isn't anything major. The message Martin was passing to Weber by putting him forward is that even on a team with an injury-plagued defensive core, your not good enough to be a defenseman. Hardest forecheckers we have right now, by far is Gionta(5' 7", 173lbs) and Desharnais(5' 7", 177lbs). Your argument is faulty. The reason we have no forecheck is because Martin wants all 5 players back for defense to protect the lead we don't have. We get very few rebound goals because as soon as we look like we're losing the puck the defense and a forward backs towards the defensive zone, while the other 2 forward don't put pressure on the puck to turn it over. A good offensive strategy doesn't start with the mentality to get out of the offensive zone. There's also no creativity what so ever on offense, something every coach should encourage, hard to be creative when 3/5th of your team isn't even in the offensive zone. My very first coach told me, "the other team can't score if they don't get out of their zone." He was a highschool teacher, yet a NHL coach with over 1000 games experience can't see this.

Martin stomped any defensive confidence Weber might gain from day 1 by only using him on the PP and 4th forward line. Now with the injuries and 3 years with lack of any real NHL defensive experience, he's put in a defensive role and is struggling. Martin didn't do Weber any favors and wasted 3 years of his defensive development. You point to Subban, Diaz, Emelin and St. Denis, but Weber spent more time on the 4th forward line than all 4 of the others combined and wasn't put in any defensive situations. This year is his first real year as an NHL defenseman and it's looking like it. Don't blame Weber for his play, blame the person who's in charge of putting him in situations to grow as a player. This team is far from a puck possession team and Martin is teaching them to be the way they are. Coaches punish players for not following their system if it's hurting the team. Right now we are spending way too much time in our own zone because we're giving the puck to the other team. We're lousy on faceoffs, in our zone instead of turning the puck over and breaking out, we're turning the puck over and dumping out of the zone as fast as possible, causing way too many icings, with very few breakout passes. If puck possession was Martin's goal he wouldn't be so passive about the lack of puck possession. All I've seen as a strategy, and from every game, is get the puck out of our zone, as far into their zone as possible and don't chase. This is causing lots of icings with a bad faceoff team, tired lines, no puck possession time, and no forecheck. The lack-of-pressure system Martin has in place makes it easy for teams using pressure to beat us. The most pressure we put on the other team is on the PK and look how well that is, yet on offense, forechecking and in our zone at even strength there's no pressure. On offense we get 1, rarely 2 shots and the puck turned over because there's no pressure to turn the puck over in the offensive zone. This system encourages lots of shots, but rarely any of quality. Just shoot from anywhere, hardly any rebounds and no pressure to turn over the puck after the shot. On defense we take away the cross-crease passes, cover the slot, but causing rebounds into the corner to be easily retrieved by the other team to setup and try again. Yes, this is his system, not the players on the ice doing what they want. Even though he says this isn't what he's coaching, results speak for themselves. If players don't listen to the coach they get demoted (Ryan, Kostitsyn, Heatley, Carter, M.Richards) or traded if the system is working and the player is hurting the team. If the player's are following the system and it's not working the person coaching the system is fired.

So any coach we bring in will break up working lines, right. Any coach we bring in will put a checker with 2 scorers and limit their ice-time while expecting one of the 2 scorers to be one of the scoring leaders on the team, right. Guess thats why we see Neal on the 3rd line in Pittsburg, why we see Horcoff and Smyth on the 3rd line with Eager, oh wait we don't see that because a good coach doesn't put scoring players in checking roles! Makes sense now! Right now Gionta is averging 0.5 points per game, Kostitsyn is averaging 0.7 points per game, yet Martin is putting Giota on the ice in offensive situations over Kostitsyn. Limitng the ice time of someone producing more points and keeping someone not producing on the ice longer. That argument is lame? Wow.... Good coaches reward players for producing points, and limit players not producing points, but Martin is doing the opposite but pointing that out is lame. I want this team to succeed and am pointing out it's biggest area of weakness. Either keep the coach and trade off aged players and contracts to tank the season to rebuild or fire the coach and make the changes necessary to be a real contender. I'd rather see us being a contender, but it will never happen with Martin behind the bench. Can't use the playoff run 2 years ago as a reason to keep him, Carbonneau brought us first in the east and he was axed when he started to slip after the All-Star break the very next year. Martin brought us to the Conference finals once on 2 series that could have went either way and hasn't done anything since. I'm sick of hearing how we're always the lowest or in the bottom 10 in almost every offensive category. Nothing exciting about watching a team sit on a single goal lead game, after game, after game, after game. Then you turn around and say it's not the coach that tells the team to sit back. That is faith into a failing coach.

Tootoo gets 2 games due to the force and the fact Erhoff didn't steer him into Miller. Your nothing but a joke Shanny, had respect for you as a player, but thats gone now.

No, fire him because he can't keep working lines together, won't reward players who are producing points, won't demote players who are hurting the team, can't put together a working PP and can't put together a sustainable offensive strategy, and doesn't know his own players. Kostitsyn is always getting shafted in ice time, with Moen as a linemate, Gomez is always getting a free pass to ice-time and oppertunities to succeed and is doing nothing with it. Martin has his core of players that he deems to be his offensive core and will give them all the offensive ice time even when their not producing. He doesn't adapt when other players produce points. The team is struggling under him, and the change needs to be made fast to give the Habs a chance to make the playoffs. Only people who don't agree are the ones who are apparently happy with where the Habs are sitting in the standings and don't want to make the playoffs. Defend Martin all you want, reality is is has a sub-0.500 win percent with this team and in today's NHL thats not acceptable.

Leblanc-Eller-Kostitsyn worked last game, so JM splits it up and puts Moen-Eller-Kostitsyn together, putting Gionta on top line. Get rid of this joke of a coach already.

I like Shanny as a player, I like what his intentions were for dangerous plays, I don't like how he's executing it. He kept saying the rulings need to be consistent, which they are not. Pacioretty is doing the right thing by publicly disputing what went on, it puts an eye on Shanny, which he deserves. If he can't make consistent rulings then he can't do the job. If Tootoo is suspended someone needs to step in and get rid of Shanny as NHL disciplinary. If he wasn't comparing it to the Cooke-Savard hit, why was it brought up at all? You actually believe for no reason Shanny brought up an totally unrelated hit? There's a purpose of everything said in these hearings and I'm failry sure if it started with "we're cracking down on hits to the head to prevent a situation like Cooke-Savard," Pacioretty wouldn't of been lead to believe he was being compared to Cooke.

Tootoo already had the hearing this afternoon and no word yet? Wonder whats taking so long.

Gonna be interesting to see the fallout of Shanny's decision on Tootoo. If Tootoo is suspended, Shanny is viewed as bias and inconsistent. Both qualities you can't have in his position. If Tootoo isn't suspended, Shanny will unofficially declare that it's ok to run goalies, making every goalie at risk for serious injury because there's no repercussion for doing so. Only solution Shanny can make that will save his own ass and goalies across the league is suspending Tootoo and handing out a late suspension on Lucic. Anything short of that would call for Shanny immediately resigning his position. He can be ineffective, bias or correct a clear mistake. Two of which causes serious repercussion to him and the role of disciplinary for the league, one of which gains respect of alot of people for admitting he made a mistake and correcting it. Mark my words, if Tootoo is suspended, withing a 5 years and as early as next year, there will be a system to dispute disciplinary hearings through a 3rd party. It's getting to the point over the last few years it is necessary, the NFL already has a disciplinary dispute system in place, why doesn't the NHL?

I wanna see the lineups for Tuesday's game. It will tell the tail of how good of a coach Martin really is. Gionta has 1A and -10 in his last 7 games. Kostitsyn has 2G 1A and -1 in his last 3. If Kostitsyn is on the 3rd line and Gionta graces the top 2 it shows how bad Martin is of a coach. Giving offensive play time to a player not producing and not to someone who is. Then again Martin has it in for Kostitsyn, the kid can get 50 goals in a season and Martin will ride his ass on the 3rd and 4th lines all year.