Commandant

Alex is our most talented centre.... I'm not saying Mitchell should play wing for him, but Eller hasn't proved capable of being a top 6 winger either. It doesn't matter how many "little things" you do, at the end of the day we need goals.... and Eller isn't helping to produce those. Maybe he's a good third liner (and whether we are paying him too much for that role is another debate),. but I don't think its a debate that if he is gonna be in the top six he either needs to produce numbers, or we need someone in the role of riding shotgun for Alex who can score. IF we are gonna give a player 18-20 minutes a night... and play him with Galchenyuk, he needs to be able to get more than 30 points in a season (something Eller has never done).

I don't know who this "poor man's byfuglien" would be. Thats my point. Finding a guy with a combination of toughness to be called a "badass", and enough skill be able to play 15-20 minutes without being a liability is tough. What we see more and more of are guys who have that toughness also lacking skill and being big liabiliites... or if they have that skill, are so rare that teams don't give them up without an overpay. If you have a suggestion, I'm all ears.

You didn't address the point that Mitchell does more at 1/3 of the cost....

A) just because you haven't seen it, doesn't mean its there. Its confirmation bias (And don't feel like I'm insulting you here, cause I'm not this is something all humans can fall victim too). You believe, that a lack of shots from good areas will lead to a lack of goals (and rightly so, cause in general thats true). So the Habs not scoring goals makes us assume that they aren't getting enough shots from good areas. The stats which don't suffer from confirmation bias show that this isn't ture. You assume that our shooting percentage is low because we are taking bad shots. The stats don't support that theory. The theory they support is that sometimes a team can take a lot of good shots and not score. Its rare, but we've seen it happen before to other teams. D) Who is this bad ass defenceman? You've got two options here... Another Douglas Murray who all he does is hits and can't move the puck and is easy to acquire.... or A guy who gives the hitting aspect, but also moves the puck, and can be valuable in more than one dimension of the game... this player is difficult to acquire, and difficult to fit under the salary cap. So here is the dilemna... you can have the one dimensional badass, but that player has been proven time and time again to actually be a liability and not an asset. Guys who hit and fight but have no skill aren't people you want on your blueline playing 15+ minutes a night. Guys who hit and fight and have the skill to play 20 minutes a night... teams aren't trading them for cheap, and their agents aren't signing cheap contracts. So maybe in theory it would be great to have a dustin byfuglien, but what are you giving up for him, and what kind of contract are we giving him to ensure he just isn't another rental? Or maybe its someone else of who you speak, again what are we giving up, and what is the contract for such a dman?

Chris Stewart also scratched again. He was a rumored target as well.

a) thats simply not true... prior to the washington game the Habs were 4th in the entire nHL in shots from the slot over the last ten games. So you can keep repeating that we only shoot from the perimeter, but people who track these things, for all NHL teams don't have us shooting from the outside more than other teams, in fact its the opposite. b) who is to say slumps are 4-6 games? where did this number come from? c) I agree that there is more going on than just injuries... d) LOL, an enforcer for courage? a guy playing 2:00 a game and fighting other teams goons doesn't give the rest of the team courage. There is a reason why the number of these players in the league is massively down, because GMs are re-thinking the old school shit that this stuff works. It doesn't.. We've tried it before with Laraque and we tried it with George Parros. Both were massive, massive wastes of time. d2) why does markov have to go exactly and what does this have to do with finding an enforcer? e) thats a massive bit of speculation.

I watch every game... Yeah he maybe does a few little things like win faceoffs and play well in his own zone.... but Torrey Mitchell does those same things, and Mitchell actually does them better. You don't pay 3.5 million for those things, nor do you play that player 20 minutes a night.

Why Eller? Galchenyuk has been playing well, but Eller has been the epitomy of useless during this run. Despite the fact galchenyuk is getting the most points on the team during this stretch, eller has one solitary assist.

Gotta think another defenceman is going. This puts 8 D on the roster (even with Gilbert on IR). The only reason weve carried 8 all year was because we didnèt want to lose Tinordi on waivers, cant see the reason for a callup unless another d (likely Tinordi) is leaving in a package deal with Kassian.

No one is arguing they are playing well. We are just arguing that this team isn't showing signs of quitting on a coach. A team that quits would get run over. This team is competitive every night.

Wait and see... i've heard rumors of Anaheim, Edmonton, San Jose, Philly, .... not sure any have been from a really reliable source (or if they were from a reliable source were said as maybes, not definitives).

Addiction is never cured, not now and not a year from now. That said his doctors have cleared him to play. He merely needs to be in physical shape. I don't think he's a year away from playing in the NHL... closer to a month

I expect defenceman not to be one dimensional... if his only aspect his hitting and he handles the puck like a hand grenade, and is slow and often beaten to the outside and the front of the net, i don't want him having a big role in the team or making 4.1 million. Hitting alone is not enough. I want a d that can make a first pass and can skate. If all you had to do was hit, then Douglas Murray would be a valuable d, and not the worst player to play on this team in the last decade. Emelin is better than murray, but still not good enough and no where near 4.1 million of value.

Barberio might be coming up if Tinordi is the one traded too.... The Habs would be down to 6D in that scenario due to Gilbert's injury.

You want to see A team playing to get a coach fired... go back and watch Carbo's western road trip in 2009... .Down 4 or 5 goals by the middle of the second period every game. This is not what is happening here.

I'd say they both stink. By late, I'm talking 6th or 7th round. Some team might think Kassian is worth that gamble, now that he's cleared waivers and can be sent to their AHL team first.

And under the CBA he can't even negotiate until July 1st before the final year on his current deal... so that won't work.

Get a draft pick... even a late one, and use the cap space and extra pick in a subsequent deal.

I agree on all aspects Plek and Max should be back together Max - Plek - Carr Eller - Chucky - Ghetto Flash - DD - Weise Byron - Mitchell - Flynn Gilbert isn't a great D. But as a third pairing guy he's serviceable. Emelin was a disaster.

Chimera is not that fast... Emelin is slow as molasses and nearly caught him. Every other d would have beaten him to the loose puck and cleared it. All three goals were a bad play by Emelin... all of them... plus numerous other times he couldn't clear the zone and condon bailed him out. Seriously this was Emelin's worst game, and he's a guy who sucks even on his good days.

In general its hard to blame an entire loss on one person (other than a goalie being an absolute sieve)... but Alexei Emelin comes close to it tonight.

Another emelin special.

Condon is playing his best game in two months.... lets get another 2 goals and steal this one.... flip the script. Oh and Emelin is beyond brutal. Beyond useless. I don't understand how he can be this bad.

Carr should stay up the rest of the year.

I'm a fan who believes that fighting in the NHL is worthless and doesn't lead to wins or losses.... He fought.. and you said that he shouldn't be put in the pressbox again any time soon.... the fight has nothing to do with my evaluation of his play. As long as he continues to handle the puck like a hand grenade, he can have 10,000 fights and it don't help.