Habs77

If wanting a Cup was a priority... he'd had stayed in EDM. This is about his wife not wanting to live there, and if she wants to go back to St-Louis... and he says he'll only be happy in STL, or near there, then why would an Eastern team sell the farm to bring in a player who doesn't want to be there?

For what it's worth - Summers, Grabner, Stewart - one of those three would be good picks at 16th based on what a few scouts are saying. According to these 2 scouts... this is their top 17: Johnson Staal Toews Backstrom Mueller Kessel Brassard Little Tlusty Sheppard Okposo Sanguinetti Stewart Frolik Summers Bernier Grabner Kessel has dropped quite a bit... viewed as a selfish player by some.

I said off the bat, IF Pronger would ever say a move to MTL was ok with him (and his wife)... it was a longshot to be sure. I would forget Pittsburgh... for a variety of reasons, namely that nobody wants to live there either. Also they can't afford to spend anything near the cap, and they are stuck with an ugly contract like Gonchar... I don't see it happening. St-Louis seems like the obvious destination, as I had mentioned.... he was there for a long time, now a year after leaving he's asking for a trade to live somewhere else, St-Louis would be my guess. Plus they have the 1st pick, although to be honest... if I were St-Louis I don't give it up. EDM is under the gun to trade Pronger, why would I pay such a high price to solve EDM's problem? Especially not when I have a future PRonger-type player like Erik Johnson in the draft... I'd give 'em something, but not the #1 pick.

Pronger has to be traded from EDM... for family reasons he want to live elsewhere. If it's to go back near St-Louis, we can forget it. But if by any chance he is ok with living in MTL... then a trade looks possible btw the 2 teams: - Souray is rumored to want out of MTL, to be closer to his kid a move to the West would be good for him... he's also an EDM native I believe. He's also another big Dman with a PP shot, he would help fill part of what Pronger brought them and he's signed for about half what Pronger makes. - we have the cap room after having unloaded Theo - EDM would typically prefer to send Pronger to the Eastern Conference - we have a glut of prospects, that we could throw in - EDM also has Bergeron that they benched in the playoffs... and Laraque... although is he a UFA? Anyhow... Souray, Ryder, our 1st rounder.... whatever the package you want to make... it wouldn't be impossible. We can even throw in Aebischer if they can't re-sign Rollie. Again... I'm not sure Pronger wants to come East... if he doesn't then forget it.

Sundstrom is not that quick, granted Hossa is no speed demon... gimme the younger legs any day. Oh yes, same could have been said of Juneau... problem is his offensive days are WAY behind him, whereas Hossa's are ahead of him. Potentially anyway. Hossa is very solid defensively, his background as a natural center made him more defensively conscious than most young forwards... when he was playing with Ribs & Ryder a couple of years ago he was the one covering for the other 2, always the first one back with his man. Problem was he didn't do squat offensively and was sent down. Kind of thing most people don't notice, then because we expect them to score assume they suck defensively... not so in this case. PK is all about positional play... it's not rocket science. Higgins & Plekanec are more than smart enough to be very effective right off the bat. They will not "get embarassed out there", please. They'll do better than alot of our vets would. Who the ###### said he was a god? He's not, but he's better than Sundstrom... and that isn't saying much at all btw. Oh yeah, I saw how great Sunny was at saving us games in the playoffs last year... he didn't save it, he blew it for us. He's a marginal, average, depth player that won't be getting any better... forgive me if I'd rather have kept a prospect that was bigger & more skilled, and had potential to improve. With your thinking we'd still have Poulin & Bureau for their defensive play and we'd have shipped off Ryder & Ribeiro because they had proven nothing at age 23. Brilliant. [Edited on 1-10-05 by Habs77]

Trading Hossa for lesser value is a direct product of BG signing Sunny to a 2 year deal before the lockout for no good reason. I thought it was a dumb move then, it looks even dumber now. Hossa is solid defensively... I'd rather have him on my 3rd-4th line than Sundstrom, any day of the week. Bigger, faster, younger, more skilled... hello? Bulis, Bonk, Begin, Higgins, Plekanec, Hossa can all play the PK very well... it's not as if Sundstrom fills some kind of big need we have. I've never caught myself saying "what the Habs need is a small soft vet who doesn't do abything very well, but can be counted on for the PK". But at this point and time, were we going to find a team willing to absorb his salary without sending us an equally useless salary in return? No way. But for Hossa we did... we trimmed the roster by one, with a player on a 2-way deal coming back the other way. That was the key here. Should have bought Sunny out this summer while we still could, or better yet never re-sign him in the first place. BG is good but he isn't perfect, that much is clear. As for Murray, he'll either end up like a Begin... underrated character player that'll bring much needed grit and leadership on the 3rd-4th lines. If not he can end up a Benoit Gratton type, gritty & good leadership but can't quite cut it in the NHL... will provide key leadership in Hamilton for our developping kids. Just gotta hope Hossa will be bust. NYR seems like the worst fit possible for the kid, plenty of distractions and not much in the way of veteran leadership to help get the kid on track. I say he'll end up in ATL before the end of the year.

I'm guessing the Habs wanted to sign him, he said he'd only come over to NA for a one-way deal. BG said 2-way deal. Given how much faith the Habs have in Hainsey, they ended up with a compromise... sign a 2-way deal BUT we'll guarantee that you get a fair shake by putting it in the contract that you must play 30 NHL games. It makes sense... I can see how they came to that arrangement. Again, he could spend the whole 1st half of the year in Hamilton... then we make a trade to make room and call him up. Or there's an injury and he gets a good part of his 30 games that way. I don't know exactly what this clause means in terms of what we'll do with him...

Matthews is not the type to tolerate his players making cheap shots like poking an opponent in the eye... plus we needed to move someone to make room for Stala full-time. And we sure need all the help we can get on defense... a non-import no less, althought I have no clue how good he truly is. Problem is that we are now pretty thin at receiver, if the injury bug bites... Cavil & Giligan are now out of the picture. Our first backup is now Owen Wilson I believe. Saskatchewan will be another good test... we could very well fall to 2-4.

Elkund mentions Price was taken to be part of a trade, but the trade either fell through or just hasn't happened yet. Later he mentions he's been hearing Bertuzzi to Montreal rumors. Put the two together and you have the Habs trading Price and who knows what for Bertuzzi... if that were to happen I know a lot of us would be able to understand what happened today a little better P.S. So far Elkund has mentionned that Kariya, Modano, Foote, Aucoin, Turgeon were all fair to strong possibilities of ending up in MTL. take it for what it's worth

Because Philly was actively trying to trade up to take Ryan... moving down could have meant giving Philly an opportunity to steal him away. Not worth it just to get an extra mid-level pick. ----------------------------------------------- The beginning of the draft reminded me a little of the year Bouwmeester was being touted as the top pick all year... then Nash ends up top pick at the draft. Again today after all the Johnson talk, power-forward Ryan ends up going before the better projected D man. We'll see if they will have been right again to do so.

Prospects with actual shot at making the NHL at one point: LW: Higgins (LW/C), Latendresse (LW/RW), Hossa (LW/C), Grobovsky C: Plekanec, Mikus (C,RW), Chipchura, Lapierre, Aubin RW: Perezhogin, Kostitsyn, G. Stewart LD: Hainsey, O'Byrne, Korpikari, Yemelin, Flood RD: Paquet G: Price, Danis, Halak Future lineup down the road (1 of a million possibilities): Latendresse-Mikus-Kostitsyn Ryder-Ribeiro-Perezhogin Higgins-Chipchura-Hossa Bonneau-Begin-Lapierre * Plus potentially signing a Lecavalier UFA really puts it over the top. Souray - Aucoin or new UFA by that time Markov - Komisarek Hainsey - Paquet O'Byrne Danis-Price or Price-Danis ---------------------------------- *** Of course we'll never have a lineup so massively comprised of Habs prospects... just showing we can fill out a future lineup from within, that's how deep we are in terms of prospects/young vets. Add the UFA angle, and it looks even better. When I look at that "depth chart"... the Price pick doesn't look bad at all IMO. We might really appreciate that depth down the road... at the most key position. ---------------------------------- Of course I'm no prospect expert... just going with what I think from what I've seen & read. Looking forward to Dan's analysis of where our new prospects fit in our new organizational depth chart. [Edited on 31-7-05 by Habs77]

190 MTL MATT D'AGOSTINI 10/23/1986 Sault Ste. Marie, ON CA 5' 11" 170 OHL GUELPH RW R rated 64th NA by Central scouting [Edited on 30-7-05 by Habs77]

Gimme Brule or Ryan... we need NAs with top line talent, and an edge. The 2 others seem soft from what I can tell... we have enough of that.

Not so, I saw him interviewed a day or two ago... he said it's out of his hands and if he's bought out, he'll start fresh somewhere else.

It'll be a cold day in Hell before that happens. :/) I agree ... *lol* Seriously, this rumour must be crap as Satan has no new contract so far (RFA) ...? You're right, I had misread the rumor... they simply mentionned they might not qualify... go after a UFA instead. But since I've read that he should be staying put... even Zhitnik could re-sign. Gonchar is also a name being mentionned in BUF.