Peter Puck

a) 44(w) - 29(l) - 5(otl)-4(sol) - 97pts b) 4th in the division c) 12th in the league d) 31 goals

Well I love this deal. Especially when I think about Ottawa and Tkachuck.

Thanks.

Whoops I mixed up the expansion teams. I concede that does mean he went "long before" Montreal.

Well Vegas got him so I wouldn't call that "long before" Montreal. My question is really, would they risk putting claims on both and getting both. I guess the only downside would be with their 50 contract limit and even then they could waive one and hope their team grabs him back.

Any chance we also put in a claim on Alex Barré-Boulet?

Whoops. Fixed now.

The 16th Annual HabsWorld regular season prediction contest.Hall of Fame:2006-2007 Jean won with a prediction of 92 points when the Habs finished the year with 90 pts. If only we could have won that last game.2007-2008 Adirondack Bud exactly predicted our final total of 104 pts.2008-2009 Zowpeb won by predicting a strong start followed by a slower 2nd half ending with 99 points. The Habs finished the season in 8th place with 93 points. On September 22, 2008 Zowpeb predicted "I think we'll see a rough patch just past the mid-year point..." Wow!2009-2010 Joelassister correctly predicted the Habs would finish with 88 points. Honourable mention to kaos who predicted a season record of 39-34-9 (87 pts) while the Habs finished 39-33-10.2010-2011 Chips produced the all time best prediction. His preseason prediction of 44-30-8 for 96 pts 6th in the East, 14th in the NHL was exactly correct in every aspect. That amazing feat will be hard to duplicate. Honourable mentions went to Seb whose excellent prediction of 44-30-8 for 96 pts. 5th in east, 13th in NHL came up just short; and to Peter Puck who also correctly predicted the Habs would finish with 96 points.2011-2012 sakiqc Our fearless leader won with his prediction of 37-34-11 for 85 points. The Habs record was 31-35-16 for 78 points. Honourable mention went to Habsfan who correctly predicted that the Habs would score 212 goals.2012-2013 illWill won by predicting the Habs would finish with a record of 27-16-5 for 59 points. The Habs finished 29-14-5 for 63 points. Honourable mention to PMAC and to former champion Chips who both predicted the Habs to finish with 58 points.2013-2014 Meller93 exactly predicted the Habs final record 46-28-5-3. Honourable mention to thehabbit who correctly predicted the Habs final point total and just missed getting their record exactly right. 2013-2014 nihliz predicted 50-23-5-4 for 109 points. In fact the Habs finished the season 50-22-5-5 for 110 points. Honourable mentions went to nhfarberwho predicted 49-23-4-6 for 108 points and to sakiqc who predicted 51-26-1-4 for 107 points 2015-2016 Chris predicted 40-30-8-4 for 92 points. The injury ridden Habs finished the season 38-38-3-3 for 82 points. 2016-2017 The Habs finished the regular season 47-26-7-2 for 103 points. Using tie breakers: thehabbit had the winning prediction when he predicted 47-25-5-5 = 104 pts and Honourable mentions to kaos and Bluecross. kaos predicted 46-26-6-4 = 102 pts BlueKross predicted 46-24-6-4 =102 pts. 2017-2018 The Habs finished the regular season 29-40-7-6 for 71 points. All the predictions were bad but the least bad was by Dalhabs who won by predicting 42-30-6-4 = 94 pts. 2018-2019 The Habs finished the regular season 44-30-8 for 96 points and 246 goals. The prediction contest came down to the last game of the season, indeed down to the number of goals scored in that game. The winner was BCHabnut predicted 42-27-6-7 (97 points) and crucially 248 goals. Honourable mentions go to: Dalhabs 42-30-6-4 (94 points) and illWill 42-29-7-4 (95 points) 243 goals. 2019-2020 The Habs finished the pandemic season 31-31-9 for 71 points in 71 games. The winner was illWill predicted 39-36-2-5 (85 points). Honourable mention to: tomh009 who predicted 0-0-0-82. Unfortunately for posterity tomh009 also predicted 40-32-10 2021 Season The Habs finished the season 24-21-8-3 for 59 points in the North Division in 56 games. Habsfan84 won by predicting 27-22-3-4 for 61 points. Like every entry his prediction overestimated the Habs final points. Habsfan84 also correctly predicted the Habs would get to the 2nd round but thought they would lose there instead of making the Stanley Cup final. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2021-2022 edition Similar rules as last season. Predict a) what the Habs regular season record will be: wins-losses-OTL-SOL b) in what place in the Atlantic Division the Habs will finish c) in what place in the league the Habs will finish d) (New Tiebreaker) the total number of goals Cole Caufield will score this season (including 1 goal per shootout win). The winner will be based upon the most accurate prediction of the Habs final points. In the event of a tie bonus points will be awarded for getting the number of wins, number of losses, number of OTL's or number of SOL's correct. The latter three predictions will be used successively to break ties. The season is planned for 82 games. In the event that fewer than that are played the Habs record will be pro-rated to 82 games. The decision of Peter Puck is final. Contest is void where prohibited. Don't forget to separate overtime losses and shootout losses. Entries due before puck drop on Wednesday October 13 at 7:07pm EST. Good luck.

I thought that the Habs did want Condon back. This case is one reason why I thought we might trade Mountembault.

Well, this only happens if Price is out for 3 weeks (or more) and Montembeault has time for a couple of good games and some team discovers their goalies suck. I don't really expect it to happen but it could.

I wouldn't be surprised if they end up trading him once Price is back to whichever team starts the year with a badly performing goaltender and an injury. Probably get a 4th for him. Anyhow that's my wild prediction of how this goes.

I'm confused by this comment. I think we all agree that Zach Rinaldo has a choice. But don't his employers (and teammates) also have choice? It seems both he and CBJ are exercising their rights to choose a path.

Welcome to the board. I agree with what you said but I'm not sure Suziki is the best example. He played 4 years in the OHL and 1 (playoff) game in the AHL before joinging the Habs as a regular at age 20.

***IF*** true this certainly puts a different spin on how MB managed things this summer. It really does. If KK was settled on not re-signing then this whole thing played out much better than we could have expected. This now seems like it a huge win for MB from a terrible hand.

I'm not sure how helpful it is to compare us to one of the teams with the best collection of high end players but okay, let's compare the Habs to the Avs in first round draft picks for say, 2009-2019: Pick # Avs Habs 1 1 0 2 1 0 3 1 2 4 2 0 5--8 0 0 9 0 1 10 2 0 11-14 0 0 15-20 2 3 20-24 0 1 25-31 1 4 This makes it pretty clear why the Avs have drafted more top quality players then the Habs.

I also wonder about all the people claiming it is obvious we ruined KK by bringing him up early. What I don't understand is, if we ruined him why is an upper tier team poaching him at the cost of 6.1 million and a 1st and a 3rd. It sure seems like Carolina doesn't think he has been ruined. In fact, they seem to think he will grow into a first line player.

Looking through the teams, it seems most have 7 or 8 of their own drafted players on their current roster. Both Carolina and Colorado are tied with the Habs having 6 drafted players. If Poehling and/or Norlinder make the team we'll be at 7 or even 8.

Why isn't Caufield on this list?

I'm not convinced our first round drafting/development has been subpar. It's easy to point to players we took who haven't performed well and to players who came after who have. But is there evidence we are worse than average? Everyone here seems to think so and maybe we are. But I would like to see some analysis comparing the Habs to other teams before I accept this.

Let's compare a 21 year old Chrstian Dvorak (rookie) with a 21 year old KK (3rd year in the league). Dvorak in 2016-2017 had 15 goals, 18 assists for 33 points in 78 games. Per game that's 0.19g, 0.23 a, 0.42 pts. KK in 2020-2021 (RS) had 5 goals, 15 assists for 20 points in 56 games. Per game that's 0.09g, 0.27 a, 0.36 pts. KK in 2020-2021 including playoffs had 10 goals, 18 assists for 28 points in 75 games. Per game that's 0.13g, 0.24 a, 0.37 pts. Dvokak has improved (slightly) since then. These numbers don't make it seem like KK will end up better. Plus its clear that C.D. is better defensively and better at faceoffs.

I think Bergeven did really well here even though he had no leverage. Probably we give up our own pick in the mid to high teens and keep the Canes in the mid 20s. So I expect it will cost us 5-10 spots in the draft. However Carolina's pick might end up in the teens as well. Realistically I think this makes us better in the long run than if we kept KK. I would have preferred to keep KK and hope he developed into a quality number 2 but I think that may not happen. If it does then Carolina really hurt the Habs. If it doesn't then we end up slightly better than we would have.

I predict the Habs will release a statement precisely at 5:00 announcing their decision (and any trade if they made one). I'm now hoping they match.

Thanks, I had misunderstood this point. But now I am wondering about the news that KK and the Canes have agreed to an extension to be signed in January. I guess this is illegal but they haven't admitted it has been agreed publicly.

Wait, I thought the Habs were not permitted to talk to KK until they matched. But that quote from 2 years ago from Waddell indicates the Canes were talking with Aho before matching.

I have been thinking about how this whole situation plays out in Carolina. Of course this is only of peripheral interest to the Habs but it might play a role in what happens to KK a year from now if we don't match. My question is the following. What will the Canes players think about this off season and their GM and their owner? They let a promising young goaltender go for practically nothing. They let Hamilton walk because they didn't want to spend 3 million a year more for him. Now they sign KK for a ridiculous amount clearly to poke their finger in the Habs eye. I suspect they will have a number of players wishing they had kept Hamilton and Nedeljkovic. I don't think those players will be very happy. It doesn't send the message that their number one goal is a cup. Can anyone argue that signing KK and letting last year's stars leave is a good hockey decision? It also makes it clear that their GM is not really in control of hockey decisions. Finally how many of them will want large raises since the team is spending 6 million on KK.