Peter Puck

To me, it will be a success as long as he doesn't make any big mistakes. The only guy we need to trade is Nate Thompson. The Habs are in a good position for the trade deadline - they don't have to make any moves. Lots of other teams are under big pressure to make a trade for the playoff run. We shouldn't do anything that isn't clearly a good move for us. If we trade any one of Tatar or Petry or Domi we should hold out for a very solid return. If other teams won't pay that Bergevin should stand pat until the summer. The worst thing would be to make a questionable or bad trade just to try to win the deadline.

Okay, I'm going to ignore the novice, hockeyrealist, and hope that he learns some manners. Why did Kovalchuk sign with us? Was it to earn the 400K he will earn over the second half of the season? I agree he might be playing to in order to earn a contract fror next year. But it seems at least as likely that he is hoping to compete in this year's playoffs and maybe win the cup. None of the top teams was willing to sign him in early January and we were. So he signed with us. I think when he did that he probably told Bergevin that he wanted to play for a contender. From Bergevin's point of view that is fine. He gets a player to fill in for our injured players and he gains the possibilty of picking up another draft pick at the deadline. Its win-win. No matter what happened when he was signed, if Kovalchuk wants to be moved at the deadline there isn't much Bergevin can do. If we hang onto him against his wishes he won't resign with us. Having Kovalchuk for the last half of the season probably doesn't get us into the playoffs - it likely just reduces our draft position.

I think people are overlooking a key point here. I think its very likely that Kovalchuk signed here after receiving assurances that we would trade him at the deadline to a contending team (if he performed). That's why he signed a minimum contract. If that's true we will need to trade him to keep him happy. Maybe he would be willing to resign here but I don't see Bergevin having much latitude here,

People were always screaming why can't Bergevin get us a #1 centre. Why can't we swing for the fences instead of playing it safe. When we pick KK, all of a sudden it's why didn't he take Tkachuk or Hughes? It seems fans want him to swing for the fences but also to hit a home run every time.

4-0 final.

I really like this move. Probably it will amount to nothing: Kovalchuk will suck and we will send him down and his contract will end up being terminated. This is the most likely outcome and it cost the Habs basically nothing. All the other outcomes look pretty good for the Habs. He could recover his game a bit and provide a few PP goals. If he looks even remotely productive I suspect some playoff bound team will trade a 4th or a fifth or even a third round pick for him. We could even retain 50% so even a cap trapped team could afford him. Hell, I bet even the Leafs could fit him under their cap at the deadline. This is a zero risk move that probably leads no where but could yield some nice bonus for us.

Folin is listed as both a scratch and playing on the third pair. Do we know who Kulak is playng with?

43-28-5-6 97 points 4th in the atlantic 6th in the east (1st wildcard) 253 goals

The 14th 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 nhfarber who 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 edition Same 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 East the Habs will finish d) the total number of goals the Habs 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 decision of Peter Puck is final. Don't forget to separate overtime losses and shootout losses. Entries due before puck drop on Thursday Oct 4 at 7:00pm. Good luck and may the Hockey Gods have mercy on your soul.

Sorry I'm late. I am just doing it now.

I see lots of people demanding MB make more changes since he hasn't really improved the roster this much off-season. I'm confident MB is trying but I don't see a lot of good options. Signing Gardiner to a 3 or 4 year deal would be great but it seems clear that either Gardiner is too injured or that he is too wedded to Toronto or insisting on a long term deal. I don't want to overpay him just so we can say we improved this off-season. I'd rather go through another season like last year and wait for the kids to improve. I think the team is on a good track for the first time in many years. The best option might be to wait and plan to push for the cup in 2 or 3 years. We have the prospect pool and the cap space for this to be a viable approach. I also think that MB might make some deals in the next month with one (or more) or the teams struggling to deal with the cap.

This is exactly right. Don't waste your times reading his columns. There is so much about the NHL he doesn't understand.

I don't see any way in which this doesn't improve our standing with Aho. For one thing it creates a rift (possibly a small one possible larger) between Aho and Carolina's management. It also guarantees that Aho will be a UFA in 5 years. Of course, Aho may not sign here but there is just no way that his attitude toward the Habs hasn't improved because of the offer sheet. This has nothing to do with Crosby nor fans guesses about his intentions.

One thing about this offer: maybe it increases the chances that Aho signs with us in 5 years.

I just signed up. They had a sale going: 1st year at half price.

I don't see any real downside to the offer sheet for us. Note that it wasn't made until after all the UFAs we wanted were gone. So by now tying up 8 million in cap space for a week doesn't hurt us. We can still sign Gardiner or make a trade taking on some significant cap or a bad contract. Plus I wonder if Philadelphia might be more likely to trade us one of their Dmen seeing as we've announced we are willing to give offer sheets. Even if Carolina matches we've pushed up the cost for bunch of other teams to resign their own RFAs. Maybe offering more would have been better but we already have some people complaining the 3 picks were too much. Also we do need to say some space to try to get a left D.

I dont know what people expect. He went after Duchene. He tried to get Lee. He is trying to get Aho. Should he offer 7x 9.5 for Lee. There are only a few suitable free agents for us. If those guys won't sign here I don't know what MB can do.

I don't see much downside. Yes we will have to wait a week and they will probably match but what great free agents are we missing out on while we wait. Plus I figure this forces Carolina to trade some players to afford Aho year.

They have 7 days and will take them all

Wow. Love this move. Much better than chasing Lee. Would rather have gone after a young Defenceman.

I'm expecting CBJ to overpay for one or two players.

I'm pretty sure that if say 10 GMs feel he is one of the best 5 Dman in the league that Nashville could have gotten more. After all everyone is expecting Gardener to sign for 7 million. Or maybe I am wrong about what Gardener will get.

I hated the trade when it happened. The almost universal consensus was that Weber would deteriorate while Subban would continue to blossom. I don't think either of these things happened and I think the recent trade is being viewed by fans as incontrovertible proof that Subban play has deteriorated. Of course Nashville's cap situation must be taken into account but I do believe the low return shows that other GMs dont see PK as a Norris level defenceman anymore. This shows that the early simplistic analyses of the original trade were wrong. An argument can still be made that Nashville "won" the original trade but that argument has to be a lot more sophisticated now. For myself, I now feel that this was a good trade for the Habs. If Nashville ends up with a recapture penalty it could end up really hurting them.

Well done. I did see Sportsnet using lastwordonhockey quotes.

Well regardless of how close to the cap they are, I prefer the Habs to some random scalper leeching off the team.