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The Official Habs Panic Thread


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Better? As in "played over their heads and only won because they had the best PK and PP unit in the league because they couldn't score 5 on 5"???

So you think they are playing at their level right now? Funny cause I could have sworn that you were pretty pleased with this team a while back. Seems like you actually think this team got worse over last season and will not make the playoffs since you seem to think they are now playing at the level they should be.

We had both Huet and Aebischer down the stretch last season, so throw in the same two goalies.

You mean down the stretch when we started playing better ?? :lol::lol:

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You mean down the stretch when we started playing better ?? :lol::lol:

If you want to play that way, then let's talk about how well they started out last season with Theodore in nets, who now is the highest paid backup in the NHL.

Face it, if you were a realist early in the season, you had to have known it wouldn't last. I remember pointing out a number of times how poor the Habs were at even-strength and were winning a bunch of close games because they were playing insane special teams.

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Losing to Carolina wasn't embarrassing.

Also notice that in both of those cases, we were beat by the team who went on to win the Cup.

I'm sorry but Carolina didnt win the cup in 2002. And it was DARN embarassing the way we lost to carolina that year. Didnt we choke something like a 4 goal lead in game 2 or game 3 and then lost the final game 8-2? Thats not embarassing?

And last year were up 2 games to nothing and then we basically choke and let them have the series.

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If you want to play that way, then let's talk about how well they started out last season with Theodore in nets, who now is the highest paid backup in the NHL.

Face it, if you were a realist early in the season, you had to have known it wouldn't last. I remember pointing out a number of times how poor the Habs were at even-strength and were winning a bunch of close games because they were playing insane special teams.

Actually to be truthful I knew this team was playing over it's head...I had no illusions on that unlike some but there is no excuse for the last month and a half of play. I don't know their record off hand but it is well below .500 and I think this team is better than that ..not great but better than that.

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hey guys/gals. I used to post all the time, I still read all the messages, had a problem getting back into the forums for some reason, finally retrieved my password. I remember when guys like Kozed were on here. He did most of the talking lol.

a few thoughts.....

If someone should be let go, its Saku Koivu, you have to lead my example and he is just not getting it done. second to be let go would be Alex Kovalev.....everyone knows why, but wont say it. he is a " me " player and doesnt care to give 100% .

Sheldon Souray should be traded before the trade deadline , he has huge value and could help this team going forward in a trade. He is going to walk at the end of the year anyways. Anaheim has some sweet prospects they could give up for him.

Ive been impressed with the following players this season.

Radek Bonk

Mike Johnson

Andrei Markov

Mike Komisarek

Lats

Pleks

Higgins ( before all star break )

Grabovski ( for his 2 games )

thats about it.

sincerly, disgruntled habs fan!

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I'm sorry but Carolina didnt win the cup in 2002. And it was DARN embarassing the way we lost to carolina that year. Didnt we choke something like a 4 goal lead in game 2 or game 3 and then lost the final game 8-2? Thats not embarassing?

And last year were up 2 games to nothing and then we basically choke and let them have the series.

I wasn't talking about 2002, I was talking about last year. And last year we were not embrassed. Losing a 2-0 lead isn't a rarity. The Canes were predicted to roll over us. We took two games from them, beating a goalie who was sick. Then Cam Ward was brought in and Koivu was injured. Ward played amazing hockey and the Habs weren't able to overcome the loss of their captain and heart of the team. Even then, the Canes won each game by a single goal. Hardly embarrassing.

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Actually to be truthful I knew this team was playing over it's head...I had no illusions on that unlike some but there is no excuse for the last month and a half of play. I don't know their record off hand but it is well below .500 and I think this team is better than that ..not great but better than that.

8-13-1.

That's 8 out of 22...I dont have a calculator but 8/22 is about .360...

I wasn't talking about 2002, I was talking about last year. And last year we were not embrassed. Losing a 2-0 lead isn't a rarity. The Canes were predicted to roll over us. We took two games from them, beating a goalie who was sick. Then Cam Ward was brought in and Koivu was injured. Ward played amazing hockey and the Habs weren't able to overcome the loss of their captain and heart of the team. Even then, the Canes won each game by a single goal. Hardly embarrassing.

No matter what way you cut it, losing 4 in a row is embarassing.

If it isnt embarassing to you then you got some low standards.

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Actually to be truthful I knew this team was playing over it's head...I had no illusions on that unlike some but there is no excuse for the last month and a half of play. I don't know their record off hand but it is well below .500 and I think this team is better than that ..not great but better than that.

I'll agree with you there, but I'm sick of all this doom and gloom stuff. If people haven't noticed yet, this is the modus operandi of the NHL these days, extended hot and cold streaks. Buffalo was even more insane than Montreal early on, and everyone said nobody would catch them. They slowed down and we pulled within a few points. They heated up, we froze. Things will work out. They've got the Blue Jackets coming up. If they lose to them, then I'll be worried. And I'll be pissed that the Jackets finally win a game I go to this season, since they haven't won yet when I've been there.

No matter what way you cut it, losing 4 in a row is embarassing.

If it isnt embarassing to you then you got some low standards.

It isn't embarrassing if you lose 4 hard fought games. If they'd have lost all the games by multiple goals, then it would be an embrassment. Otherwise, it's simply hanging tough with a better team and giving them a good fight.

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8-13-1.

That's 8 out of 22...I dont have a calculator but 8/22 is about .360...

No matter what way you cut it, losing 4 in a row is embarassing.

If it isnt embarassing to you then you got some low standards.

Exactly..some people find that acceptable here and think that they are playing to "their level". A breakdown like this has to be put on the guy in charge not the team because the odds of every player on the team simultaneously tanking are pretty low. It must be that the game plan they are following is faulty. They need new direction. Carbonneau is just not cutting it.

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dont panic yet!

sammy will be back on saturday and so will Begin... granted he aint cheeting himself on a really bad, chronic career ending injury.

by sunday we might be out of the top 8 ... then we can start to panic

and when that happens any number of things will happen. no trades mind you not yet... gainey will wait til the very end

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Exactly..some people find that acceptable here and think that they are playing to "their level". A breakdown like this has to be put on the guy in charge not the team because the odds of every player on the team simultaneously tanking are pretty low. It must be that the game plan they are following is faulty. They need new direction. Carbonneau is just not cutting it.

Haha. Well if you wanna play that way, I guess you'd better blame the "embarrassing" loss to the Canes in the playoffs on Bob Gainey. I'm not saying that Carbo is free from blame, he certainly isn't. I'm simply pointing out that we can't blame a single person for this.

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Exactly..some people find that acceptable here and think that they are playing to "their level". A breakdown like this has to be put on the guy in charge not the team because the odds of every player on the team simultaneously tanking are pretty low. It must be that the game plan they are following is faulty. They need new direction. Carbonneau is just not cutting it.

What??? where do u get that assumption? you play with 6 players a t a time it only takes one to make a screw up and you can get scored on! tonight the goals have been 2 screw ups (Huet and the second where there were only 4 players on the ice) and two goals where you gotta give credit to the Sens!

its like the Habs are playing by themselves?? at least give some credit to the opponents!

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Amen...

Therrien and Julien got blamed too... NJ and Pitts dont seem to be doing too bad now, aren't they?

Almost the same could be said of Vigneault, with his ragedy bunch in Vancouver being a respectable 9 games over 500.

Blame the "leaders", not the staff.

I have to agree. I didn't like any of those coaches, but I suppose that's because the Habs never won anything with them around. I was all over Julien and was thrilled when he was fired. But now that they're onto the 4th one, it's time to take a step back and stop blaming the men in the suits and start blaming the core players. It is the team leaders who get the team ready to play and get them to give 100%.

And the "get Gainey back behind the bench" stuff is just silly. He was offically the head coach, but that was only because Carbo didn't know the players. They basically acted as associate coaches last season. It wasn't Gainey telling Carbo what to do, it was the two of them working together.

P.S. I merged all the threads that had to do with the topic of how worried people are about the Habs and whatnot.

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Haha. Well if you wanna play that way, I guess you'd better blame the "embarrassing" loss to the Canes in the playoffs on Bob Gainey. I'm not saying that Carbo is free from blame, he certainly isn't. I'm simply pointing out that we can't blame a single person for this.

No we can't blame a single person, it's a team sport after all but the greatest blame has to go on Carbonneau. Koivu deserves his fair share as do other players but ultimately it is the coach who makes the final decisions. If he sees that koivu is not playing like he should then he has to fix it somehow. My point is that it lies with the coach and he has been making bad choices all season. Somehow something has to change because make no mistake this team is not going to make the playoffs playing like this.

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Its not the coaches fault.... how do u go from being one of the top teams in the league, to the worst. Not because of the coaches thats for sure... lack of effort by the whole team and mostly by its veterans...

i say bench ryder, kovalev, get rid of downey, murray... bring back gabrovski, kostitsyn... put sammy back, and see what happens...

i say we dump some of our veteran players and let the rookies play! WHOSE WITH MEEE!!!!

Edited by Haboholic
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Its not the coaches fault.... how do u go from being one of the top teams in the league, to the worst. Not because of the coaches thats for sure... lack of effort by the whole team and mostly by its veterans...

That's the exact reasoning I was using that it was the coaches fault. You think 24 players are going to just become terrible over night? Makes no sense. It has to be Carbonneau. He hasn't adapted their game play as the season has gone on. The coach has to be flexible and change things for the better when things go badly. He can't do this.

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Its not the coaches fault.... how do u go from being one of the top teams in the league, to the worst. Not because of the coaches thats for sure... lack of effort by the whole team and mostly by its veterans...

i say bench ryder, kovalev, get rid of downey, murray... bring back gabrovski, kostitsyn... put sammy back, and see what happens...

i say we dump some of our veteran players and let the rookies play!

Dont bench Kovalev. He's been playing well for the past couple weeks.

He was the reason Lats got that penalty shot and only goal of the game. Also he got the only goal in the last game. The game before that 2 assists. Kovalev should not be benched.

Ryder I agree... he's no better then Garth Murray except with a sick shot.

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I'm not saying 'fire Carbo.' Not am I saying that this should be a top-5 team. HOWEVER, I maintain that it is the coach's job to GET THE MOST OUT OF MOST OF HIS PLAYERS.

He's got the most out of Souray, that's for sure. And Plekanec, through unbelievable patience. And Bonk. And Mark Streit. And Mike Johnson and maybe Lats. Note that these are all, except Souray and maybe Lats, two-way players of middling-to-mediocre offensive talent.

Carbonneau has FAILED to get Ryder playing even at the level he did last season, when he was hurt; his Kovalev is far worse than last season's; he is the ONLY coach EVER to have failed to get good offensive production out of Samsonov; his Komisarek seems to have regressed; he has not been able to get Higgins back on track after his injury; and Perezhogin, a young player long billed as a potentially major offensive talent, has been cast as a checking forward and languishing on the fourth line.

When so many players are playing BELOW their potential - and don't tell me that Samsonov's ceiling is 10 goals and 30 points or whatever he's on pace for - it is reasonable to ask what's going on. And it's also reasonable to point out that the team may not be a powerhouse but it ought to be better than it's shown for the last three months.

Couple that to bizarre decisions like benching Samsonov just as he was starting to play better, or arbitrarily benching Rivet, and I think it IS reasonable to question the coach. Just as it remains reasonable to have argued that Julien, while a good coach, was not developing our young players (Higgins and Komisarek *suddenly* flourished when he left - hmmmm). So...the 'core' has problems, but it should be better, and if the coach were better, it might be.

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Its not the coaches fault.... how do u go from being one of the top teams in the league, to the worst. Not because of the coaches thats for sure... lack of effort by the whole team and mostly by its veterans...

i say bench ryder, kovalev, get rid of downey, murray... bring back gabrovski, kostitsyn... put sammy back, and see what happens...

i say we dump some of our veteran players and let the rookies play! WHOSE WITH MEEE!!!!

So ask yourself, who has the ability to make decisions like this? The coach! and if he doesn't make them, the team keeps going the way it is... (For the record, I don't agree with Benching Kovy, either, not now anyway..)

I'm not saying 'fire Carbo.' Not am I saying that this should be a top-5 team. HOWEVER, I maintain that it is the coach's job to GET THE MOST OUT OF MOST OF HIS PLAYERS.

He's got the most out of Souray, that's for sure. And Plekanec, through unbelievable patience. And Bonk. And Mark Streit. And Mike Johnson and maybe Lats. Note that these are all, except Souray and maybe Lats, two-way players of middling-to-mediocre offensive talent.

Carbonneau has FAILED to get Ryder playing even at the level he did last season, when he was hurt; his Kovalev is far worse than last season's; he is the ONLY coach EVER to have failed to get good offensive production out of Samsonov; his Komisarek seems to have regressed; he has not been able to get Higgins back on track after his injury; and Perezhogin, a young player long billed as a potentially major offensive talent, has been cast as a checking forward and languishing on the fourth line.

When so many players are playing BELOW their potential - and don't tell me that Samsonov's ceiling is 10 goals and 30 points or whatever he's on pace for - it is reasonable to ask what's going on. And it's also reasonable to point out that the team may not be a powerhouse but it ought to be better than it's shown for the last three months.

Couple that to bizarre decisions like benching Samsonov just as he was starting to play better, or arbitrarily benching Rivet, and I think it IS reasonable to question the coach. Just as it remains reasonable to have argued that Julien, while a good coach, was not developing our young players (Higgins and Komisarek *suddenly* flourished when he left - hmmmm). So...the 'core' has problems, but it should be better, and if the coach were better, it might be.

Exactly. Thank you CC

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To backtrack a bit to the Gainey-overpaying thing.

In the NFL, some teams have a cap-specialist on the staff. They are like a financial manager. The Vikings have Rob Brzezinski, whose job - his first duty - is to manage the salary cap and cap room. He negotiates the contracts, bonuses and keeps an eye on the cap. His scouting/talent duties are very limited: they have a GM and a Coach for those. Thus the Vikes always have huge cap space, and can pitch expensive free agents. Their problems were a tight previous owner and, now, a neanderthalic coach.

I'm wondering if the Habs have someone like that. Does anyone know? If not, they should.

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Chill Kids!!!!!

Carbo is trying to build a great two-way team.PERIOD. He doesn't want a 50 goal scorer and nothing else. Mark my words. Once he is finished pounding his system into this THICK HEADED BUNCH with a few changes we will have a defensivley balanced team with a bunch of 20 goal scorers which will be a treat.

We've hit a lull. Guys like SAMMY, Kovalev, RYDER are not getting it...YET or may have to be moved to get someone that wants to learn and buy into the system. It will eventually work and you will be praising CARBO once again. We may see a spark of it, this year towards the end.

I trust.....

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Perhaps this is the year we can finally stop annointing Koivu with Sainthood and actually evaluate his performance objectively.

I like Koivu a lot. I was always a big fan and I admire his guts and determination. Let's just get that out of the way right now.

That said, Koivu has never managed to be a top 30 center in this league. He is small, beat up, and getting older every day. He is at best a number 2 center kind of guy in this league.

Is he a great leader? Sometimes. He can be an inspirational leader at times, but where is he when this team goes in the dumpster. He led the way this year. His play is just awful, he is playing lazy, and he is totally ineffective.

My personal view is that he simply can't take the punishment of a long season anymore. He just gets worn down.

I do not believe this team will ever by a legitimate threat as long as Saku is expected to be our number 1 guy. We either need to trade him, or get another center to compliment him.

I would also like to see Rivet go. Frankly, he is simply not that great a player and I would rather see Komi take over his role.

Its time to turn the page and move forward, imo.

Oh, and I would not fire the coach.. that will do nothing until the core players are changed. It is now up to Gainey to pull it together. He has to start showing he has the ability to find young talent, not just overpaid, declining players with name recognition.

Edited by brobin
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Chill Kids!!!!!

Carbo is trying to build a great two-way team.PERIOD. He doesn't want a 50 goal scorer and nothing else. Mark my words. Once he is finished pounding his system into this THICK HEADED BUNCH with a few changes we will have a defensivley balanced team with a bunch of 20 goal scorers which will be a treat.

We've hit a lull. Guys like SAMMY, Kovalev, RYDER are not getting it...YET or may have to be moved to get someone that wants to learn and buy into the system. It will eventually work and you will be praising CARBO once again. We may see a spark of it, this year towards the end.

I trust.....

Just ONE 20 goal scorer (other than a D who's going to be a UFA at the end of the year) would be REALLY, REALLY nice!

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