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Gainey and credit


l<OV4L3V

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Ignore the sourpusses. Gainey does deserve credit. He assembled a quality team that pulled off THE greatest first-round upset in the history of the 7-game first round system, if you measure it by the precedent of being the first 8th seed to come back from a 3-1 deficit against a 1st seed. Bob got a coach with experience and designed a team with the proven talent character to come up with performances like these in the playoffs. That wasn't an accident. Winning, pluckiness and character is part of the profile of Gionta, Gomez, Gill; and Cammy, who before tonight was 4th overall in playoff scoring ahead of His Holiness Ovechkin and who is locked up long-term, isn't exactly a dog either...

Yeah, Halak played great. Except in the very heyday of the dynasties of the 50s and 70s, the Habs have a long history of riding spectacular goaltending. This team showed tons of character, played a tight system, worked relentlessly, and showed significant if not superstar talent.

Now IF the cap totally destroys us over the summer, then we can look back and revise our assessment. RIGHT NOW, with the data before us, we can say that Gainey's ballsy moves have delivered a team worthy of our excitment and enthusiasm. Sometimes, you just have to be a fan. And this team makes it easy.

Exactement!

Fan up men!

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My point is most criticism of Gainey was based around the future cap implications. The initial reaction was emotional based on having the core of the team you had watched mature for 5 years blown up. Once we looked at the players they acquired, most agreed it was a better team than the one who imploded in 2009.

So to use this victory as a platform to support his greatness is asinine. The criticisms were never about this season.

To ignore what is going to happen in the summer would be ridiculous, because a GM cannot make moves in a cap age without looking 3 steps ahead. I enjoyed the victory, but if it does not result in a Stanley Cup, all it is going to do is raise the ticket price of Jaroslav Halak.

If he costs more than $3.5, then it is a major problem moving forward.

As for playoff experience gained from beating the Caps, irrelevant. How did the playoff experience help the 2006-2009 Calgary Flames? How did it help the 2007-2009 Edmonton Oilers.

I am happy they beat the Caps. It was a great moment. So was 2002 and 2004 and 10 days later I was watching baseball and the NBA playoffs. In retrospect, 2002 and 2004 don't really hold fond places in my heart, but it may for some just like 1984 was a huge moment for me.

My expectations are not the same as my 6 year old son, nor are they the same as a 15 year old who barely remembers 2002 or a 22 year old whose fondest memory is almost beating the Canes through 4 games. Nor should they be. My one and only goal is a Cup and building towards that goal.

I think you are raisiung good points here, and I don't even know what perfect is, and I if we had gone out in game 4 or 5 I would still be saying the Mr Gainey did a really good job, from day one. From restoring credibility, to attracting free agents in a tough dollar market, ...I still love Kovalev... to the playoff run that ran into sliced tendons... and the recovery from that with a whole remake of the team.... very ballsy stuff. ..

God bless Mr Gainey and thank you for fulfilling your mandate so very well. I was saying the same thing as was CC at the beginning and middle of the year. I agree that we have a cap issue, and I'm no expert on any of this, but I like a lot about the team we have assemled here, and if we are a little tied for a while, this I think also flows from our run for the cup that failed.

A Montereal GM can't tank a year and rebuild after problems emerge, but had to build while providing good hockey for for good hockey fans. It's not like we're talking Toronto here... :blink:

Did the unremarkable acquisition of Moore save our playoffs?

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As for playoff experience gained from beating the Caps, irrelevant. How did the playoff experience help the 2006-2009 Calgary Flames? How did it help the 2007-2009 Edmonton Oilers.

I'd wager it helped the Pittsburgh Penguins...

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Didn't Gainey almost trade Halak ?

Just saying

He did not want to do it. Halak wanted to go and Gainey felt that the young man deserved a better opportunity. That was fair from him IMO. Anyhow, he got his opportunity in Montreal, which is a good thing for everybody.

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I'd wager it helped the Pittsburgh Penguins...

The Penguins were a young team with multiple superstars in training, the examples were 8 seeds who

pulled shocking upsets. Plus, how important is playoff experience?

Price had 16 games entering this playoffs, Halak 1.

Roy 0 games in 1986. Dryden 0 games in 1971. Penney 0 games in 1984. Theodore 3 games in 2002.

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I firmly disagree.... Gainey left because he was afraid of losing his job; he saw this team headed for doom in the centennial and didn't want to be accounted for the fall...I think the players of the organization staying together and playing as a team throughout the season (despite injury plague) deserve the majority of credit. I think a majority of you should bow your heads and praise Jaroslav Halak on this forum after some of the critique and bashing that he has endured since mid-season. He just proved to a majority of us that he is capable of playing a 7 game series and smothering pucks when it matters the most :clap: I am not trying to start a goaltending argument controversy, but instead..motivate this board to encourage our current roster into the second round! GO :hlogo: GO!!! (PS: I watched a 5-1 loss in Montreal and said to myself..."this series isn't over"...to everybody around me with 3 minutes left in game 3) :hlogo: :hlogo: :hlogo: :hlogo:

This is just ridiculous. Just because you thought Gainey was doing a bad job and should be fired doesn't mean the ownership was about to fire him. Furthermore, the idea that he quit because he was afraid of losing his job is completely unsubstantiated.

Although obviously Halak did an unbelievably fantastic job I don't know what you mean by proving he is capable of playing a 7 game series. He only played 6 games and he got shelled in one and a half games. I don't mean to criticize Halak but I don't know how any one can conclude from this that he is capable of playing a 7 games series. Furthermore, what we want is goalie who can play a regular season and then 4 series. Halak might be the guy but we still don't know.

Finally, I'll say that I won a bet on the Canadiens (at 3 to 1 odds) after game 4. I don't claim that this proves anything though.

Edited by Peter Puck
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Didn't Gainey almost trade Halak ?

Just saying

The team admitted that they considered trading Halak to Philly. The team also said that Philly wasn't willing to offer what Gainey thought he was worth. How does this translate into a mistake by Gainey?

To me the bottom line is that the all players he brought in last summer (except Mara who is injured) were the key players in the victory over Washington. I don't think you will find many people who think we would have won that series if we had kept the UFA's from last year whom Gainey let go. The decision to let 9 UFA's walk was a huge risk. I think the team's play against Washington proves that we are better after changing the core especially given that we are a much younger team now. Gainey's gamble has been vindicated.

Many people think we are in deep cap trouble but I am not convinced. Many teams have looked like they were screwed by the cap and suddenly they find a loophole or a trade no one thought possible and then they are fine. If we trade Hamrlik this summer we are okay.

Edited by Peter Puck
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