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Why do many of our traded players do so well elsewhere?


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I know this has been discussed before, but after reading about our Dec 19 game against the Avalanche I have to ask: Does it seem like too many of our young players that we trade away respond and do quite well somewhere else. For example, Ryan O'Byrne. I read his comments and his coaches comments and how many minutes he's playing [20+] and that he has a pretty decent plus/minus rating and you have to ask, did we use him correctly, did we give up on him too soon, and did we do the right thing in trading him away? I think working through the defensive mistakes of young players like Subban and Picard are part of the price you pay in developing young players. But on the other hand O'Byrne is much older than the two I just mentioned, so was it that O'Byrne was still making rookie mistakes? I can't help but wonder if we're handling these players correctly.

A few weeks ago I wrote that based on their present performance I was glad we didn't still have Komisarek, Kovalev and Higgins. But I sure wonder about Latendresse, Ribiero [sp?] O'Byrne and some others. From what I can see I don't think Sergei Kostitsyn is doing much with 5 goals so for me he's not an issue.

Maybe this is just the law of averages that happens to every team. So my question is, are we just like every other team in trading away young players who struggle with us but seem to do well elsewhere, or are we not doing as well in developing younger players?

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I know this has been discussed before, but after reading about our Dec 19 game against the Avalanche I have to ask: Does it seem like too many of our young players that we trade away respond and do quite well somewhere else. For example, Ryan O'Byrne. I read his comments and his coaches comments and how many minutes he's playing [20+] and that he has a pretty decent plus/minus rating and you have to ask, did we use him correctly, did we give up on him too soon, and did we do the right thing in trading him away? I think working through the defensive mistakes of young players like Subban and Picard are part of the price you pay in developing young players. But on the other hand O'Byrne is much older than the two I just mentioned, so was it that O'Byrne was still making rookie mistakes? I can't help but wonder if we're handling these players correctly.

A few weeks ago I wrote that based on their present performance I was glad we didn't still have Komisarek, Kovalev and Higgins. But I sure wonder about Latendresse, Ribiero [sp?] O'Byrne and some others. From what I can see I don't think Sergei Kostitsyn is doing much with 5 goals so for me he's not an issue.

Maybe this is just the law of averages that happens to every team. So my question is, are we just like every other team in trading away young players who struggle with us but seem to do well elsewhere, or are we not doing as well in developing younger players?

lol Are you going through some sort of crisis? :P One or two weeks ago you made a thread about how all our former players are sucking for other teams!

In the case of Ribeiro, he always had talent, he just wasn't a good fit with the Montreal market. Latendresse, Kostitsyn and O'Byrne did better in new locations because they're being used more often than they were in Montreal. For the latter two, this success probably won't last.

I think your two threads together prove that our situation is really quite normal. Sometimes our players go to other teams and succeed, sometimes they don't.

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Good reply, BTH.

It has to be taken on a case-by-case basis. E.g.,

-Trading Ribeiro was a huge mistake, granted; in fact, only last season did we finally reach a point where we had fully recovered from throwing away the 2nd-line C we desperately needed. Sh*t happens, unfortunately.

-OB was outplayed by the younger Picard and had a track record with us of NOT siezing opportunities - what is so hard to understand about that?

-All indications are that Latendresse basically gave up on Montreal after the Great Purge of 2008. Contrary to popular belief, JM gave him time on the top lines and he did nothing with it. When a player wants out, what can you do? And note that the jury is still out on whether he or Pouliot are better players; Fats showed up to camp in Minny out of shape and that contributed to his injuries this season. This is not exactly overpowering evidence that we traded away a quality player.

-Sergei, not a team player. Period. He had hot streaks with us too. I'm not worried. It won't last.

-One you didn't mention is Grabovski, whose game I liked. But when you look it at, who would you rather have - Grabovski/Plekanec or Gomez/Plekanec? At some point, you have to decide if there is room for an NHL-worthy youngtser on your team. If there isn't, you move them. When that player is an asshole Like Grabs, it makes the choice easy.

Every indicator is that Rebuild 2.0 is doing MUCH better at developing young players than Rebuild 1.0 did. I believe that Gainey completely blew up the coaching staffs at both levels with the aim of achieving exactly this outcome.

The REAL issue here is that some fans want the Habs did win every single trade they make and obssess over the ones they lose. Fair enough, but it's a distortion. The only real howler here is Ribeiro.

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Bournival just made the last set of cuts for the national junior team, and the Habs have some descent depth at defense. Carle is NHL ready and still in the minors. How many NHL ready top 6 did we have before the Halak and O'Byrne trade? I understand that Bournival is not NHL ready, but he is a good prospect.

The Halak trade bothered me, because I really thought the return was weak. Not that I don't like Eller, but I was just hoping for an NHL ready top 6er with experience. However, Halak was RFA with arbitration rights, and there were a lot of goalies available for grabs. This surely brouht his value down compared to what fans and media believe.

Sergei is a spoiled brat who needed to go bye bye. RFA with potential for RFA with potential.

Latendresse for Pouliot appears to be a very good lateral move. I actually preffer the play of Pouliot to Latendresse. He seems to be in the play a lot more than Lats was. His huge hits were often of no consequence. The play had already moved on and Lats crashes some guy 3 seconds later.

The only two players that interest me are Grabovski and Ribiero. We got nothing for either of them. I realize that Toronto is very weak, but the games I have seen, Grabs was very good. Always working and using his skills. If alligned with good wingers, I think Grabs could be a descent 2nd line centre. We got nothing for him, and he did improve after he left.

When I analyze the Ribiero trade, it is quite obvious that Gainey could have done way better than Ninima. This was a bad trade. But I tend to disagree with the impact that his departure had. I am not happy with the return, but what I am happy about, is the extra developement that Plek took on when he left.

Plekanec is the best player on this team. He was a depth guy before the Ribs trade. With the exception of 08/09, he has developed consistently, and I believe is the one guy that this team cannot win without. It used to be Koivu for many years. Then it was Markov for 2 or 3 years, but in the last 2 years, Plek has become the most important player on the team. To me, Gainey kept the right guy.

And to go a little further for CC, I would much rather have Gomez/Plek, Than Gomez/Ribs, or Gomez/Grabovski. As I type this though, I do realize that Ribiero/Plekanec would be pretty damn good too.

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We wound up in the end with Lang (albeit the one year) and prospect Greg Pateryn for Grabovski, not exactly nothing considering the good year Lang had. Grabovski, though playing well this year, is someone who I expect to be let go by the Leafs at the end of the year with no qualifying offer.

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We wound up in the end with Lang (albeit the one year) and prospect Greg Pateryn for Grabovski, not exactly nothing considering the good year Lang had. Grabovski, though playing well this year, is someone who I expect to be let go by the Leafs at the end of the year with no qualifying offer.

Ahh. They got a pick too right? I forgot about that. The pick was used to acquire Lang. I'm not saying I'm a Grabovski fan. I was just looking at the players that the Habs have parted with in the last five years, and trying to find the ones that are doing well. The only two I could think of that are playing better than their return or replacement are Ribiero and Grabovski. Of those, I preffer Plekanec over Ribiero, but am very disapointed still in the return, and their was no room for Grabovski. As you say, he probably won't get an offer next year, and I can't really see a fit for him unless he works on checking.

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Ahh. They got a pick too right? I forgot about that. The pick was used to acquire Lang. I'm not saying I'm a Grabovski fan. I was just looking at the players that the Habs have parted with in the last five years, and trying to find the ones that are doing well. The only two I could think of that are playing better than their return or replacement are Ribiero and Grabovski. Of those, I preffer Plekanec over Ribiero, but am very disapointed still in the return, and their was no room for Grabovski. As you say, he probably won't get an offer next year, and I can't really see a fit for him unless he works on checking.

Grabovski was traded because he was pulling Kostitsyn style acts of selfishness. He is 26 years old and

this is probably the player he is going to be.

He is producing on a terrible team that gives him first line minutes. The problems is, if he is getting first line minutes,

you are a terrible team. He isn't exactly a guy who you want on the ice with less than 2 minutes to go either.

I don't really pay much attention to production based on increased minutes. A 40 point player with limited PP time

and 13 minutes a game will become a 60 pt player with lots of PP time and 18 minutes a game. The player hasn't

improved, he just has more opportunity.

As for Lats, the guy has had an extremely high shooting percentage that puts him among the elite in the game

with the Wild. During his Wild career he is shooting over 19%, I am not sure if he can maintain that for and

extended period of time.

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I don't want to hijack the thread but I can't believe someone said trading Ribeiro was a huge mistake...it was CLEARLY the right thing to do...

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I don't want to hijack the thread but I can't believe someone said trading Ribeiro was a huge mistake...it was CLEARLY the right thing to do...

Moving Ribeiro was the right thing to do, the return was emberrasing.

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Moving Ribeiro was the right thing to do, the return was emberrasing.

+1

With this shitty return, it was not the right thing to do. It's just like if they traded Subban for Tom Kostopoulos.

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+1

With this shitty return, it was not the right thing to do. It's just like if they traded Subban for Tom Kostopoulos.

Hell no i could live with that trade...

The Ribeiro for (that whatever called Fin) Dallas still owes us for that MAJOR LEMON!

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Hell no i could live with that trade...

The Ribeiro for (that whatever called Fin) Dallas still owes us for that MAJOR LEMON!

Habs sent Ribeiro and a 6th rounder in 2008 (Matt Tassone) for Janne Niinimaa and a 5th which was used on Andrew Conboy.

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So what you're saying is, we could still win this trade. :lol:

Sure...why not? Conboy's picked it up as of late, he may be ready next season for that pseudo-tough guy role. For some teams at least (Toronto), that's more valuable than a top-6 forward. :)

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I love how people who were not privy to dressing room dynamics presume to know that Ribs HAD to go. :rolleyes: In defence of such people, I do recall reading from some credible source somewhere that Koivu and Ribeiro were not on good terms, which suggests that Gainey made a decision to support his captain, and dressing room harmony, by shipping out Ribs. What I wonder is whether adequate effort was made to heal the breach before radical surgery was undertaken.

It is true that moving Ribs allowed Pleks to blossom. Then again, had we kept all three we could conceivably have shifted Koivu to more of a checking role as he declined. My point is that this team desperately needed C for much of the time that Ribs carved out a nice career in Dallas. Prima facie, that suggests that trading him was a boner.

A better return would have helped, no question! :lol: At the time, I observed that Gainey was making a high-risk high-reward move, gambling that Ninimaa would return to form (in which case it would have been a fair deal). He assumed ALL the risk in that trade. It didn't work out. Water under the bridge, but this 'he HAD to go' stuff sounds way too glib to me. Many Ribs haters seem to confuse his hotshot style with substance (the substance here being, he was/is a damned good playmaker). Not that I'm losing sleep over it at this point.

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YEs the substance (substance abuse)

The rumor was that being a local boy his distractions off the ice were too much to handle and he and his bud, Dagenais and someone else another quebecois can't remember who...had enough elbow room in the locker that Gainey and co thought it best to get rid of the rotten apples out before new impressionable rookies arrived (Price one of them)

The team had tried all they could with Ribs... It was sad he went, but rumors had it he was like CANCER, it needed to get out!

p.s. Hey probably Ribs would of gotten along with Gomer who seems (rumors again) to be looking for wing-men with whom to cruise the Bars... Aparently O'byrn was his last wing man! lol what I would give to be a young hockey celebrity in Mtl... Tabarnak!!!

Edited by CoRvInA
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YEs the substance (substance abuse)

The rumor was that being a local boy his distractions off the ice were too much to handle and he and his bud, Dagenais and someone else another quebecois can't remember who...had enough elbow room in the locker that Gainey and co thought it best to get rid of the rotten apples out before new impressionable rookies arrived (Price one of them)

The team had tried all they could with Ribs... It was sad he went, but rumors had it he was like CANCER, it needed to get out!

p.s. Hey probably Ribs would of gotten along with Gomer who seems (rumors again) to be looking for wing-men with whom to cruise the Bars... Aparently O'byrn was his last wing man! lol what I would give to be a young hockey celebrity in Mtl... Tabarnak!!!

I think Theodore was the third man in that wheel.

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I love how people who were not privy to dressing room dynamics presume to know that Ribs HAD to go. :rolleyes: In defence of such people, I do recall reading from some credible source somewhere that Koivu and Ribeiro were not on good terms, which suggests that Gainey made a decision to support his captain, and dressing room harmony, by shipping out Ribs. What I wonder is whether adequate effort was made to heal the breach before radical surgery was undertaken.

It is true that moving Ribs allowed Pleks to blossom. Then again, had we kept all three we could conceivably have shifted Koivu to more of a checking role as he declined. My point is that this team desperately needed C for much of the time that Ribs carved out a nice career in Dallas. Prima facie, that suggests that trading him was a boner.

A better return would have helped, no question! :lol: At the time, I observed that Gainey was making a high-risk high-reward move, gambling that Ninimaa would return to form (in which case it would have been a fair deal). He assumed ALL the risk in that trade. It didn't work out. Water under the bridge, but this 'he HAD to go' stuff sounds way too glib to me. Many Ribs haters seem to confuse his hotshot style with substance (the substance here being, he was/is a damned good playmaker). Not that I'm losing sleep over it at this point.

We bought what the media sold us.

I never liked Ribeiro and hence don't really care that he is gone but in retrospect it is a bad deal and removing the

emotional viewpoint at the time it was a bad deal. Very short term thinking by Gainey.

Gainey usually doesn't make short term plans, hence why I probably bought into the media hype about cancer.

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I love how people who were not privy to dressing room dynamics presume to know that Ribs HAD to go. :rolleyes: In defence of such people, I do recall reading from some credible source somewhere that Koivu and Ribeiro were not on good terms, which suggests that Gainey made a decision to support his captain, and dressing room harmony, by shipping out Ribs. What I wonder is whether adequate effort was made to heal the breach before radical surgery was undertaken.

It is true that moving Ribs allowed Pleks to blossom. Then again, had we kept all three we could conceivably have shifted Koivu to more of a checking role as he declined. My point is that this team desperately needed C for much of the time that Ribs carved out a nice career in Dallas. Prima facie, that suggests that trading him was a boner.

A better return would have helped, no question! :lol: At the time, I observed that Gainey was making a high-risk high-reward move, gambling that Ninimaa would return to form (in which case it would have been a fair deal). He assumed ALL the risk in that trade. It didn't work out. Water under the bridge, but this 'he HAD to go' stuff sounds way too glib to me. Many Ribs haters seem to confuse his hotshot style with substance (the substance here being, he was/is a damned good playmaker). Not that I'm losing sleep over it at this point.

I hear this kind of stuff from the Ribeiro defenders all the time. It's like there is some sort of selective memory loss or just an absolute refusal to see what is common sense to everyone else...you should run as a candidate for the Liberal party.

There were documented arguments that eventually led to a fight in practice. This involved the teams captain. Management and the coaching staff will listen to their captain...especially considering that he had the support of most of the team. Ribeiro was a flake while he was in Montreal, diving, faking injury, rubbing teammates the wrong way, etc. While this was happening his production was pretty average...one decent season and a lot of mediocrity and headaches.

You suggest keeping Pleks, Ribeiro and Koivu and moving Koivu to the 3rd line...which would NEVER have happened. Pleks would have languished as the media protected it's hometown darling and a veteran/captain like Koivu wouldn't end up on the 3rd line in Montreal.

Your post implies that Ribeiro's success was virtually a forgone conclusion but he appeared to be a SOFT, 40-50 point, 2nd line C that was bad on face-offs, easily pushed off the puck and was beginning to take bad penalities...combined with a bad locker room presence (that is pretty much unarguable)...potentially a very bad locker room presence.

In return they got a guy who the GM was familiar with and was just 1-2 years removed from pretty good defensive production.

I'd suggest there was a good bit of risk on both ends. If Ribeiro didn't mature quickly he probably flames out of the NHL since 50 point, 2nd line C's are relatively common...and most have a lot more grit/size then Ribs. If he didn't become a 60+ point guy he was a fringe player in most places where he wasn't a hometown boy...jmho.

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I hear this kind of stuff from the Ribeiro defenders all the time. It's like there is some sort of selective memory loss or just an absolute refusal to see what is common sense to everyone else...you should run as a candidate for the Liberal party.

There were documented arguments that eventually led to a fight in practice. This involved the teams captain. Management and the coaching staff will listen to their captain...especially considering that he had the support of most of the team. Ribeiro was a flake while he was in Montreal, diving, faking injury, rubbing teammates the wrong way, etc. While this was happening his production was pretty average...one decent season and a lot of mediocrity and headaches.

You suggest keeping Pleks, Ribeiro and Koivu and moving Koivu to the 3rd line...which would NEVER have happened. Pleks would have languished as the media protected it's hometown darling and a veteran/captain like Koivu wouldn't end up on the 3rd line in Montreal.

Your post implies that Ribeiro's success was virtually a forgone conclusion but he appeared to be a SOFT, 40-50 point, 2nd line C that was bad on face-offs, easily pushed off the puck and was beginning to take bad penalities...combined with a bad locker room presence (that is pretty much unarguable)...potentially a very bad locker room presence.

In return they got a guy who the GM was familiar with and was just 1-2 years removed from pretty good defensive production.

I'd suggest there was a good bit of risk on both ends. If Ribeiro didn't mature quickly he probably flames out of the NHL since 50 point, 2nd line C's are relatively common...and most have a lot more grit/size then Ribs. If he didn't become a 60+ point guy he was a fringe player in most places where he wasn't a hometown boy...jmho.

Ribeiro lead the Canadiens in scoring as a 23 year old with 2 minutes less per game than Koivu.

He slumped in 2006, but still managed a respectable 51 points. Now it wasn't a foregone conclusion that he would turn

into an 80 pt player, but it was not an equal risk. Niinimaa's game had slipped considerably from his peak years.

Your read on him is extremely biased and offers a one-sided viewpoint. MSM reports are not exactly something

I would base my argument on.

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  • 3 weeks later...

the positive aspect of this seemingly mismanagement of our assets, is that in the near future, Teams will be more likely to trade with us hoping we trade them some more undervalued players. Making us higher valued trading partners when the need requires it.

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the positive aspect of this seemingly mismanagement of our assets, is that in the near future, Teams will be more likely to trade with us hoping we trade them some more undervalued players. Making us higher valued trading partners when the need requires it.

lol, interesting theory. "It's the Canadiens calling, obviously we're going to win this trade they're proposing!"

Anyone notice how players like Pouliot, Wisniewski, Moore, Schneider, etc. give our team a nice boost when they arrive? Anyone? Other teams wonder the same things.

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Dagostini just scored his 10th of the season and Palushaj is still in hamilton. Halak is solid for the blues and Eller has been scratched for the last 3 games and doesn't seem to fill a role with this team. Latendresse was lighting it up with minnesota but Pouliot seems to be thrown from one line to the other. Pouliot, Eller and Palushaj are great players but they need to play with players that compliment their talent and abilities rather than keep switching them from the 1st line to the 2nd,3rd,4th or scratched from the game. This lack of chemistry goes back from the Carbo era and still lingers. All these players are capable and good but the magic is how you put the puzzle all together and make it work day in and day out.

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