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Some thoughts and hope for next year-potential team as GM and coach.


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MaRc Crawford will be the next coach in Montreal. I just have a feeling about it.

That'd be OK with me. Just as long as he doesn't try to get Dan Cloutier in here :lol:

Seriously, it'd be interesting to see him work with a team that has an actual goalie, and I thought he got a little bit of a raw deal in Dallas. He's got a ton of high-level experience, including some craziness that makes Montreal seem like a tea party; could be a good fit.

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I will never forgive crawford for leaving the greatest player in history on the bench for the shootout in 98.

If my memory serves me right, I think he selected Ray Bourque as one of the shooters instead.......I don't think it mattered anyway, Hasek was unbeatable in that period of time, I don't think anybody was going to score on him.

I think that it is a consensus that everyone would like a new coach for next season. There was a chance Cunneyworth could have been kept on, but his results have been terrible thus far. Not a knock on the rookie but with all the french controversy, he is more than toast. I would welcome Crawford with open arms at this point. But what I really want to see is Saint Patrick behind the bench. It seems like it is so perfect in so many ways. The timing is just right for him to make the jump to the bigs. I can hear his sound bytes now......even though he can't because his Stanley Cup rings are plugging his ears

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I will never forgive crawford for leaving the greatest player in history on the bench for the shootout in 98.

When I was younger and early in my career, I made somemistakes which were foolish and costly. I not only analyzed the decision, but the thought proccess which led to my lapse in judgement. I found that as I get wiser and older, these mistakes and lapses are less and less. Decisions which I made in the past are not even really decisions now. They are pretty much instict.

I hated Crawford that night! I could not believe that gretz and yzerman sat, but I know that I don't want another rookie coach. Martin held this team together, and I really believe that we would be fighting for a playoff spot with him at the helm. Crawford appears to be the only experienced francophone in the business. I want experience, not passion and errors.

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When I was younger and early in my career, I made somemistakes which were foolish and costly. I not only analyzed the decision, but the thought proccess which led to my lapse in judgement. I found that as I get wiser and older, these mistakes and lapses are less and less. Decisions which I made in the past are not even really decisions now. They are pretty much instict.

I hated Crawford that night! I could not believe that gretz and yzerman sat, but I know that I don't want another rookie coach. Martin held this team together, and I really believe that we would be fighting for a playoff spot with him at the helm. Crawford appears to be the only experienced francophone in the business. I want experience, not passion and errors.

Yeah. Montreal is not the place for rookie coaches - Pat Burns's amazing work notwithstanding. But if I were going to entrust the bench to a rookie, it'd be Roy.

Crawford's decision at Nagano was bizarre, and he also lost control of Bertuzzi with results that scarcely need reiteration, as well as having a whacked-out man-crush on Dan Cloutier that sunk him in both (!) Vancouver and LA. But in an odd way these kinds of scars work in his favour. This is a guy who's been through all the wars, he's made mistakes, he's had success and glaring, public failures - I like that. That says to me he's battle-tested and that the insanity of working in an environment like Montreal will be old hat to him. He's not one of those rare guys like Bowman who seems to have the Midas touch, but he would be a credible and serious candidate and could, I think, do very well.

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What that article doesn't tell you is how the team with 90% players PG acquired went to the Stanley Cup final the year after he was fired. Clearly he built an awful club in Anaheim and left them with a foundation of a club that was rapidly declining.

Dont't get my meaning wrong I am not expecting you to say sorry or even that you are wrong on this point, its just the tone of your response that I expect him to take exception to.

then we all have to hear about how your think this way and he thinks that way......its just getting a little tiresome.....thats all. at first it was a little bit entertaining now not so much. If you would tone down your rebutals we wouldn't have to listen to the drama so much.

and by the way the point I was trying to make was that although we have many nice pieces, and we will definatly add another great one in the spring draft we are quite a ways from being a contender and it seems that the same thing happened in Anahiem with the exception of us being a contender next year....i hope I am wrong but I really dont think so

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Dont't get my meaning wrong I am not expecting you to say sorry or even that you are wrong on this point, its just the tone of your response that I expect him to take exception to.

then we all have to hear about how your think this way and he thinks that way......its just getting a little tiresome.....thats all. at first it was a little bit entertaining now not so much. If you would tone down your rebutals we wouldn't have to listen to the drama so much.

and by the way the point I was trying to make was that although we have many nice pieces, and we will definatly add another great one in the spring draft we are quite a ways from being a contender and it seems that the same thing happened in Anahiem with the exception of us being a contender next year....i hope I am wrong but I really dont think so

I don't think anyone expects us to contend next year. A number of us (myself included) think we can surge upward in the standings with the right moves, though. I look forward to that, actually; all the usual 'experts' will pronounce us bottom-feeders and then will scratch their heads when we make the playoffs.

As for Commandant vs lafrous, it's a mistake to posit some kind of moral equivalency between them. One has a repeated pattern of launching personal attacks and name-calling, the other consistently sticks to extremely thoughtful and well-defended analysis and only gets testy when personally attacked. I'll leave it to you to figure out which is which.

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Wow I am surprised by the support Crawford is getting.....to me the fact that he has been working for TSN for the better part of a year when many coaches have been fired and hired speaks for itself. If he is really that competent he would already be working no?

Personally I think Roy has just as much of a chance to succeed as Crawford, and the Media would love Roy. Plus I just like him better but thats why I am not a GM.

everytime I think of Crawford all I can think of is the videos he made for EA sports NHL 2006 or 2007, when he dicussed offensive and Defensive zone strategies while using a whiteboard.

Edit: heres the link

I don't think anyone expects us to contend next year. A number of us (myself included) think we can surge upward in the standings with the right moves, though. I look forward to that, actually; all the usual 'experts' will pronounce us bottom-feeders and then will scratch their heads when we make the playoffs.

As for Commandant vs lafrous, it's a mistake to posit some kind of moral equivalency between them. One has a repeated pattern of launching personal attacks and name-calling, the other consistently sticks to extremely thoughtful and well-defended analysis and only gets testy when personally attacked. I'll leave it to you to figure out which is which.

ya I know I am done with it, just wanted to get it off my chest

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If Markov is healthy, i will bet money we make the playoffs next year. A strong PP this year and we win 4 or 5 of our OT games lost because they never go to OT. 5 or 6 of our one goal losses become OT losses and we are contending. Martin does not get fired, PG holds his job and Cammie doesn't get traded. Stretch? Maybe but maybe not. On the other hand, in that scenario we are still the same undersized bubble team. This metldown makes our organization look within and adress some issues which have plagued the team for years.

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I will say this, as its becoming an issue for others... I'll try and take an even higher road than the one I've been taking.

Not for lafrous' benefit, but for the benefit of everyone else.

If its becoming a distraction and detriment to the site, I'll try to end it on my end, even though I feel I really haven't done anything wrong here.

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Commandant has done nothing wrong and I'm glad to hear he's sticking around rather than leaving us the way another of our absolutely superb posters, Wamsley, has done.

Dave, I'm not saying Crawford is some kind of coaching god, just that he has the credentials and that, from my point of view, his extremely long and mixed resumé can be viewed as an asset, not a liability in the context of Montreal. As for why he hasn't been hired since Dallas, well, the mixed resumé is probably part of it, but there's also that tendency to favour young coaches. Like JM, he may be perceived as 'yesterday's man,' but - also like JM - that doesn't mean he won't do a very solid job.

Underpinning all of this, of course, is the language requirement. Remember, the question is not who would make the best coach, it's who would make the best bilingual coach.

Here's a question to keep this discussion moving: Crawford or Boucher? You're Molson: who ya gonna call?

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If Markov is healthy, i will bet money we make the playoffs next year. A strong PP this year and we win 4 or 5 of our OT games lost because they never go to OT. 5 or 6 of our one goal losses become OT losses and we are contending. Martin does not get fired, PG holds his job and Cammie doesn't get traded. Stretch? Maybe but maybe not. On the other hand, in that scenario we are still the same undersized bubble team. This metldown makes our organization look within and adress some issues which have plagued the team for years.

Goal Differential of the teams around us in the standings.

Habs -15 on the season (even less if you consider the number of Shootout losses which add 1 goal to the GA column, I think)

Columbus -60

Edmonton -23

Carolina -26

Isles -40

Minny -43

You are 100% correct here BCHabnut, We have lost way too many 1 goal games, far more than the other teams around us in the standings, and as such it will only take a slight improvement to get things back in order

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Commandant has done nothing wrong and I'm glad to hear he's sticking around rather than leaving us the way another of our absolutely superb posters, Wamsley, has done.

Dave, I'm not saying Crawford is some kind of coaching god, just that he has the credentials and that, from my point of view, his extremely long and mixed resumé can be viewed as an asset, not a liability in the context of Montreal. As for why he hasn't been hired since Dallas, well, the mixed resumé is probably part of it, but there's also that tendency to favour young coaches. Like JM, he may be perceived as 'yesterday's man,' but - also like JM - that doesn't mean he won't do a very solid job.

Underpinning all of this, of course, is the language requirement. Remember, the question is not who would make the best coach, it's who would make the best bilingual coach.

Here's a question to keep this discussion moving: Crawford or Boucher? You're Molson: who ya gonna call?

It might be my bias against Crawford, and I like Boucher (not to the godlike status he's been promoted to, but I like him) so I'd choose Boucher, but even I admit its not a clear cut choice.

The other candidate that we can cross our fingers becomes available (and is better than both those guys IMO) is Alain Vigneault if he Canucks flame out.

Along with Roy, the other QMJHL coach I like is Gerard Gallant who has done a superb job with St. John, and has NHL experience (a bad record though but it was Columbus). I'd consider him for an interview too. I'm just not 100% sure he's bilingual, but it'd be a question to explore. He does have Acadien roots.

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Wow I am surprised by the support Crawford is getting.....to me the fact that he has been working for TSN for the better part of a year when many coaches have been fired and hired speaks for itself. If he is really that competent he would already be working no?

Personally I think Roy has just as much of a chance to succeed as Crawford, and the Media would love Roy. Plus I just like him better but thats why I am not a GM.

everytime I think of Crawford all I can think of is the videos he made for EA sports NHL 2006 or 2007, when he dicussed offensive and Defensive zone strategies while using a whiteboard.

Edit: heres the link

ya I know I am done with it, just wanted to get it off my chest

I am actually not a big fan of Crawford. I just believe he is the only experienced coach available.

As for the Lafrous thing, it is getting old. The snarky attacking posts have actually reduced my interest in posting here. If I say somehing, I am part of a group of know nothing fanboys. A little more tact from one individual and I would appreciate the different opinions, instead the tone is direct and sarcastic and I just move away from the topic entirely. We are who we are and sometimes it is fun to read Lafrous posts. As I said, this is not an attack, just an observation from an ousider to the whole thing.

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Yeah. Montreal is not the place for rookie coaches - Pat Burns's amazing work notwithstanding. But if I were going to entrust the bench to a rookie, it'd be Roy.

Crawford's decision at Nagano was bizarre, and he also lost control of Bertuzzi with results that scarcely need reiteration, as well as having a whacked-out man-crush on Dan Cloutier that sunk him in both (!) Vancouver and LA. But in an odd way these kinds of scars work in his favour. This is a guy who's been through all the wars, he's made mistakes, he's had success and glaring, public failures - I like that. That says to me he's battle-tested and that the insanity of working in an environment like Montreal will be old hat to him. He's not one of those rare guys like Bowman who seems to have the Midas touch, but he would be a credible and serious candidate and could, I think, do very well.

My post above is more my own personal grudge with Crawford than anything else. The rational view of course is that he is among the top 4-5 candidates for this job (maybe even the top guy) especially if the francophone requirement stays in place.

That said, the coaching discussion is premature. The GM will be the guy making that decison, and until we have a GM (and I really believe we're getting a new one) the assessment of which coaching candidate is best is a little early IMO.

Sure we should put a list together of potential guys, but who emerges as the number 1 candidate will depend on the GM.

I like Roy a lot, but only with a steady and experienced GM above him.

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Commandant has done nothing wrong and I'm glad to hear he's sticking around rather than leaving us the way another of our absolutely superb posters, Wamsley, has done.

awwwwwww I miss Walmsley

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My post above is more my own personal grudge with Crawford than anything else. The rational view of course is that he is among the top 4-5 candidates for this job (maybe even the top guy) especially if the francophone requirement stays in place.

That said, the coaching discussion is premature. The GM will be the guy making that decison, and until we have a GM (and I really believe we're getting a new one) the assessment of which coaching candidate is best is a little early IMO.

Sure we should put a list together of potential guys, but who emerges as the number 1 candidate will depend on the GM.

I like Roy a lot, but only with a steady and experienced GM above him.

I agree

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Dont't get my meaning wrong I am not expecting you to say sorry or even that you are wrong on this point, its just the tone of your response that I expect him to take exception to.

then we all have to hear about how your think this way and he thinks that way......its just getting a little tiresome.....thats all. at first it was a little bit entertaining now not so much. If you would tone down your rebutals we wouldn't have to listen to the drama so much.

and by the way the point I was trying to make was that although we have many nice pieces, and we will definatly add another great one in the spring draft we are quite a ways from being a contender and it seems that the same thing happened in Anahiem with the exception of us being a contender next year....i hope I am wrong but I really dont think so

I don't know what was said. He's on ignore,and I'd suggest he does the same to me.

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awwwwwww I miss Walmsley

I think he had a lot of good posts, but I found him to be pretty arrogant. Like everything anyone else said was pure drivel and senseless reaction thinking. To me, if a professional hockey team is not paying you for your vast knowledge, then you're just some jerk with an opinion. Just like me.

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I don't know what was said. He's on ignore,and I'd suggest he does the same to me.

That's why the ignore option is so lame. Almost as lame as the word fanboy.
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Along with Roy, the other QMJHL coach I like is Gerard Gallant who has done a superb job with St. John, and has NHL experience (a bad record though but it was Columbus). I'd consider him for an interview too. I'm just not 100% sure he's bilingual, but it'd be a question to explore. He does have Acadien roots.

From what I know, Gallant does not speak French.

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