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The Next Captain


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The issue was Tremblay. He shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the Bell centre. From what I understand, turgeon wanted out of the asylum, and Houle made another of his bad trades, triggered by Tremblay's stupidity.

Even worse was Tremblay switched Turgeon to right wing and he played great. So the center excuse was even worse. He could have been fine there. But oh no team needs grit...

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The issue was Tremblay. He shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the Bell centre. From what I understand, turgeon wanted out of the asylum, and Houle made another of his bad trades, triggered by Tremblay's stupidity.

Not only did he throw away a 90-point C for a glorified grinder (and I don't want to slag Corson, he made a good contribution) and a plug who didn't want to play for us (Murray Baron) - but people forget that he THREW CRAIG CONROY into the deal as well. Conroy, who went on to play 16 NHL seasons as a 2nd/3rd-line C. No wonder this team had a disastrous situation at C for so many years. Just egregious. Gawd, my blood is boiling just to think about it :bonk:

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Remember, the last captain who took us to the Cup was our 4th line center at the time.

Of course, saying he was a "Fourth line center" doesn't do Carbonneau justice. He was our defensive shutdown specialist and penalty killer. (The other three centers were Kirk Muller*, Stephane Lebeau and John LeClair.)

* - A lot of sites seem to list Muller as a left wing and Damphousse as the center, but I watched that season. Muller centered Damphousse and Bellows all season, he took the majority of the faceoffs.

The last cup winning team also had Denis Savard as a center, up until the final when he was injured, and he played well. Made Gilbert Dionne an NHL'er for a year....

Leclair played wing and chewed up McSorley every shift on the end boards, I don't know or care what he was listed as, he played wing. Muller was a force, and #1 center, Vinnie played wing, and Carbo saw more ice time at center than anyone, because most games were real close, 10 won in a row in overtime... the series vs the Sabres was 4-3 every game of the sweep, and 3 of those in overtime, hell yeah Carbo was the #1 guy.....

Tremblay was a disaster, that really was the problem that kick started the worst period in Habs history, but here's to hoping that is over with this management/ownership team.

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The dark age ended in 2008, when we had that magical season. Were we bona-fide contenders? No, but from 2008 onward - with the sad exception of 2012 - the organization has delivered both exciting hockey and pretty decent results.

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Not only did he throw away a 90-point C for a glorified grinder (and I don't want to slag Corson, he made a good contribution) and a plug who didn't want to play for us (Murray Baron) - but people forget that he THREW CRAIG CONROY into the deal as well. Conroy, who went on to play 16 NHL seasons as a 2nd/3rd-line C. No wonder this team had a disastrous situation at C for so many years. Just egregious. Gawd, my blood is boiling just to think about it :bonk:

I always remember Conroy because he wasn't the only second line center we traded in the 90s. We also moved Andrew Cassels for a second round pick in 91. We drafted Valeri Bure with that pick, who was a very good player, but Conroy still would have fit Montreal fine back in the 90s as a two way second/third line center.

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I always remember Conroy because he wasn't the only second line center we traded in the 90s. We also moved Andrew Cassels for a second round pick in 91. We drafted Valeri Bure with that pick, who was a very good player, but Conroy still would have fit Montreal fine back in the 90s as a two way second/third line center.

And then we traded Bure for...uh, it'll come to me.

Darcy Tucker was another natural C the Habs just threw in the trash bin. It is to weep.

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And then we traded Bure for...uh, it'll come to me.

Darcy Tucker was another natural C the Habs just threw in the trash bin. It is to weep.

My uncle (who is the biggest Habs fan I know) was a huge fan of Tucker due to his three Memorial Cup rings with the Kamloops Blazers. He was so happy when we drafted him. He got through the Roy trade (barely) but the Darcy Tucker trade was almost the straw for him. He knew it was because of Tucker butting heads with Tremblay. All the Tremblay stuff was hard for him as well because he was a big fan of Mario when he was a Hab.

The interesting thing about the 90s is that it feels like it was just hell for Montreal but it was hell for a lot of teams in the league. That's why the few teams that had momentum became powerhouses. Everyone else was struggling to survive. Teams like Dallas, New Jersey, Colorado, Detroit and to a lesser extent Philadelphia, St. Louis and Washington were powerhouse teams that had a pick of the litter for free agency. Teams like Edmonton and Calgary were stripped of talent. Buffalo survived on Hasek for as long as they could. Pittsburgh had Jagr but could never build their defence up after the back to back Cups. New York and Phoenix could get big free agents but nothing else. Toronto stumbled a lot until Ken Dryden restored order. Boston watched their club get stripped apart.

Montreal, Long Island and Chicago did the stripping themselves. They couldn't blame the markets. They constantly traded top stars and got nothing special in return. This is why you saw four teams passing the Cup back and forth. They were the only teams with their crap together.

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And then we traded Bure for...uh, it'll come to me.

Darcy Tucker was another natural C the Habs just threw in the trash bin. It is to weep.

He went to Calgray, didn't he ? Zarley Zalapski ???

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He went to Calgray, didn't he ? Zarley Zalapski ???

Yes. Zalapski was just a veteran D addition (who had a ridiculously high rating in NHL95...) but the real point of the move was Jonas Hoglund. Hoglund was a 6'4" Swede who Montreal picked up to add more size in the hopes he'd turn into a power forward. Hoglund sucked in Montreal but then exploded in Toronto. It's funny how the late 90s Habs were all about being bigger and stronger and just about every move to do so was a complete and utter failure.

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I'm not trying to draw any analogy between the Houle and Gainey years - there is no comparison (Gainey being a decent GM who make a couple of big mistakes, Houle being one of the worst GMs in NHL history) - but when you consider that Gainey similarly threw away quality C in Ribeiro and Grabovski, and then add to the list Cassels, Conroy, and Tucker, it's interesting to ask whether any other organization had a comparable track record of dumping young C for minimal return over that 15-year span.

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I'm not trying to draw any analogy between the Houle and Gainey years - there is no comparison (Gainey being a decent GM who make a couple of big mistakes, Houle being one of the worst GMs in NHL history) - but when you consider that Gainey similarly threw away quality C in Ribeiro and Grabovski, and then add to the list Cassels, Conroy, and Tucker, it's interesting to ask whether any other organization had a comparable track record of dumping young C for minimal return over that 15-year span.

Specifically centers? No. But around the same time Houle/Savard was screwing up you had Pittsburgh trading Markus Naslund for nothing, Edmonton trading a 90 point Doug Weight for Marty Reasoner and junk, Danny Briere from Phoenix to Buffalo for an already over the hill Chris Gratton, Martin St. Louis given up to waivers because Hartley had zero patience in Calgary, Colorado deciding Dean McAmmond was more valuable than Chris Drury, all of Mike Milbury's stupid moves, Toronto giving up Steve Sullivan on waivers, Selanne to Anaheim for Oleg Tverdosky and Chad Kilger, Vancouver treating Pavel Bure like crap and having to trade him to Florida for nothing special. That's off the top of my head. Every organization has its really dumb moments except maybe Detroit.

Montreal and centers is the one thing I think can be said as special to the organization. Same to how we always have elite goalies when some teams struggle to find two years of a decent goalie (St. Louis, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, etc.)

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Specifically centers? No. But around the same time Houle/Savard was screwing up you had Pittsburgh trading Markus Naslund for nothing, Edmonton trading a 90 point Doug Weight for Marty Reasoner and junk, Danny Briere from Phoenix to Buffalo for an already over the hill Chris Gratton, Martin St. Louis given up to waivers because Hartley had zero patience in Calgary, Colorado deciding Dean McAmmond was more valuable than Chris Drury, all of Mike Milbury's stupid moves, Toronto giving up Steve Sullivan on waivers, Selanne to Anaheim for Oleg Tverdosky and Chad Kilger, Vancouver treating Pavel Bure like crap and having to trade him to Florida for nothing special. That's off the top of my head. Every organization has its really dumb moments except maybe Detroit.

Montreal and centers is the one thing I think can be said as special to the organization. Same to how we always have elite goalies when some teams struggle to find two years of a decent goalie (St. Louis, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, etc.)

Great post. Yep, all GMs fall on their faces, it's the issue of throwing away centreman after centreman that caught my eye as something Montreal-specific. It IS funny how some organizational patterns keep recurring over generations: the Habs' seemingly-eternal ability to pull great goaltending out of their collective ass and Philadelphia's laughable, endless floundering at G certainly, as you say, being prime examples.

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Great post. Yep, all GMs fall on their faces, it's the issue of throwing away centreman after centreman that caught my eye as something Montreal-specific. It IS funny how some organizational patterns keep recurring over generations: the Habs' seemingly-eternal ability to pull great goaltending out of their collective ass and Philadelphia's laughable, endless floundering at G certainly, as you say, being prime examples.

Honestly, Boston giving up Joe Thornton for secondary players and then doing the same with Tyler Seguin is worse than anything Montreal did in the past 30 years. It's just they still won Cups because they also had Bergeron and Krejci. Heck when you throw in Marc Savard (who had his career ended by injuries), Boston lost three top line centers in the past 10 years and they still made it to the Cup finals twice. That's because the center role wasn't a lynchpin for their organization. That and they keep their second round picks.

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Boston is headed for a heavy fall in the next 2-4 years. They have literally nothing in the prospect pipeline aside from Malcolm Subban, and they don't need him anyways. They're headed for UFA hell next summer and those kids on defense are nothing special. Dougie Hamilton is the classic case of a kid being rushed into the pros, he was the top prospect on HF fwiw.

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Boston is an incredible organization for just the reason that Machine states. It's an astonishing achievement to win a Stanley Cup after having lost two #1 centremen within a single generation (one to injury, the other to a bad trade). Imagine where the Habs would be if, God forbid, what had happened to Marc Savard had happened to Tomas Plekanec. The Bruins were also able to trade away a top-10 NHL winger in Phil Kessel, for high draft picks, without in any way handicapping their capacity to go on and win. By contrast, if we'd dealt Max Pacioretty for a similar return, we'd be nowhere right now. While Thornton and Seguin were serious mistakes, they made little difference to the franchise's ability to excel and that speaks to formidable depth and superb drafting/dealing in other areas. Lord knows, I despise this edition of the Bruins with a feverish intensity, but you do have to hand it to them. They are a top-flight organization.

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Yes and Thompson (who should be a super d-men soon) isn't the only good d-prospect/young d that the Bruins have, sorry to say.

But, Chara isn't getting any younger and his skates will be tough to fill.

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Nobody in Boston is going to fill Chara's skates. Instead, their defence is going to have more depth.

In about three to five seasons, Chara will retire. By then, Dougie Hamilton will be ready to take 20+ minutes a game. Torey Krug might have played a year in the KHL because Boston couldn't afford him next season but he will be back to be their PP quarterback. Boychuk might not be around anymore but he's replaceable. Joe Morrow might finally get a shot to play in the NHL after being bounced around three teams already and he'll be good. Not great but good. The fear (for us) is if Maxim Chudinov changes his mind and decides to be an NHLer. We're gonna freakin' hate him if he does that. He'd be their Emelin but with less size, similar strength and better offensive ability. Let us hope it never happens.

Once Chara retires, I don't see Boston nabbing an elite defenceman to replace but much like how Montreal is rarely seen without an elite goalie, Boston is rarely seen without an elite defenceman. From Bobby Orr to Ray Bourque to Zdeno Chara, the Bruins almost always have that lynchpin on the backend. They went a few years between Bourque and Chara but I would not be shocked to hear, "Chara retires from Bruins; Bruins sign free agent Victor Hedman" in a few years.

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Boston is an incredible organization for just the reason that Machine states. It's an astonishing achievement to win a Stanley Cup after having lost two #1 centremen within a single generation (one to injury, the other to a bad trade). Imagine where the Habs would be if, God forbid, what had happened to Marc Savard had happened to Tomas Plekanec. The Bruins were also able to trade away a top-10 NHL winger in Phil Kessel, for high draft picks, without in any way handicapping their capacity to go on and win. By contrast, if we'd dealt Max Pacioretty for a similar return, we'd be nowhere right now. While Thornton and Seguin were serious mistakes, they made little difference to the franchise's ability to excel and that speaks to formidable depth and superb drafting/dealing in other areas. Lord knows, I despise this edition of the Bruins with a feverish intensity, but you do have to hand it to them. They are a top-flight organization.

Everybody forgets Tim Thomas because of how wacky he is. Tim Thomas had the most dominating playoff performace in 2011 that we as fans could ever see. They won three game sevens that year. The Bruins are hardly of the same caliber of LA/CHI. Great team, but second tier.

His stats that playoff year were

W-16 L-9 GAA 1.98 SV% .940.

Granted, Quick had a higher save percentage the next year, but the Kings only lost 4 games. TT was out of this world.

RE Hamilton. I don't believe the hype, and he won't be getting by on hockey sense anytime soon.

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Specifically centers? No. But around the same time Houle/Savard was screwing up you had Pittsburgh trading Markus Naslund for nothing, Edmonton trading a 90 point Doug Weight for Marty Reasoner and junk, Danny Briere from Phoenix to Buffalo for an already over the hill Chris Gratton, Martin St. Louis given up to waivers because Hartley had zero patience in Calgary, Colorado deciding Dean McAmmond was more valuable than Chris Drury, all of Mike Milbury's stupid moves, Toronto giving up Steve Sullivan on waivers, Selanne to Anaheim for Oleg Tverdosky and Chad Kilger, Vancouver treating Pavel Bure like crap and having to trade him to Florida for nothing special. That's off the top of my head. Every organization has its really dumb moments except maybe Detroit.

Montreal and centers is the one thing I think can be said as special to the organization. Same to how we always have elite goalies when some teams struggle to find two years of a decent goalie (St. Louis, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, etc.)

I admire enthusiasm and expertise.. but I sure hope you're working from a list on this post.... :hyper:

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