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A Plan for the Remainder of the Season, including the Deadline


Commandant

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The same can be said for any position. People refer to the fact that we need a center and while it’s true, they also refer to the fact that we have an abundance of wingers. The truth is, however, we have not one winger near Pacioretty’s goal scoring capability. Perhaps Galchenyuk has the potential, but I won’t even get into the fact that he has that same potential at center. 

 

I would be more inclined to trade away the Gallaghers, Byrons, Lehkonens, Hudons, etc. to fill our needs. We keep making trades that fill one hole and create another and this would be another one of those circumstances. Our team needs goal scoring, regardless of position, and most of the players in the league are playmakers. People may argue that those other players don’t hold as much value, but all 4 of them have 20 goal scoring potential. Package 2 of them together,

and the other team is getting 40 goals, instead of Pacioretty’s 30-35. As for the age thing, I don’t see Pacioretty as old. He’s long been known as Wolverine and athletes are performing longer than ever.

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If you look at Toronto they have like six guys capable of playing top six centre throughout forward: Matthews, Marner, Nylander, Marleau, Bozak, and Kadri. It's a position of strength for them and they can trade a centre for a defenceman and not feel like they created a hole in the roster. That's why you draft the best player possible. If you get too heavy in one area you can move somebody to a team weak in that area and balance yourself out.

 

Also this upcoming draft is weak at centre unlike 2019 and 2020 so if Montreal wants a centre for the future they need high picks in those drafts.

 

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18 hours ago, Commandant said:

Sam Steel, another prospect, a first round pick. 

 

Robert Thomas, Vince Dunn, a 2nd round pick. 

 

I find it very, but very unlikely that a GM that got his #1 dman  4 years older and traded away so many 2nd rounders for guys like Shaw will trade away Patches for anyting less than an actual top 6 forward or top 2 dman.

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15 hours ago, JoeLassister said:

I find it very, but very unlikely that a GM that got his #1 dman  4 years older and traded away so many 2nd rounders for guys like Shaw will trade away Patches for anyting less than an actual top 6 forward or top 2 dman.

Bergevin shouldn't be making any flipping trades. He had his shot, he missed it

 

You know the saying fool me once shame on you, fool my twice shame on me..... Beregvin cannot get a second go around at building this team. It's over, move on. 

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1 hour ago, Habopotamus said:

Bergevin shouldn't be making any flipping trades. He had his shot, he missed it

 

You know the saying fool me once shame on you, fool my twice shame on me..... Beregvin cannot get a second go around at building this team. It's over, move on. 

You would feel better with McGuire or Roy in charge (Other than that, is only Brisbois, who I don't even think interviewed last time, maybe he wants no part of a Quebec team?)?

I get feeling Bergevin will still be making deadline and off season deals.

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36 minutes ago, DON said:

You would feel better with McGuire or Roy in charge (Other than that, is only Brisbois, who I don't even think interviewed last time, maybe he wants no part of a Quebec team?)?

I get feeling Bergevin will still be making deadline and off season deals.

 

The notion that only clowns (Macguire or Roy) can be hired to replace Mr Magoo is ridiculous. How come other teams in need of GMs don't have such a preposterous imaginary short-list? This is the greatest damned franchise in the history of the game and there is absolutely no reason to settle for those dummies.

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I've said forever that McGuire was an exceptionally worse GM pick than Bergevin. We had to pick a coach and GM at a bad time. Roy? Who knows, but that's not a good thing. If you go with a new GM, make it someone with incredible potential like Fenton.

 

The real problem is that Molson doesn't have the right people around him to tell him what is right or wrong so everything Bergevin has told him has sounded right. And it will continue to be that way until Molson trusts the team with a real president.

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56 minutes ago, Machine of Loving Grace said:

I've said forever that McGuire was an exceptionally worse GM pick than Bergevin. We had to pick a coach and GM at a bad time. Roy? Who knows, but that's not a good thing. If you go with a new GM, make it someone with incredible potential like Fenton.

 

The real problem is that Molson doesn't have the right people around him to tell him what is right or wrong so everything Bergevin has told him has sounded right. And it will continue to be that way until Molson trusts the team with a real president.

 

Roy was apparently a huge decider in the disastrous O'Reilly trade.  There is very little to suggest that he knows what he is doing as GM. Worse, he is clearly a control freak who is very hard to work with, and tends to want to accrue total power (coach + GM) to himself. There is a reason we don't see coach-GMs anymore. Things have gotten too professionalized and complex for that to be a viable model. I am convinced that if we hire Roy, we will be a circus sideshow for as long as he remains; it'd be the final nail in the coffin of any hope for Habs fans.

 

Macguire has parlayed a brief and mediocre coaching career into some illusion that he is a hockey mastermind. I don't mind him as a broadcaster, but he's like Don Cherry: that's where he should stay.
 

Both are PT Barnum choices rather than choices that befit a serious hockey team.

 

You may well be correct about an independent president bringing significant added value. But given that presidents are often not hockey men, it's not clear why such a figure would know how to pick a GM any better than Molson/Savard did.  Frankly, I think Bergevin was a sensible choice at the time: a guy with extensive experience at various levels in a championship organization, who had extensive contacts and a background in player development. He seemed to have the "incredible potential" you're talking about. Only gradually did his complete ineptitude reveal itself. Any GM hiring comes with some risk attached; remember that even Bob Gainey, who had about as perfect a c.v. as you could ask for, ultimately delivered merely competent rather than championship-calibre general managing. All you can do is fire the proven failures (Bergevin) and avoid obvious potential disasters (Roy), while picking someone that gives you every reason to believe can be successful.

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1 hour ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

 

The notion that only clowns (Macguire or Roy) can be hired to replace Mr Magoo is ridiculous. How come other teams in need of GMs don't have such a preposterous imaginary short-list? Retorical I assume. This is the greatest damned franchise in the history of the game and there is absolutely no reason to settle for those dummies. You damn well know the reasons for this, nothing has changed in over 100 years.

All the great Hab GMs were born in Montreal and Quebecers still cling to that. But, is not news and is what it is, we can rant about how it is so bad, but the locals don't care...a local, a bi-lingual ex-player or no one will run this team, period!

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The gm is either a hockey guy and he becomes the defacto gm like joe sakic in colorado... who is president.  Sherman is the gm but hes just an underling.

 

Or the pres remains molson and the gm is the head hockey guy and the underlings are assistant gms.

 

Name them what you want.  Other teams name their head guy president to justify how much they pay him.  But it changes nothing really.

 

Whether its the president who is ultimately responsible to the owner or gm reponsible to a pres... its just semantics.

 

Get the right people.  Dont worry about titles.

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7 hours ago, Machine of Loving Grace said:

The real problem is that Molson doesn't have the right people around him to tell him what is right or wrong so everything Bergevin has told him has sounded right. And it will continue to be that way until Molson trusts the team with a real president.

 

 

There is another option to Molson hiring a new team president.  If he wants to maintain that title, go get a senior advisor that has been around the game for a long time that can offer his input when needed on important moves but not be involved in the day-to-day operations, similar to what Scotty Bowman is doing in Chicago or Bob Gainey in St. Louis (I thought he was still in Dallas but apparently he has been with the Blues since 2014).  That senior advisor would offer up advice to Bergevin (or a new GM if a change is made) but be more independent than the AGMs or scouts that Bergevin has brought in himself.  Doing something like that may be all that's needed if Molson insists on keeping the president title.

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9 hours ago, DON said:

You would feel better with McGuire or Roy in charge (Other than that, is only Brisbois, who I don't even think interviewed last time, maybe he wants no part of a Quebec team?)?

I get feeling Bergevin will still be making deadline and off season deals.

I hate McGuire with a passion and while I loved Roy the goalie, I don’t ever want to see him in a management position with Montreal.  Having said that, sadly, yes I would take either of those two train wrecks than the plane crash we have as our current GM.  Under Molson I also think that’s about the best we can hope for unless he suddenly grows a pair.

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8 minutes ago, hab29RETIRED said:

I hate McGuire with a passion and while I loved Roy the goalie, I don’t ever want to see him in a management position with Montreal.  Having said that, sadly, yes I would take either of those two train wrecks than the plane crash we have as our current GM.  Under Molson I also think that’s about the best we can hope for unless he suddenly grows a pair.

 

The thing with McGuire is he would be bad faster. He has failed at pretty much every level except a protected assistant coach in Pittsburgh. Scotty Bowman used to talk so high of him but never once called him to be an assistant coach in Detroit. That reputation got him the job in Hartford and he tanked hard. One of the worst coaches in NHL history. He got a job in Ottawa and that fizzled fast too. Since then he's had nothing. Worst of all, he had a braindead great opportunity at a GM job. Ray Shero had him in his wedding and offered him an assistant GM job in Pittsburgh back around 2005. He turned it down! He could have taken advantage of the Crosby/Malkin Penguins but said it wasn't good enough for him. And now he goes job offer to job offer proving absolutely nothing and just hoping the fact people like him will get him a job.

 

I have no doubt in my mind McGuire would be worse than Bergevin, but I'd probably bring him in just because I know that in two years there would be nothing left of the team and they'd have no choice but to rebuild from scratch.

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8 minutes ago, Machine of Loving Grace said:

 

The thing with McGuire is he would be bad faster. He has failed at pretty much every level except a protected assistant coach in Pittsburgh. Scotty Bowman used to talk so high of him but never once called him to be an assistant coach in Detroit. That reputation got him the job in Hartford and he tanked hard. One of the worst coaches in NHL history. He got a job in Ottawa and that fizzled fast too. Since then he's had nothing. Worst of all, he had a braindead great opportunity at a GM job. Ray Shero had him in his wedding and offered him an assistant GM job in Pittsburgh back around 2005. He turned it down! He could have taken advantage of the Crosby/Malkin Penguins but said it wasn't good enough for him. And now he goes job offer to job offer proving absolutely nothing and just hoping the fact people like him will get him a job.

 

I have no doubt in my mind McGuire would be worse than Bergevin, but I'd probably bring him in just because I know that in two years there would be nothing left of the team and they'd have no choice but to rebuild from scratch.

Like I said I hate McGuire.  But he would have been fired 3 years ago.  MB, I don’t get it??? Why does Molson have such a hard on for a guy who came out swing at strikes with most of his intitial moves (MT hiring, not hiring Robinson, Subban contract, Briere contract),

 -  all of which I was critical at the time - so it’s not like I’m being critical now that they have been proven mistakes.  But at the time it was like hab29 is always negative. What has this management team done that warranted optimism, by any rational fan??

 

those that were so supportive of the Subban trade, like MT, or thought the analytics showed that Julien is a great coach,  how do you like where we are at now??

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14 hours ago, hab29RETIRED said:

Like I said I hate McGuire.  But he would have been fired 3 years ago.  MB, I don’t get it??? Why does Molson have such a hard on for a guy who came out swing at strikes with most of his intitial moves (MT hiring, not hiring Robinson, Subban contract, Briere contract),

 -  all of which I was critical at the time - so it’s not like I’m being critical now that they have been proven mistakes.  But at the time it was like hab29 is always negative. What has this management team done that warranted optimism, by any rational fan??

 

those that were so supportive of the Subban trade, like MT, or thought the analytics showed that Julien is a great coach,  how do you like where we are at now??

I think Molson is scared of Bergevin 

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16 hours ago, Machine of Loving Grace said:

 

The thing with McGuire is he would be bad faster. He has failed at pretty much every level except a protected assistant coach in Pittsburgh. Scotty Bowman used to talk so high of him but never once called him to be an assistant coach in Detroit. That reputation got him the job in Hartford and he tanked hard. One of the worst coaches in NHL history. He got a job in Ottawa and that fizzled fast too. Since then he's had nothing. Worst of all, he had a braindead great opportunity at a GM job. Ray Shero had him in his wedding and offered him an assistant GM job in Pittsburgh back around 2005. He turned it down! He could have taken advantage of the Crosby/Malkin Penguins but said it wasn't good enough for him. And now he goes job offer to job offer proving absolutely nothing and just hoping the fact people like him will get him a job.

 

I have no doubt in my mind McGuire would be worse than Bergevin, but I'd probably bring him in just because I know that in two years there would be nothing left of the team and they'd have no choice but to rebuild from scratch.

 

https://www.tsn.ca/radio/montreal-690/mcguire-habs-players-know-how-bad-they-are-1.984662

 

McGuire's take on Habs.

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18 minutes ago, DON said:

 

Players on bad teams always know they are on bad teams. This is one reason why, game after game, the Habs deflate like a balloon once the other team gets a lead. They are well aware that they are not good enough to overcome obstacles. This is a constant with bad teams: they frequently come out, play their system, work hard, then fail to get rewarded, because they suck. Slowly the better team takes over. The bad team recognizes what is happening and says to itself, "here we go again..." And hope is lost.

 

I hate all the discourse around the Byron hit. The Habs' problem is not that they're not manly enough. It's that they're not talented enough. We've made enough mistakes trying to acquire "more character." We need to acquire more talent.

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2 hours ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

I hate all the discourse around the Byron hit. The Habs' problem is not that they're not manly enough. It's that they're not talented enough. We've made enough mistakes trying to acquire "more character." We need to acquire more talent.

Agree are lacking highly skill players, but still a sad sign no one did ANYTHING and what a dangerous play by the Blues player, does deserve a suspension.

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Size obsession will never go away in Montreal. It's been a focus ever since the Canadiens moved away from the feisty 80s team with Nilan, Corson, Lemieux, Chelios, and others. It was clear that Savard tried to draft toughness in the 90s, as did Houle. The only good first round draft pick for Montreal in the 90s was the only one under 6" in Koivu. Funny that.

 

The late 90s was proof of what happens when you focus on size over skill. You get Trevor Linden and Dainus Zubrus leading the worst Habs squad of all time. Though this one with Shea Weber and Karl Alzner is looking mighty familiar.

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2 minutes ago, huzer said:

So Gainey's smurf Habs rebuild was forward thinking? It was just 10 or so years too early.

 

The Cardiac kids drove analysts through fits with how well they played because it didn't make sense. People forget 2002 and 2004, where the idea of the Habs beating the Bruins was utterly ridiculous. How could Koivu match against Jumbo Joe Thornton?

 

Don't lose Beauchemin, add Higgins to get Hossa as a rental in 07-08, trade for a veteran backup to play with Price that's better than Huet? Eh who knows. 

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3 hours ago, huzer said:

So Gainey's smurf Habs rebuild was forward thinking? It was just 10 or so years too early.

 

Actually, you can argue precisely this! Gainey anticipated the NHL's turn to speed and mobility. ;) I never had a problem with the Smurfs anyway. Their problem wasn't really size, they just weren't good enough, especially after Gomez's game completely collapsed between 2010 and 2011.

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5 hours ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

 

Actually, you can argue precisely this! Gainey anticipated the NHL's turn to speed and mobility. ;) I never had a problem with the Smurfs anyway. Their problem wasn't really size, they just weren't good enough, especially after Gomez's game completely collapsed between 2010 and 2011.

 

If only that team added one more offensive threat... Or maybe just Chara not splattering Pacioretty. Maybe we would have got Montreal versus Vancouver in 2011. Maybe. Who knows.

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