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7 minutes ago, hab29RETIRED said:

What they should do is blow this shit show up - starting with management and start from scratch, just keeping the good prospects and a few veterans for guiding the young guys and being in a lot of new blood.   We don’t need a reset, we need a take down the friggin Berlin Wall rebuild.

 

The approach you proposed is forward looking and is definitely one way of moving forward. Some may agree, some may disagree but at least it's forward looking. I have not drunk any MB kool aid, I just think the last couple years he has taken the right approach by collecting draft picks and trying to build with young guys.  Prior to the last couple years I was not happy with MB.  

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17 minutes ago, Habs Fan in Edmonton said:

 

The approach you proposed is forward looking and is definitely one way of moving forward. Some may agree, some may disagree but at least it's forward looking. I have not drunk any MB kool aid, I just think the last couple years he has taken the right approach by collecting draft picks and trying to build with young guys.  Prior to the last couple years I was not happy with MB.  

And your happy with drafting and development is luck comment??? Any other job you’d get fired if you said a main component of your job comes down to getting lucky like at a roulette wheel.

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1 hour ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:


Shocking how low the bar has become for some Habs fans. A quarter century of mediocrity will do that to a fanbase 

Lower the bar you say, or it is just most of fanbase isnt as pessimistic and have more realistic expectations with 31 soon to be 32 watered down teams under a salary cap system?

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11 minutes ago, DON said:

Lower the bar you say, or it is just most of fanbase isnt as pessimistic and have more realistic expectations with 31 soon to be 32 watered down teams under a salary cap system?

And you’d rather use the other unsuccessful, poorly managed teams as the yardstick for judging the habs??

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29 minutes ago, Commandant said:

Its just being realistic.... there are no 1970s Habs style dynasties in the NHL anymore, so expecting them to replicate that is stupid and just going to cause you frustration when they don't. 

Who’s asking to replicate the 70’s habs???  We can aim to be like SJS were for past 15 years or the caps, hawks, pens, YBL,  blues, or the dreaded bruins. Or even the golden knights. Teams that have have consistently been good and usually are playoff teams, but have a few down years. We don’t need to be the Garth snow/milbury  islanders or  the burke leafs.

 

if we want to build through the draft, we need to get into a position where we actually accumulate elite players and do a better job overall on drafting and development.  I’m not satisfied in drafting a high quantity of grunts and saying we are doing a good job drafting NHL players.  The bruins, caps, SJS, have all found really good players in the late first round and later rounds.  We’ve really only found price, McDonough, Subban and Gallagher and Sergechev and we traded two of them before they even played for us.

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11 hours ago, hab29RETIRED said:

 McDonough

Are you joking?

Sure wish we had extended Larry Robinson and not let him go to LA and dealing away Doug Harvey, WTF were they thinking?

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Sjs made 1 cup final and 3 final fours.

 

In 10.years between 08 and 17, the habs missed the playoffs once and made yhe final four twice.

 

Is it really that much better?

 

Sj now is where we were in 2018

. Probably worse... cap hell... dont even have their own first round, top 10 pick.. and have one of the worst prospect groups in the league right now. 

 

San Jose has some.dark years ahead.

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51 minutes ago, Commandant said:

Sjs made 1 cup final and 3 final fours.

 

In 10.years between 08 and 17, the habs missed the playoffs once and made yhe final four twice.

 

Is it really that much better?

 

Sj now is where we were in 2018

. Probably worse... cap hell... dont even have their own first round, top 10 pick.. and have one of the worst prospect groups in the league right now. 

 

San Jose has some.dark years ahead.

Sure.  Just like the pens will in about her 3-4 year and like the hawks are now.    But the sharks had solid teams.  every dream is going to have ups and downs.  With the exception of 2-3 years, we’ve been a bubble team since 1995.  I’d rather be the team that has a few bad years and doesn’t have things go there way in the playoffs than a bubble team that only wins occasionally when there are no expectations
 

Are you gong to say that our last playoff team was as good as last year’s lightening team, just because they both lost in the first round??  The caps only have one cup and struggled in the playoffs for years and couldn’t get over the hump until they won 2 years ago, were those cap teams lousy???? There is a difference between having a strong team that is capable of doing damage and one that relies on luck, the team leaves and a hot goalie to win a playoff round.

 

when we went deep, we over achieved and rode our goalie, but were never considered a real contender.  SJS since getting Thornton has been consistently been. A good team and considered a contender.

 

id take Doug Wilson as GM over MB any day of the week.

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We won the division what 4 times in that stretch... we werent a bubble team from 2008-2017.  We were a solid team most of those years.

 

And no.. i dont compare us to tampa last season, cause that is a crazy team but i do compare us to san jose over the same period.

 

Good teams where they couldnt fix the fatal flaw.  For us it was at centre.  For San Jose their goaltending was never good enough.

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16 hours ago, Commandant said:

We won the division what 4 times in that stretch... we werent a bubble team from 2008-2017.  We were a solid team most of those years.

 

And no.. i dont compare us to tampa last season, cause that is a crazy team but i do compare us to san jose over the same period.

 

Good teams where they couldnt fix the fatal flaw.  For us it was at centre.  For San Jose their goaltending was never good enough.

I agree. If you look at the bulk of those years, the habs had some solid seasons and a few good playoff push.

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2008 - great regular season, disappointing playoff

2010 - bubble regular season team, Cinderella playoff

2014 - good team, great playoff ruined by Kreider's knee job

2015 - very good season, fell short in playoffs

 

And that's it, since about 1996. Other seasons involved - as Habs29 says - bubble teams with bubble results.

 

At no point in those 25 years have the Habs assembled anything resembling a sustained run of being a strong team. What we've had instead are blips.The closest we came to being the real deal was with the Gauthier-developed core from 2014 & 15.

 

The idea that we've been as good as San Jose over that span is a joke. This is not to deny that SJ must be very frustrating - yes, it-s aggravating when you have a very strong core for 10 years and fail to win. But the big difference is that *SJ had a very strong core.* The Habs have not. We never do.And we still don't.

 

And I'm not even going to address the ridiculous idea that I'm complaining because these aren't the Habs of the 1970s. 😩 All I ask is that the Montreal Canadiens build a team that ranks among the league's best for a sustained period. That's it. And it is a testament to the bottomed-out standards of the Habs fanbase during this Harold Ballard era that that is perceived as an unreasonable, impossible ask.

 

 

 

 

 

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And while the 2016 team missed the playoffs, they had a 9-1 start until Price got hurt. Arguably it would have been a playoff-bound team had Price stayed healthy.

 

2013-2017 really was a decent run with a solid playoff team. The wheels fell off the bus the following season.

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27 minutes ago, tomh009 said:

And while the 2016 team missed the playoffs, they had a 9-1 start until Price got hurt. Arguably it would have been a playoff-bound team had Price stayed healthy.

 

2013-2017 really was a decent run with a solid playoff team. The wheels fell off the bus the following season.

 

2016 was a disaster, and 2017 became a near-disaster such that Therrien was fired and CJ managed to stabilize a wildly wobbling ship just enough to sink in the first round. Sorry, not buying it.

 

2013 was at least a promising season, although no one was under any delusion that they were contenders. But if it makes people feel better to argue that we've had five rather than four quality seasons since 1996, be my guest.

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San Jose is in the category of the Sedin Canucks or the Alfie Sens that were legitimate juggernauts over a decade plus that became playoff flameouts.  The Caps were in that category as well until they slayed the dragon.  The Habs have never been near that.  We were mostly a bubble team, with a few years that were almost elite but never truly a top contender (one look at Pleks-Desharnais as our top C's was enough for most people).  

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24 minutes ago, Neech said:

San Jose is in the category of the Sedin Canucks or the Alfie Sens that were legitimate juggernauts over a decade plus that became playoff flameouts.  The Caps were in that category as well until they slayed the dragon.  The Habs have never been near that.  We were mostly a bubble team, with a few years that were almost elite but never truly a top contender (one look at Pleks-Desharnais as our top C's was enough for most people).  

 

One look at nabokov/Niemi/jones as the starting goalie was enough for me with San Jose.

 

Both were good teams with a major flaw the gm never adequately addressed.

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48 minutes ago, Neech said:

San Jose is in the category of the Sedin Canucks or the Alfie Sens that were legitimate juggernauts over a decade plus that became playoff flameouts.  The Caps were in that category as well until they slayed the dragon.  The Habs have never been near that.  We were mostly a bubble team, with a few years that were almost elite but never truly a top contender (one look at Pleks-Desharnais as our top C's was enough for most people).  

 

Sadly, you're correct. Well said.

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48 minutes ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

2016 was a disaster, and 2017 became a near-disaster such that Therrien was fired and CJ managed to stabilize a wildly wobbling ship just enough to sink in the first round. Sorry, not buying it.

 

2013 was at least a promising season, although no one was under any delusion that they were contenders. But if it makes people feel better to argue that we've had five rather than four quality seasons since 1996, be my guest.

 

I didn't say they were contenders to win the Cup. But neither were they a consistent bubble team -- they would have made playoffs for each of the five years but for Price's injury.

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1 hour ago, tomh009 said:

And while the 2016 team missed the playoffs, they had a 9-1 start until Price got hurt. Arguably it would have been a playoff-bound team had Price stayed healthy.

 

2013-2017 really was a decent run with a solid playoff team. The wheels fell off the bus the following season.

Yeah price got hurt and what did MB do, get a backup? No decided to do nothing and send the message to the players that he gave up for the year.

 

19 minutes ago, tomh009 said:

 

I didn't say they were contenders to win the Cup. But neither were they a consistent bubble team -- they would have made playoffs for each of the five years but for Price's injury.

Rangers lost lundquist, but always got a decent backup- unlike MB who always scrapes the junkyard for the cheapest (read worst) goalie available 

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1 hour ago, Commandant said:

 

One look at nabokov/Niemi/jones as the starting goalie was enough for me with San Jose.

 

Both were good teams with a major flaw the gm never adequately addressed.

 

The Sharks have twice as many deep runs in the playoffs, along with a Presidents Trophy and a finals appearance, and had a murderers' row of forwards that eventually aged out of their prime.  We're closer in achievement and league-wide profile over this period to teams like Philly or the Rangers that had a deep run or two, along with a bottom-out or two, but are an afterthought when considering the era in the NHL.  And those teams actually made the finals.

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1 hour ago, Neech said:

 

The Sharks have twice as many deep runs in the playoffs, along with a Presidents Trophy and a finals appearance, and had a murderers' row of forwards that eventually aged out of their prime.  We're closer in achievement and league-wide profile over this period to teams like Philly or the Rangers that had a deep run or two, along with a bottom-out or two, but are an afterthought when considering the era in the NHL.  And those teams actually made the finals.

How many cups has San Jose won, i cant remember? :devil:

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On 2/29/2020 at 1:00 PM, Neech said:

San Jose is in the category of the Sedin Canucks or the Alfie Sens that were legitimate juggernauts over a decade plus that became playoff flameouts.  The Caps were in that category as well until they slayed the dragon.  The Habs have never been near that.  We were mostly a bubble team, with a few years that were almost elite but never truly a top contender (one look at Pleks-Desharnais as our top C's was enough for most people).  

 

 

While I agree with your assessment, I will say, the difference between an almost Elite team and and Elite team is very nominal. Once in the playoffs, all hell can break loose with who catches fire, who gets hurt, what goalie suddenly becomes superman, all factors that blur the line between almost elite and elite (Vegas 17-18 vs Western Elites as an example). The fact that we we're in either of those groups for a period of time meant that we did have a chance to breakthrough and reach a final under the right circumstances. Krieder taking out Price was the circumstance we couldn't afford that year, we were well on our way to a cup final that year and from there, who knows.

 

 

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22 minutes ago, Link67 said:

 

 

While I agree with your assessment, I will say, the difference between an almost Elite team and and Elite team is very nominal. Once in the playoffs, all hell can break loose with who catches fire, who gets hurt, what goalie suddenly becomes superman, all factors that blur the line between almost elite and elite (Vegas 17-18 vs Western Elites as an example). The fact that we we're in either of those groups for a period of time meant that we did have a chance to breakthrough and reach a final under the right circumstances. Krieder taking out Price was the circumstance we couldn't afford that year, we were well on our way to a cup final that year and from there, who knows.

 

 

There’s a difference between a team that has a blip of good seasons sandwiched between largely bubble to really bad teams and a teams that have a prolonged string of good seasons with a blob of bad seasons.  We haven’t had that type of team since our last cup win.

 

im not even factoring actually winning a cup, I’m just looking at whether the teams were considered legitimate cup contenders.  Even without the cup win, I’d take the capitals consistently good teams, or the sedin/naslund canucks, the l alferdsson sens. And the Thornton Sharks over the largely crap bubble teams we’ve had for 25 years, where we didn’t have any 4 or 5!year extended run as being considered a legitimate top team.  Had a few surprise good regular seasons or playoffs, but that’s it.

 

even the blues despite going from last to winning the cup, were actually considered legitimate contenders, but took time to gel and finally got a goalie to take them over the hump.  

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Winning the division multiple times in a stretch where they also went to.the final 4 twice is a blip.

 

But the blues sneaking into the playoffs after missing the playoffs the previous season is the kind of true contention to strive for?  Or the sharks making one cup final and constantly failing in the playoffs.  The preds making one cup final out of 8th spot.  One other final four and other years failing to win a round?

 

Guess thats what you get when you look at the habs with glasses that suggest everything they do is wrong... 

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