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Where are they now? News on past Habs prospects and players


alfredoh2009

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1 hour ago, hab29RETIRED said:

I don’t have an issue with premature signings - I prefer them.

The issue I have is with term and/or $.  
 

I think with Price, you had to sign him, or trade him. I don’t buy into the argument in waiting - because his cost would have gone down - if you knew he was going to decline, or get regularly injured you don’t sign him. The issue I do have is giving him term and $. You either sign him for that $10.5m at a lower term - 4 to 5 year max, or you sign him for less.  I think the Lundquist comparable should have been a caution, rather than a reason to sign him for that kind of money and term. I just don’t think you can sign a goalie for that kind of term with that high of a cap hit - despite him being the team MVP.  Not at that age.  Vasilevskiy was signed at a much younger age.
 

Byron - too much money, and term. 
 

Gally - way too much term for a guy with his style/injury history. $ would have been great for a 3-4 year deal. In a league growing younger with Ovechkin as one of the few outliers, you can’t give that type of money AND term. Having said that I do think k he is tradable, because he fits the “type” that GM’s like giving a shot to - regardless of whether they are still worth the cap hit.

 

Armia, - for what he brings, grossly overpaid. I would have preferred cutting hi loose, and signing Lekhonan long term.

 

petry - I thought it was probably one year too many, but a deal that probably had to be made to keep him. I he issue is that he hasn’t just declined over the life of the contract, he’s literally fallen off a cliff at the start. Highlights the dangers of paying too much for an old player in a league wheee the top 3 of the top 4 dman are between 21-24.

 

savard - overpaid for what he brings, what the team needed (he’s basically a bottom pairing dman), and too much term for a guy on the decline.

 

Anderson  - too much $ and term given the guys production and injury history.

 

Drouin - too much term and $ given what he had shown to date.

 

Hoffman - really should have only given him a 1 year deal.

 

On the flip side, despite his lousy year, I liked the Taffoli signing, as well as locking up Suzuki.

 

 

 

 

You just assume that these players and their agents are willing to sign deals for less than max term.   

 

 

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20 minutes ago, Commandant said:

You just assume that these players and their agents are willing to sign deals for less than max term.   

They will always press for the longest term ... but in some cases GMs have to decide what the maximum acceptable term will be (in some cases it is the max, in others much less), even if it may mean losing players, or possibly trading players when we are talking about extensions ... but it is part of  responsible cap management, which is now a huge part of a GM's responsibilities.

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14 minutes ago, GHT120 said:

They will always press for the longest term ... but in some cases GMs have to decide what the maximum acceptable term will be (in some cases it is the max, in others much less), even if it may mean losing players, or possibly trading players when we are talking about extensions ... but it is part of  responsible cap management, which is now a huge part of a GM's responsibilities.

 

In cases like Carey Price, you weren't getting a 4 year deal. 

 

He would easily get 7 on the open market at the time.

 

And you are never going to get full value trading him as a rental.

 

All these, I would have done x as GM are both.... 1) seen with hindsight, 2) we don't even know if it was possible and it likely wasn't possible to give a 4 year deal.

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56 minutes ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

 

Price: you don't get superstars for "less money or less term." We were always destined to sign him to a colossal, ultra long-term deal with a NMC. No point in saying "well, the Lundquist deal was a mistake, so you're not getting that, buddy." That was a more than reasonable comparable from the player's perspective. No reason on earth why Price should have settled for less than he got.

 

Same with Gally. This was a deal that he would have received as a UFA. It's another case where there was simply no reason for the player to settle for anything less. 

 

What you're really decrying is that these players didn't take a "hometown discount." That's right, they didn't. No reason at all why they should have done.

 

On the others, I think you have a stronger case - although how much stronger varies by player. 

You have to take the Yzerman type approach and say this is what i'm willing to pay, and not budge. If the player doesn't want to sign, you move them. Stamkos was the captain in TBL, but with his injury history, and knowing what else was needed to win, Yzerman took a stand. To get players to take a home town discount (one who want to win), two things are needed. First of all the player has to want to have a build a culture where so that the players have a  preference to stay with the franchise, secondly, the player has to value wining, over just getting paid. In that case you you have to prove to them, that that saved cap space is required to build a strong contender. Third, the city needs to be appealing to the player and/or to their family. Of course, having a tax advantage that non-State tax franchises in the USA helps.

 

Gallaghar is absolutely a player that most teams would overpay for. But given his injury history, if you have to give him term and dollars, you create the bidding war and move him.

 

In a cap system, you have to look at positionally what is needed at the key positions, and how much you can spend.  Paying Price $10.5m didn't matter much to the habs when the team sucked anyways, but he is all you got for your chance to win. But I don't think you can build a perennial contender team, if you are paying $10.5M to your star goalie, and also have to spend another $2M to $3.5M on a backup as well.  The issue that compounds the problem in Montreal, is that not only are you paying $13M for goaltending, you are also paying around $15-$25M for bottom pairing Dmen, and bottom bottom 6 forwards (depending on how your definition of the bottom pairing and bottom 6. That's the same issue as the Oilers. They have two of the top 4 players in the world, but have ruined things by paying depth guys like middle pairing dmen, or top 6 forwards.

 

On the other hand, you can't argue how much the Leafs are paying their top guys, but they messed up by not using the system and overpaid both Nylander and Marner, based on what they had done to date - and didn't even get maximum term. They also didn't get maximum term with Matthews (who is signed at the right dollar value, but unlike McDavid and Draisatl, also is not signed for maximum term. That is just dumb.

 

 

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And we have complained endlessly about the Habs not signing free agents. You overpay even more for those: we didn't even get Perry signed for a "fair" deal (really a discount). We had to bid high to get Hoffman and Toffoli.

 

Cap management is important. But so is getting good players signed. Somehow a GM has to find a balance between the two.

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16 minutes ago, GHT120 said:

They will always press for the longest term ... but in some cases GMs have to decide what the maximum acceptable term will be (in some cases it is the max, in others much less), even if it may mean losing players, or possibly trading players when we are talking about extensions ... but it is part of  responsible cap management, which is now a huge part of a GM's responsibilities.

 

True, proper cap management is critical. Negotiating contracts is not easy. Players are successful in the NHL because they are competitive, they are no less competitive when negotiating contracts.  It's tough for a GM knowing when to say no especially when dealing with a player who has always given 100% and is loyal like a Brendan Gallagher. 

 

GM's want to win like everyone else so maybe they don't mind giving that extra year to get the player to sign  because they figure they won't be around in 5 or 6 years anyway. Some other GM will inherit the contract.

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21 minutes ago, GHT120 said:

They will always press for the longest term ... but in some cases GMs have to decide what the maximum acceptable term will be (in some cases it is the max, in others much less), even if it may mean losing players, or possibly trading players when we are talking about extensions ... but it is part of  responsible cap management, which is now a huge part of a GM's responsibilities.

100% agree. Issue is if you are just trying to muddle along, and take the anything can happen approach, you don't have good players, so you sign them as legit top line/top pairing men, even though they are only in that role on your team, because the team sucks.

 

Patrice Brisebois, was a serviceable middle pairing men. But on Montreal he was the top pairing dmen, and got paid like that. You simply can't afford to do that in a cap system, because your team will always suck because of the money being spent on average players.

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1 minute ago, tomh009 said:

And we have complained endlessly about the Habs not signing free agents. You overpay even more for those: we didn't even get Perry signed for a "fair" deal (really a discount). We had to bid high to get Hoffman and Toffoli.

 

Cap management is important. But so is getting good players signed. Somehow a GM has to find a balance between the two.

I would have preferred and said it at the time - would much rather have signed Perry, than Hoffman. There is a reason, Hoffman is packing every couple of years.I thought the Taffoli contract was actually a reasonable one. 

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3 minutes ago, hab29RETIRED said:

You have to take the Yzerman type approach and say this is what i'm willing to pay, and not budge. If the player doesn't want to sign, you move them. Stamkos was the captain in TBL, but with his injury history, and knowing what else was needed to win, Yzerman took a stand. To get players to take a home town discount (one who want to win), two things are needed. First of all the player has to want to have a build a culture where so that the players have a  preference to stay with the franchise, secondly, the player has to value wining, over just getting paid. In that case you you have to prove to them, that that saved cap space is required to build a strong contender. Third, the city needs to be appealing to the player and/or to their family. Of course, having a tax advantage that non-State tax franchises in the USA helps.

 

Gallaghar is absolutely a player that most teams would overpay for. But given his injury history, if you have to give him term and dollars, you create the bidding war and move him.

 

In a cap system, you have to look at positionally what is needed at the key positions, and how much you can spend.  Paying Price $10.5m didn't matter much to the habs when the team sucked anyways, but he is all you got for your chance to win. But I don't think you can build a perennial contender team, if you are paying $10.5M to your star goalie, and also have to spend another $2M to $3.5M on a backup as well.  The issue that compounds the problem in Montreal, is that not only are you paying $13M for goaltending, you are also paying around $15-$25M for bottom pairing Dmen, and bottom bottom 6 forwards (depending on how your definition of the bottom pairing and bottom 6. That's the same issue as the Oilers. They have two of the top 4 players in the world, but have ruined things by paying depth guys like middle pairing dmen, or top 6 forwards.

 

On the other hand, you can't argue how much the Leafs are paying their top guys, but they messed up by not using the system and overpaid both Nylander and Marner, based on what they had done to date - and didn't even get maximum term. They also didn't get maximum term with Matthews (who is signed at the right dollar value, but unlike McDavid and Draisatl, also is not signed for maximum term. That is just dumb.

 

 

 

Being in a state with no income tax where 8.5 million is equivalent to over 10 million in Toronto/Montreal is why Yzerman was able to take that stand.... you keep ignoring these things.

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13 minutes ago, Commandant said:

In cases like Carey Price, you weren't getting a 4 year deal. 

 

He would easily get 7 on the open market at the time.

 

And you are never going to get full value trading him as a rental.

 

All these, I would have done x as GM are both.... 1) seen with hindsight, 2) we don't even know if it was possible and it likely wasn't possible to give a 4 year deal.

Our opinion differs ... not that Price would have signed for 4 years, you are correct that someone would have given him 7 years, but whether locking him up for 8 years at $10.5M AAV on the cap was better for the team than the return they could have gotten trading him in July 2017, before the last year of his previous contract.

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2 minutes ago, Commandant said:

 

Being in a state with no income tax where 8.5 million is equivalent to over 10 million in Toronto/Montreal is why Yzerman was able to take that stand.... you keep ignoring these things.

No. I said that it helps to be in no state-tax city. Other teams with no state tax have still paid comparatively the same offers as teams that have state taxes to players. Not every GM in Yzerman’s situation has taken that stand, whether it is on term or Salary, you need to look at how much you can spend and put together a legit winner.

 

if you are going to pay that money to Price, you have to be smart enough not to flush money away on depth guys like Alzner, Savard, Byron, or Armia. You also don’t pay as much as we did for Anderson.  Byron was a value player when we got him, but should have been moved when he mo longer was going to continue to be so.

 

 

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6 minutes ago, Commandant said:

Being in a state with no income tax where 8.5 million is equivalent to over 10 million in Toronto/Montreal is why Yzerman was able to take that stand.... you keep ignoring these things.

 

100% correct ... it is an unfair advantage that the NHL should, but never will, do something about.

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Just now, GHT120 said:

Our opinion differs ... not that Price would have signed for 4 years, you are correct that someone would have given him 7 years, but whether locking him up for 8 years at $10.5M AAV on the cap was better for the team than the return they could have gotten trading him in July 2017, before the last year of his previous contract.

100% agree.  The Lundquist contract should have been a warning sign, of the risk of locking him up at that age. 

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Lundqvist took his team to a cup final while under that contract. 

 

Carey Price did the same.

 

I'm fine with taking a chance to win a cup instead of just letting players go all the time and staying mediocre for years. 

 

yeah, maybe the term means you eventually have to rebuild, but its better to shoot your shot and then rebuild afterwards, rather than letting elite players go and then trying to win with mediocre replacements all the time.

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You can take the Yzerman approach when you have stellar prospects coming up or other elite players on the roster. The Lightning had shown they could have huge success even when Stamkos was injured. They had a top-5 offensive player in Kucherov. 

 

The Habs were in a position where Price was the franchise. They had no choice but to pay up. Zero.

 

Gallagher they could at least have traded away without destroying all hope of being competitive within the foreseeable future. I think 90% of teams would have signed him to the deal we did, however.

 

In an ideal world, we would have a great talent pipeline such that we can allow guys like Gally - who are admirable, but not franchise players - to be dealt away when they get too expensive. But as we know, under Bergevin the talent pipeline was a complete farce, so that really was not an option. If you take that approach in the absence of an elite talent pipeline or a surfeit of talent on your roster, all you are doing is dooming yourself to never, ever having any chance to win.

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1 minute ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

You can take the Yzerman approach when you have stellar prospects coming up or other elite players on the roster. The Lightning had shown they could have huge success even when Stamkos was injured. They had a top-5 offensive player in Kucherov. 

 

The Habs were in a position where Price was the franchise. They had no choice but to pay up. Zero.

 

Gallagher they could at least have traded away without destroying all hope of being competitive within the foreseeable future. I think 90% of teams would have signed him to the deal we did, however.

 

In an ideal world, we would have a great talent pipeline such that we can allow guys like Gally - who are admirable, but not franchise players - to be dealt away when they get too expensive. But as we know, under Bergevin the talent pipeline was a complete farce, so that really was not an option.

 

Keep your elite players even if you sign them a couple years past their prime.  Take your shot at the cup and then rebuild. 

 

I'd rather do that then stay in the playoff bubble by moving elite players for younger but not as good players, rather than pay them.

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19 minutes ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

In an ideal world, we would have a great talent pipeline such that we can allow guys like Gally - who are admirable, but not franchise players - to be dealt away when they get too expensive. But as we know, under Bergevin the talent pipeline was a complete farce, so that really was not an option.

Very, very few teams have such pipelines. They either sign their top players, cost what it may, or let them go when the cap space doesn't allow them to sign those players. This problem is not specific to the Habs.

 

And as for the prospect pipeline, almost all analysts in the past two or three years have ranked the Habs' prospect system in the top ten in the league, and at times in the top five. I refuse to believe that this system has all of a sudden turned into a total disaster, even if we have few top-line-potential players in Laval (or who would be in Laval in a normal season) at the moment.

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31 minutes ago, hab29RETIRED said:

I would have preferred and said it at the time - would much rather have signed Perry, than Hoffman. There is a reason, Hoffman is packing every couple of years.I thought the Taffoli contract was actually a reasonable one. 

 

I think there was almost zero chance of Perry signing here. I think he had an inkling of what was happening here (ie no Shea Weber) and wanted to be on a team that had a chance to win a cup. He would have been very unhappy here this year and would have been a trade deadline candidate. He would have been harder to trade at the deadline if he had any term. 

 

I think everyone would agree that Toffoli was an excellent signing (28 goals in 52 games is good value for 4.5M).  Too early to tell for Hoffman. 

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4 hours ago, DON said:

Why?

Poor pro-scouting/evaluation? Bit of bad luck tossed in?

 

Would you peg his Hab signings overall; poor-average-above average?

 

Some bad luck but we also knew when Price, Gallagher, and Petry signed that the end years weren't going to be pretty.

 

At the beginning of his tenure, Bergevin was really good at contract management.  It was a big strength of his.  But after the Price extension, there weren't a lot of bargains, especially on his re-signings.  That isn't helping the current roster as a result.

 

4 hours ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

What were those "premature" extensions? Price, Gally, Petry (?)...who else?

 

Those three and Byron were the ones that came to mind.  Handing Byron 4 x $3.4M a year before he was set to be a UFA was utter lunacy.  He signed him at the highest point of his value which wasn't smart either.

 

I'd also toss Drouin in that situation after giving him the six-year deal before even seeing how he'd fit in with the team.  That's what bridge deals are for but instead, he went above-market early hoping for value late, an unnecessary risk that backfired.

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The Byron contract was folly. 

 

If we’re tallying up contract misses, we should also include the Weber deal - a cataclysmically bad contract which we were very lucky to get out from under, via the horrible expediency of Weber’s injuries. Yet MB seemed just happy as a clam to add that disastrous contract to the mix. That was in order to get out from another bad contract he maneuvered himself into by stupidly hard balling Subban on the bridge deal.

 

One thing about Bergevin is that he seems not to have taken the problem of player aging very seriously. Guys like Gallagher and Byron, he seems to have felt would be awesome into their mid-30s. Weber would be Jim Dandy until age 42, in Bergevin World. Petry would last forever. So would Pleks, for whose inevitable aging out he made no provision of any kind.

 

13 hours ago, tomh009 said:

Very, very few teams have such pipelines. They either sign their top players, cost what it may, or let them go when the cap space doesn't allow them to sign those players. This problem is not specific to the Habs.

 

And as for the prospect pipeline, almost all analysts in the past two or three years have ranked the Habs' prospect system in the top ten in the league, and at times in the top five. I refuse to believe that this system has all of a sudden turned into a total disaster, even if we have few top-line-potential players in Laval (or who would be in Laval in a normal season) at the moment.

 

I know very few teams have such pipelines. That’s why, as a general rule, I’m understanding of why the Habs signed guys like Gally and Price to those deals. You need to have the surplus of elite talent that TB has to be prepared to play hardball with your best players.

 

The Habs’ talent pipeline was a disaster throughout Bergevin’s reign and still has zero elite talent in it other than Caufield. Colour me unimpressed.

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☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️

vultures! watch out! vultures!

☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️

 

It Weber was not injured and Price did not have to seek substance abuse treatment, the team would have contended for a cup this year.

All this revisionist list of bad contracts, Gallagher is burn out, Toffoli is overpriced, etc. etc is opportunistic at best

 

Habs hit a wall after demonstrating lots of heart and excellent execution. They are new in rebuild mode due to the catastrophic number of injuries and off-ice issues. But the team that went to the finals what much better than people give it credit for.

 

☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️

vultures! watch out! vultures!

☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️

 

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46 minutes ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

The Habs’ talent pipeline was a disaster throughout Bergevin’s reign and still has zero elite talent in it other than Caufield. Colour me unimpressed.

The pipeline did produce Suzuki, Caufield and Romanov in the last two seasons. We still have Norlinder, Guhle, Harris, Primeau, Ylonen, Poehling and other credible NHL players in the pipeline. It's far from empty, even if it has been light on elite prospects.

 

Of course, it depends on whether you rate pipelines on the overall prospect quality, or strictly on elite talent. In the latter case, the Habs indeed don't look great.

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54 minutes ago, alfredoh2009 said:

☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️

vultures! watch out! vultures!

☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️

 

It Weber was not injured and Price did not have to seek substance abuse treatment, the team would have contended for a cup this year.

All this revisionist list of bad contracts, Gallagher is burn out, Toffoli is overpriced, etc. etc is opportunistic at best

 

Habs hit a wall after demonstrating lots of heart and excellent execution. They are new in rebuild mode due to the catastrophic number of injuries and off-ice issues. But the team that went to the finals what much better than people give it credit for.

 

☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️

vultures! watch out! vultures!

☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️ ☠️

 

 

The 2021 team was full value, but at root it was the triumphant last hurrah of an aging core (Price, Weber, Petry - and I’d include Gally on that list, if he had not stunk out then joint by his standard for most of the playoffs).

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2 hours ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

The Byron contract was folly. 

 

If we’re tallying up contract misses, we should also include the Weber deal - a cataclysmically bad contract which we were very lucky to get out from under, via the horrible expediency of Weber’s injuries. Yet MB seemed just happy as a clam to add that disastrous contract to the mix. That was in order to get out from another bad contract he maneuvered himself into by stupidly hard balling Subban on the bridge deal.

 

That's a fair point to add but I was limiting myself to the early extensions that Bergevin signed - Weber's deal was inherited from the one he signed with Philly (and Nashville matched) but yes, your point about that being another long-term deal to an aging veteran is notable.  That was definitely a weak spot for Bergevin, trusting the veterans would hold on longer than he should have.

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1 hour ago, dlbalr said:

 

That's a fair point to add but I was limiting myself to the early extensions that Bergevin signed - Weber's deal was inherited from the one he signed with Philly (and Nashville matched) but yes, your point about that being another long-term deal to an aging veteran is notable.  That was definitely a weak spot for Bergevin, trusting the veterans would hold on longer than he should have.

That is one of his biggest issues. Most of the good teams in the league built their teams around a fast young core. MB, probably due to his inability to draft and develop, acted like it was 1999,  and continued to trade and sign aging veterans who were closed to, or were pretty much washed out.

 

Taffoli was really his only shrewd signing in recent years.

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