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Habs-Leafs Series Discussion Thread


dlbalr

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8 hours ago, Habs Fan in Edmonton said:

 

I hear you, there are likely a few of us with "upper body injuries" suffered after watching the last few games. I will still watch though. 

I’m a sucker for self- inflicted pain as well. 

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8 hours ago, sbhatt said:

I can hardly believe it, but after thinking it over all day I am still undecided as to whether or not I will watch Game 5.

I will scramble to watch pre-season scrimmage or exhibition game, so i think likely last game of year i will watch and like you say, are some firsts for youngsters would love to see and a shutout for Price also. But, under no allusions will win series, game 5 why not and make Leafs sweat a bit more. 

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17 minutes ago, DON said:

I will scramble to watch pre-season scrimmage or exhibition game, so i think likely last game of year i will watch and like you say, are some firsts for youngsters would love to see and a shutout for Price also. But, under no allusions will win series, game 5 why not and make Leafs sweat a bit more. 

 

That's my thoughts. I want the Leafs to know they were in a series!!!!

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So where are those people that kept on saying full on blow it up 5 year rebuild doesn't work?? Where are those people that said leafs suck and habs are way better back when we did our retool??? 

 

Our retool we got Caufeild / Kotkaniemi , Romanov  

 

Toronto's rebuild they got Matthews, Nylander, Marner and Rielly out of their rebuild.

 

Which group would you rather have??? 

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12 minutes ago, Habsfan89 said:

So where are those people that kept on saying full on blow it up 5 year rebuild doesn't work?? Where are those people that said leafs suck and habs are way better back when we did our retool??? 

 

Of course “tank jobs” can work. They can also fail disastrously. Tank Nation always acts like it’s a guarantee. But it’s not. It can just as easily lead to years and years of being absolutely terrible. Tank Nation also seem to think you just need to suck for 1-2 years and hey presto, you win the Cup. Nope, even successful rebuilds often take longer than that and involve way more pain. Meanwhile, teams like Boston manage to be competitive for years without tanking even as core pieces like Chara age out, because they know how to draft and develop. 

 

Conversely, I never believed in Bergevin’s “retool” either. That is because I could not see a realistic timeline whereby the young players would be ready before Weber, Price, and Petry aged out. I also did not see a critical mass of elite young talent. It was a closer thing than I expected, thanks to some unbelievable moves by MB last off-season, but unfortunately this prognosis seems to have been borne out. Weber’s disintegration has sabotaged the project. Predictably. 

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9 hours ago, sbhatt said:

I can hardly believe it, but after thinking it over all day I am still undecided as to whether or not I will watch Game 5.  I feel no hope, and no enthusiasm at all for a playoff game for the first time in my life.  The only tick in the 'pros' column so far, when weighing pros and cons, is that I wouldn't want to miss the first playoff goal of Cole Caufield's career.  I guess it will be a 'gametime decision'. 

Fair weather fan right there, who cares if you aren’t going to watch then? If you’re a fan, you watch.  
if you aren’t supporting them by being there and/or watching the games, what good are y’a? 

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16 minutes ago, Habsfan89 said:

So where are those people that kept on saying full on blow it up 5 year rebuild doesn't work?? Where are those people that said leafs suck and habs are way better back when we did our retool??? 

 

Our retool we got Caufeild / Kotkaniemi , Romanov  

 

Toronto's rebuild they got Matthews, Nylander, Marner and Rielly out of their rebuild.

 

Which group would you rather have??? 

It’s been a lot more than 5 years since the Leafs have  had anything to be excited about, so you cannot say it is a 5 year rebuild but good try to skew the convo to your preferred line of thought.

And as of yet, the Leafs ain’t done shit so no need to start modelling after them, let’s see how to eu close out this series, deal with a deep and offensive Jets team and then tangle with the big dogs down South.

That posts wreaks of garbage bs.

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2 minutes ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

 

Of course “tank jobs” can work. They can also fail disastrously. Tank Nation always acts like it’s a guarantee. But it’s not. It can just as easily lead to years and years of being absolutely terrible. Tank Nation also seem to think you just need to suck for 1-2 years and hey presto, you win the Cup. Nope, even successful rebuilds often take longer than that and involve way more pain. Meanwhile, teams like Boston manage to be competitive for years without tanking even as core pieces like Chara age out, because they know how to draft and develop. 

 

Conversely, I never believed in Bergevin’s “retool” either. That is because I could not see a realistic timeline whereby the young players would be ready before Weber, Price, and Petry aged out. I also did not see a critical mass of elite young talent. It was a closer thing than I expected, thanks to some unbelievable moves by MB last off-season, but unfortunately this prognosis seems to have been borne out. Weber’s disintegration has sabotaged the project. Predictably. 

 

Tanks definitely don't always work, look at that disaster in Buffalo, took Edmonton a long long time to get somewhat respectable meanwhile young players get used to losing which is a bad thing. 

 

No doubt Boston has done a masterful job being competitive every year, drafting well, making astute free agent acquisitions (ie. Chara) and trading players when they realized the game was changing (ie. traded Lucic while he still had value).

 

Regarding Weber, that ship has sailed. The Habs will not win a cup while Weber is in his prime. It's just the way it is. They need to move forward from that plan if that was their plan. 

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17 minutes ago, hockeyrealist said:

It’s been a lot more than 5 years since the Leafs have  had anything to be excited about, so you cannot say it is a 5 year rebuild but good try to skew the convo to your preferred line of thought.

And as of yet, the Leafs ain’t done shit so no need to start modelling after them, let’s see how to eu close out this series, deal with a deep and offensive Jets team and then tangle with the big dogs down South.

That posts wreaks of garbage bs.

No before they had no direction under Burke. But when Shanahan took over and put his rebuild plan to work this is the end result.

 

If you have a VP/GM and a scouting staff that know what the plan is and how to execute it properly it works.

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32 minutes ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

Of course “tank jobs” can work. They can also fail disastrously. Tank Nation always acts like it’s a guarantee ...

I don't think that "tankers" see a guarantee ... rather that the risk/reward of a tank is worth it versus usually drafting in the teens and hoping an elite player happens to drop to you.

 

"Tanks" are exactly the same as the "Boston model" in two ways ... neither work unless they have little luck in the draft (either in terms of where you pick or in terms of who your scouts find that others miss) and developing the players properly (regardless where they are drafted).

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16 minutes ago, GHT120 said:

I don't think that "tankers" see a guarantee ... rather that the risk/reward of a tank is worth it versus usually drafting in the teens and hoping an elite player happens to drop to you.

 

"Tanks" are exactly the same as the "Boston model" in two ways ... neither work unless they have little luck in the draft (either in terms of where you pick or in terms of who your scouts find that others miss) and developing the players properly (regardless where they are drafted).

 

Do you think drafting Pasternak at 25, Bergeron at 45 and Marchand at 71 was  luck?  That was simply their scouts doing a great job.  Boston hasn't had a high pick in a long time and they have been very competitive almost every year.  Boston management has done a fantastic job without having to resort to a "tank".  Their players expect to win.  That is how you do it. 

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4 minutes ago, Habs Fan in Edmonton said:

 

Do you think drafting Pasternak at 25, Bergeron at 45 and Marchand at 71 was  luck?  That was simply their scouts doing a great job.  Boston hasn't had a high pick in a long time and they have been very competitive almost every year.  Boston management has done a fantastic job without having to resort to a "tank".  Their players expect to win.  That is how you do it. 

 

Yup. Boston has been the class of the league in terms of drafting and development. Unfortunately.

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17 minutes ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

 

Yup. Boston has been the class of the league in terms of drafting and development. Unfortunately.

 

Yes, as much as I dislike the Bruins, you have to give kudos to their management team.  Last time they had a top 10 pick was Dougie Hamilton at #9 in 2011.  They also had the #2 pick in 2010 (Tyler Seguin) . They had both of these picks because their GM fleeced Brian Burke and got 2  #1  picks for Phil Kessel. 

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1 hour ago, Habs Fan in Edmonton said:

 

Tanks definitely don't always work, look at that disaster in Buffalo, took Edmonton a long long time to get somewhat respectable meanwhile young players get used to losing which is a bad thing. 

 

No doubt Boston has done a masterful job being competitive every year, drafting well, making astute free agent acquisitions (ie. Chara) and trading players when they realized the game was changing (ie. traded Lucic while he still had value).

 

Regarding Weber, that ship has sailed. The Habs will not win a cup while Weber is in his prime. It's just the way it is. They need to move forward from that plan if that was their plan. 

A coupe of things.

First, regardless of which approach you take, you have to have the right people in charge. Tanking under a Shanaplan, is not the same thing as tanking under idiots like Lowe/McTavish/Chiarelli in Edmonton or the gong show in Buffalo.  You have to have competent management regardless what you do.  You can have idiots in charge and win the cup because circumstances are in your favour, or what you inherited (Chiarelli, Talon, Feaster), and you can never win the cup despite being a very competent GM that put together very competitive, exciting, fun to watch teams (Wilson, Poile).

 

Secondly, with respect to the Bruins, they still had very high draft picks. They had Thornton and Samsonov in the same draft. They had Seguin. They moved assets to obtain the Seguin and Hamilton picks - which is something MB should have done with Weber and Price, three or four years ago.  They simply did not have the pieces to win with Price and Weber, and hoping kids would be able to step in at 18 or 19 a d adding “character” like Alzner is not the answer. The caps traded me. Character and won the cup the next year.  
 

The Rangers made a brilliant move a few years back and are well positioned with a good mix of elite young player/prospects, home developed guys in their prime (Kreider), and astute free agent signings. Are they in the playoffs yet?  No, but they are better positioned for success than us. I’ll the Dolan who isn’t sitting on his ass over a ball-less Molson any day (despite how he has meddled with the Knicks - I don’t like JD, but did like their GM. They are still in good shape with Drury).

 

you have to have a plan. What is the ultimate goal? Winning consistently, and being considered a LEGIT contender for the cup, or hope to get in, and than anything can happen.  I know what I want. I don’t believe in hope and luck as a strategy. I’d rather have a plan that adds the the necessary pieces to succeed -elite talent. True dominant centre. Stud puck moving QB dman and skilled wingers. And a RELIABLE goalie. I don’t ever want my goalie to be the highest player on the team. Can’t afford it in a cap system.  Your highest paid and best player should be your centre. Than an elite dman. The. Skilled wingers and a goalie and their salary should be in the same ball park. You should be building your depth internally. Once you have all of that you add to the depth by AFFORDABLE free agency signings. 
 

what you absolutely don’t do is over pay for depth players without having the right core.  No way in hell Alzner should have been signed. No way in hell should you be signing a Chiarot and Edmondson within a year without first filling the necessary critical holes in the blue line.  I loved the Toffoli signing. Allen was necessary becuase if Price’s injury history - but you can’t spend $13m - $14m on goaltenfing. Just like you can’t spend as much as we do on D, and not even have a legit top pairing on D.

 

you don’t go and acquire a good deal and hope that it may push you into a playoff position. You acquire what you NEED to be successful.

 

there is a difference between tanking to get a high picks and hope get the right guy, and tanking becuase you don’t have elite talent, but have a plan for constructing a winning team, and having a planned approach to acquire and develop elite talent.

 

At the end of the day, you have to have some luck involved in how everyone plays and how healthy everyone is at the right time, once you put a legit team together (you can still win despite missing a Stamkosto injury). But it is absurd that to have your entire strategy around just getting into the playoffs and hope your goalie will win you every series because you don’t have the D and your offense can only score 1 or 2 goals a game.

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26 minutes ago, hab29RETIRED said:

A coupe of things.

First, regardless of which approach you take, you have to have the right people in charge. Tanking under a Shanaplan, is not the same thing as tanking under idiots like Lowe/McTavish/Chiarelli in Edmonton or the gong show in Buffalo.  You have to have competent management regardless what you do.  You can have idiots in charge and win the cup because circumstances are in your favour, or what you inherited (Chiarelli, Talon, Feaster), and you can never win the cup despite being a very competent GM that put together very competitive, exciting, fun to watch teams (Wilson, Poile).

 

Secondly, with respect to the Bruins, they still had very high draft picks. They had Thornton and Samsonov in the same draft. They had Seguin. They moved assets to obtain the Seguin and Hamilton picks - which is something MB should have done with Weber and Price, three or four years ago.  They simply did not have the pieces to win with Price and Weber, and hoping kids would be able to step in at 18 or 19 a d adding “character” like Alzner is not the answer. The caps traded me. Character and won the cup the next year.  
 

The Rangers made a brilliant move a few years back and are well positioned with a good mix of elite young player/prospects, home developed guys in their prime (Kreider), and astute free agent signings. Are they in the playoffs yet?  No, but they are better positioned for success than us. I’ll the Dolan who isn’t sitting on his ass over a ball-less Molson any day (despite how he has meddled with the Knicks - I don’t like JD, but did like their GM. They are still in good shape with Drury).

 

you have to have a plan. What is the ultimate goal? Winning consistently, and being considered a LEGIT contender for the cup, or hope to get in, and than anything can happen.  I know what I want. I don’t believe in hope and luck as a strategy. I’d rather have a plan that adds the the necessary pieces to succeed -elite talent. True dominant centre. Stud puck moving QB dman and skilled wingers. And a RELIABLE goalie. I don’t ever want my goalie to be the highest player on the team. Can’t afford it in a cap system.  Your highest paid and best player should be your centre. Than an elite dman. The. Skilled wingers and a goalie and their salary should be in the same ball park. You should be building your depth internally. Once you have all of that you add to the depth by AFFORDABLE free agency signings. 
 

what you absolutely don’t do is over pay for depth players without having the right core.  No way in hell Alzner should have been signed. No way in hell should you be signing a Chiarot and Edmondson within a year without first filling the necessary critical holes in the blue line.  I loved the Toffoli signing. Allen was necessary becuase if Price’s injury history - but you can’t spend $13m - $14m on goaltenfing. Just like you can’t spend as much as we do on D, and not even have a legit top pairing on D.

 

you don’t go and acquire a good deal and hope that it may push you into a playoff position. You acquire what you NEED to be successful.

 

there is a difference between tanking to get a high picks and hope get the right guy, and tanking becuase you don’t have elite talent, but have a plan for constructing a winning team, and having a planned approach to acquire and develop elite talent.

 

At the end of the day, you have to have some luck involved in how everyone plays and how healthy everyone is at the right time, once you put a legit team together (you can still win despite missing a Stamkosto injury). But it is absurd that to have your entire strategy around just getting into the playoffs and hope your goalie will win you every series because you don’t have the D and your offense can only score 1 or 2 goals a game.

 

Agree with a lot of your points, you absolutely need the right people in charge.  I don't think anyone will dispute that. 

 

The Bruins definitely have the right people in charge, they have been consistently competitive because of smart drafting, developing and shrewd trading/signing of free agents. You can't ask for much more than that. You are going back a ways with Joe Thornton (drafted in 1997).  That guy has been around a long time.

 

There is always some luck involved whether it be injuries at playoff time (Tampa had the depth to overcome the Stamkos injury) or having the right guys available when you tank to get the #1 pick (ie. McDavid/Mathews as opposed to a Yakupov). 

 

The Habs never had the right core because they drafted horribly for a number of years. It's going to take a while to fix that. I don't see the Habs being a serious contender for at least 2 to 3 years and that will only happen if many of their young prospects develop. I don't see a quick fix here so I have no problem trading some of their vets to get some good young pieces if that's possible at this point.  They may have waited too long to get value for some of their guys.  I loved the Pacioretty trade. We need more like that. 

 

 

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2 hours ago, GHT120 said:

... neither work unless they have little luck in the draft (either in terms of where you pick or in terms of who your scouts find that others miss) and developing the players properly (regardless where they are drafted).

 

2 hours ago, Habs Fan in Edmonton said:

Do you think drafting Pasternak at 25, Bergeron at 45 and Marchand at 71 was  luck?  That was simply their scouts doing a great job  ...

 

That is exactly what I said ... the "luck" is that scouts for a team(s) picking earlier than you missed out on the players your scouts identified ... it is luck because you cannot control what players other teams pick ... without that luck the Bruins might have ended up with Jared McCann, Konstantin Pushkarev and Robin Figren (the players taken immediately before the bruins' picks).

 

Drafting Pasternak at 25 depended on teams making decisions like taking Julius Honka at 15, Sonny Milano at 16, Conner Bleackley at 23 and Jared McCann at 24 ... Bergeron at 45 was there because, amongst other lesser picks,   in the 11 before Bergeron three teams drafted players who never played in the NHL and five others drafted players who played less than 25 NHL games ... in the 41 picks immediately before Marchand, 16 players who never played a NHL game teams were selected, four more who played 6 games or less, three more who played 55 or less NHL games

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5 minutes ago, GHT120 said:

 

 

That is exactly what I said ... the "luck" is that scouts for a team(s) picking earlier than you missed out on the players your scouts identified ... it is luck because you cannot control what players other teams pick ... without that luck the Bruins might have ended up with Jared McCann, Konstantin Pushkarev and Robin Figren (the players taken immediately before the bruins' picks).

 

Drafting Pasternak at 25 depended on teams making decisions like taking Julius Honka at 15, Sonny Milano at 16, Conner Bleackley at 23 and Jared McCann at 24 ... Bergeron at 45 was there because, amongst other lesser picks,   in the 11 before Bergeron three teams drafted players who never played in the NHL and five others drafted players who played less than 25 NHL games ... in the 41 picks immediately before Marchand, 16 players who never played a NHL game teams were selected, four more who played 6 games or less, three more who played 55 or less NHL games

 

I see what you are saying, yes they were "lucky" those players were still available when they drafted but it took skill\great judgement  to determine that those were the best prospects available at that point in the draft.  Poor judgement by other teams or great judgment by the Bruins?  Likely a bit of both. 

 

There is always some element of luck involved. Were the Red Wings lucky or good to take Datsyuk at #171 and Zetterburg at #210, they lived off those guys for years.  When asked about those guys Ken Holland said " if we thought they were going to be that good, we would have taken them earlier".  It's a total crap shoot later in the rounds. 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Habs Fan in Edmonton said:

... Were the Red Wings lucky or good to take Datsyuk at #171 and Zetterburg at #210, they lived off those guys for years.  When asked about those guys Ken Holland said

"if we thought they were going to be that good, we would have taken them earlier".  It's a total crap shoot later in the rounds. 

An honest GM ... imagine that.

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Pretty easy question to answer like so. Ask him how resigning Smith is going and wont get as candid answer.

 

Nice to hear that Tavares skated 20 minutes today.

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7 hours ago, Habs Fan in Edmonton said:

Do you think drafting Pasternak at 25, Bergeron at 45 and Marchand at 71 was  luck?  That was simply their scouts doing a great job.  Boston hasn't had a high pick in a long time and they have been very competitive almost every year.  Boston management has done a fantastic job without having to resort to a "tank".  Their players expect to win.  That is how you do it. 

 

When giving Boston's scouts credit, it must also be noted that the 2015 draft still occurred.  With three consecutive first-round picks, the Bruins took Jakub Zboril, Jake DeBrusk, and Zach Senyshyn to set them up for the future.  The next three picks?  Mathew Barzal, Kyle Connor, and Thomas Chabot.  Boston's drafting was good for a bit but has been quite bad lately.

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1 hour ago, dlbalr said:

 

When giving Boston's scouts credit, it must also be noted that the 2015 draft still occurred.  With three consecutive first-round picks, the Bruins took Jakub Zboril, Jake DeBrusk, and Zach Senyshyn to set them up for the future.  The next three picks?  Mathew Barzal, Kyle Connor, and Thomas Chabot.  Boston's drafting was good for a bit but has been quite bad lately.

 

They have misses too, just not nearly as many as the Habs have had. 

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