GDT Game 54 Chicago at Montreal 7pm est, Tuesday February 14. Valentines Special

[DON]

Ylonen 3shots

Belzile 4shots

 

[dlbalr]

This certainly wasn't the most exciting game but it was nice to see some of the underachieving veterans have a good outing.

 

Tonight's postgame: http://www.habsworld.net/2023/02/secondary-scoring-leads-montreal-past-chicago/

[alfredoh2009]

11 hours ago, tomh009 said:

Drouin now 17a in 31 games. He might yet find a new contract in the NHL, though not anywhere close to his current salary.

I was thinking the same. He will finish the season and not be tendered an offer. He’ll find another team for sure but at a much lower salary.

Since the wrist injuries, h has lost strength on his shot. He is a pass-only winger that may get 40 points a year

[alfredoh2009]

11 hours ago, dlbalr said:

This certainly wasn't the most exciting game but it was nice to see some of the underachieving veterans have a good outing.

 

Tonight's postgame: http://www.habsworld.net/2023/02/secondary-scoring-leads-montreal-past-chicago/

good summary, thanks for posting.

I forgot to program the recorder and couldn’t watch. 
 

I am glad for Dvorak’s line 

[hockeyrealist]

49 minutes ago, alfredoh2009 said:

I was thinking the same. He will finish the season and not be tendered an offer. He’ll find another team for sure but at a much lower salary.

Since the wrist injuries, h has lost strength on his shot. He is a pass-only winger that may get 40 points a year

He’s always been a pass-first player regardless of injuries.

Nothing new there.

[The Chicoutimi Cucumber]

I guess I can see some team that is desperate for FW depth signing basket case Drouin on a cheap, short-term deal. 🤷‍♂️ Stranger things have happened.

 

I wonder if that team could be us? We’re going to have a lot of open slots at FW over the next couple of seasons. Fortunately, he did not, as I feared he would, have a big outlier season, so any danger of a fat and disastrous contract for him is removed.

 

I was listening to this one on the radio, and geez, the announcers were practically falling asleep. 

[DON]

28 more to go.

[alfredoh2009]

1 hour ago, hockeyrealist said:

He’s always been a pass-first player regardless of injuries.

Nothing new there.

he used to have a good wrist shot, and could hit the net with a slap shot. But not since the wrist injury:

[Prime Minister Koivu]

7 minutes ago, alfredoh2009 said:

he used to have a good wrist shot, and could hit the net with a slap shot. But not since the wrist injury:

This also shows that Drouin has missed SIGNIFICANT time in each of the last 4 seasons. 
 

I’m not sure how many teams will line up to sign a guy that will miss 50-60% of the games each season. 
 

I can’t see the Habs having anything to do with Drouin after this season - largely due to his attendance. 

 

I’m hoping that Drouin’s solid play as of late will entice a depth trade to a contender. 
 

 

[dlbalr]

2 hours ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

 I was listening to this one on the radio, and geez, the announcers were practically falling asleep. 

 

So was I, especially in the first half of the game.

[alfredoh2009]

2 hours ago, Prime Minister Koivu said:

This also shows that Drouin has missed SIGNIFICANT time in each of the last 4 seasons. 
 

I’m not sure how many teams will line up to sign a guy that will miss 50-60% of the games each season. 
 

I can’t see the Habs having anything to do with Drouin after this season - largely due to his attendance. 

 

I’m hoping that Drouin’s solid play as of late will entice a depth trade to a contender. 
 

 

That’s why I believe he’ll walk

[DON]

He is a defensive liability, but still solid in offensive zone, not sure his injury record is a big deal, for a short-term rental like him.

[hockeyrealist]

On 2/15/2023 at 12:41 PM, alfredoh2009 said:

he used to have a good wrist shot, and could hit the net with a slap shot. But not since the wrist injury:

Those stats don’t support your point, at the peak 20 goal scorer doesn’t scream shooter.

 

Every high level amateur/pro can take a good shot, so to say he has a good wrist shot is futile (and having watched him in TB many times he never showed a strong shot in comparison to pro level).

But “hit the net with a slap shot”? Is that a joke.  Think I’ve seen him take total of ten slappers (including warmups) in his time with Mtl.

Guy has never been a shooter, always pass-first but he used to be able to dangle and use speed bursts to buy time to find a passing lane or eventually get a shooting opportunity himself.  
The speed bursts are almost extinct, the vision is still there though.

He wasn’t even considered a shooter in junior, always pegged as a secondary play driver and complimentary piece even when he was putting up sick points.

 

[alfredoh2009]

5 hours ago, hockeyrealist said:

Those stats don’t support your point, at the peak 20 goal scorer doesn’t scream shooter.

 

Every high level amateur/pro can take a good shot, so to say he has a good wrist shot is futile (and having watched him in TB many times he never showed a strong shot in comparison to pro level).

But “hit the net with a slap shot”? Is that a joke.  Think I’ve seen him take total of ten slappers (including warmups) in his time with Mtl.

Guy has never been a shooter, always pass-first but he used to be able to dangle and use speed bursts to buy time to find a passing lane or eventually get a shooting opportunity himself.  
The speed bursts are almost extinct, the vision is still there though.

He wasn’t even considered a shooter in junior, always pegged as a secondary play driver and complimentary piece even when he was putting up sick points.

 

 

my point is that since the wrists injuries, his shot has been worse and that he has been getting less and less goals.

 

I could look up how shots per game average per season, but I don;t think haters would stop hating on Drouin

[tomh009]

2 hours ago, alfredoh2009 said:

 

my point is that since the wrists injuries, his shot has been worse and that he has been getting less and less goals.

 

I could look up how shots per game average per season, but I don;t think haters would stop hating on Drouin

About 1.3 shots/game this year; until now, it's been in the 2 shots/game range, give or take 10%.

 

I suspect he's frustrated with his inability to get the puck in the net so tending to pass more and shoot less now.

[The Chicoutimi Cucumber]

20 hours ago, alfredoh2009 said:

 

my point is that since the wrists injuries, his shot has been worse and that he has been getting less and less goals.

 

I could look up how shots per game average per season, but I don;t think haters would stop hating on Drouin

 

You are correct. No amount of excuse making will make me respect him as anything other than a waste of roster space. Only consistent performance over an extended period of time would move the needle for me; and in his case, it would need to be across more than one season, since he has shown over and over that he is not a player who can be counted on in any way, ever.

[alfredoh2009]

2 hours ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

 

You are correct. No amount of excuse making will make me respect him as anything other than a waste of roster space. Only consistent performance over an extended period of time would move the needle for me; and in his case, it would need to be across more than one season, since he has shown over and over that he is not a player who can be counted on in any way, ever.

 

that is fine. I am not defending Drouin, but saying that he will not be traded but will walk like Gionta and others. He is just not the hockey player he was when traded for. Being unidimentional was his fall from grace. But once he was down, the wrist injuries made it impossible for him to redeem himself.

I believe that in the last 3-4 years he improved his 200-feet game to be a passable regular, but he has lost forever anything that made him special when he was a rookie

[hab29RETIRED]

2 hours ago, alfredoh2009 said:

 

that is fine. I am not defending Drouin, but saying that he will not be traded but will walk like Gionta and others. He is just not the hockey player he was when traded for. Being unidimentional was his fall from grace. But once he was down, the wrist injuries made it impossible for him to redeem himself.

I believe that in the last 3-4 years he improved his 200-feet game to be a passable regular, but he has lost forever anything that made him special when he was a rookie

He actually never was the player MB THOUGHT he was trading for. That’s the actual problem. Yzerman knew what Drouin was and didn’t want to pay him or want him. MB rolled the dice on the not so great French hope.

[alfredoh2009]

1 hour ago, hab29RETIRED said:

He actually never was the player MB THOUGHT he was trading for. That’s the actual problem. Yzerman knew what Drouin was and didn’t want to pay him or want him. MB rolled the dice on the not so great French hope.

He got points the first few years… but I’ll never make you change your opinion ever so slightly 

[Habs Fan in Edmonton]

58 minutes ago, alfredoh2009 said:

He got points the first few years… but I’ll never make you change your opinion ever so slightly 

 I think the big problem was one of expectations.  I am sure that MB thought and we hoped that Drouin would turn into more than a 50 point player given his skill level. He has basically under achieved or maybe we expected too much. He hasn't showed the consistency to be a top 6 forward and doesn't have the grit to be an effective bottom 6 forward. I just don't know where he fits in. Some team will pay him more than he should get in free agency but it better not be us. 

[The Chicoutimi Cucumber]

1 hour ago, alfredoh2009 said:

He got points the first few years… but I’ll never make you change your opinion ever so slightly 

46 and 53 points at peak. A soft 6th forward. That’s not what we traded our best D prospect for. We traded for potential- potential which never materialized. Instead he flatlined, then cratered. 
 

I will never understand why a guy with anxiety issues voluntarily chose to put himself on the hot seat by holding out. 
 

Meanwhile, Marc ‘Character’ Bergevin couldn’t wait to trade a stud prospect for a guy who was sitting out and who proved to be a basket case 🙄

 

Yzerman played us like a Stradivarius.

[Neech]

1 hour ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

 

I will never understand why a guy with anxiety issues voluntarily chose to put himself on the hot seat by holding out. 
 

 

Bad advice from his agent, or he could just be plain DUMB.

 

Luckily the Drouin era will soon be in the rearview, and if we're lucky we'll even get a conditional 6th rounder for our troubles.

 

[tomh009]

1 hour ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

Yzerman played us like a Stradivarius.

Yzerman merely patched over his mistake of drafting Drouin third overall. A shrewd trade with the Habs but the overall net result of Sergachev from a third pick is merely solid.

[hab29RETIRED]

20 minutes ago, tomh009 said:

Yzerman merely patched over his mistake of drafting Drouin third overall. A shrewd trade with the Habs but the overall net result of Sergachev from a third pick is merely solid.

It was a MUCH better patch job than MB’s attempt at patching over the KK mistake.