The Chicoutimi Cucumber Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 1 hour ago, Habs Fan in Edmonton said: I agree we are not a wild card team yet but I am always a little confused when people say we overachieved because of goaltending. A goalie is part of the team! That's like saying the Oilers overachieve because of McDavid or the Leafs overachieve because of Mathews. Sure that may be true but they are part of the team. Monty is part of the team and yes one of the reasons the Habs have been somewhat respectable but he is part of team. Yep. Always agreed with this perspective. And I'd add that for most of my life as a Habs fan, I've heard Habs teams' achievements diminished because of our goaltending. "They're not real contenders, they're just lucky they have Roy." "Boy, it's a good thing they have Price." Blah blah blah. I never once heard anyone say the Penguins don't "deserve" to win because they have Crosby... In fact - while I'm holding forth - the Habs are probably the franchise whose achievements after 1980 are the most chronically denigrated and dismissed. 1986 and 1993 were both scorned as "the worst teams ever to win a Cup." No one ever says boo about the 2014 team that was artificially kept out of the Finals by Kreider's knee job on Price. The 2021 team is routinely dismissed as a fraud because it had a terrible OT/SO record in the regular season. A lot of this flows from the perceived illegitimacy of not having a superstar offensive talent. Somehow, if you rely on a model that doesn't include a McDavid, your wins don't "count." And never mind if you have a great goalie. On the other hand, I very seriously doubt that if the Leafs or any other Canadian team had equivalent successes, we would hear such dismissals routinely spouted. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alfredoh2009 Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 29 minutes ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said: Yep. Always agreed with this perspective. And I'd add that for most of my life as a Habs fan, I've heard Habs teams' achievements diminished because of our goaltending. "They're not real contenders, they're just lucky they have Roy." "Boy, it's a good thing they have Price." Blah blah blah. I never once heard anyone say the Penguins don't "deserve" to win because they have Crosby... In fact - while I'm holding forth - the Habs are probably the franchise whose achievements after 1980 are the most chronically denigrated and dismissed. 1986 and 1993 were both scorned as "the worst teams ever to win a Cup." No one ever says boo about the 2014 team that was artificially kept out of the Finals by Kreider's knee job on Price. The 2021 team is routinely dismissed as a fraud because it had a terrible OT/SO record in the regular season. A lot of this flows from the perceived illegitimacy of not having a superstar offensive talent. Somehow, if you rely on a model that doesn't include a McDavid, your wins don't "count." And never mind if you have a great goalie. On the other hand, I very seriously doubt that if the Leafs or any other Canadian team had equivalent successes, we would hear such dismissals routinely spouted. I hold the strong belief that the 86 and 93 cups where in large part fueled by the Quebec-born players carried to an elite level of play by the fans. On paper, they had a good team, but it was the depth players that made the difference in key games. Roy was also magnificent. 2014 and 221, were teams built by Bergevin on the premise that blood and guts would power you through if you were riding a hot goalie. It almost worked, but that house of cards crashed due to the weight of some many players playing through injuries. I am curious to see how HughGort build this team for cup contention. We are 3-4 years away from that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GHT120 Posted January 21 Author Share Posted January 21 3 hours ago, tomh009 said: Not yet. But that said, the goaltender is part of the team, too. Yes ... that has been the mantra every season the Habs have had success since they last won the Cup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hab29RETIRED Posted January 22 Share Posted January 22 6 hours ago, tomh009 said: Not yet. But that said, the goaltender is part of the team, too. It is. But are goaltending is not good enough for us to win significantly more games because only the goaltending carries us for a sustained run during the season like Price carried us. last year because of the goaltending we finished 5th last instead of 3rd or 4th last. This year it’s been good enough that at the end of the year we may finish 25-26, instead of 27-28. The goaltending has been good, but it’s not even close to being good enough as Hasek or Price good that would be required to get us into the playoffs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hab29RETIRED Posted January 22 Share Posted January 22 7 hours ago, Habs Fan in Edmonton said: The bottom line for me is that they are making progress. Last year they ended up 14 games below 500, right now slightly past the 1/2 way mark they are 1 game below 500. Rome wasn't built in a day. Monty is emerging as a #1 goalie, the young defense is gaining experience (painful at times as expected), Slaf is progressing and maturing. We need to find another young offensive dynamo at the draft and hope that Dach can emerge and stay healthy. A lot of positive signs if you want to look at the glass as half full. There is a lot of positives. The D has been a lot more offensively productive than I thought - even though we are as porous defensively as I expected. The offensive is worst than I thought (mainly because of Dach going down, and Caufield’s recovery time from shoulder surgery), but it’s been improving. i said last year 25-26 is the year we should be targeting to make the playoffs, and I still think that is the year we legitimately can EXPECT to be able to make it. Any earlier is based on luck, and a hope and prayer. We are going through a co plate rebuild. Management has managed expectations accordingly. Not sure why people here keep getting upset about a big loss, or getting their hope up for that playoffs after a surprise win. we have a young D, and don’t have some of the major pieces needed on the team yet (Hutson and Reinbacher). the guys here are going to be inconsistent. That’s part of the growing pains of a young D. We also need to to add more talent up front and have Suzuki, Caufield, Dach and Slafkovsky at a minimum to show they are all legit Top 6 guys and at least two to be legit top line guys - the top line has looked good the last 10 or so games - so we are getting their. Hopefully they continue to progress! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomh009 Posted January 22 Share Posted January 22 4 hours ago, GHT120 said: Yes ... that has been the mantra every season the Habs have had success since they last won the Cup. Mantra? Mmmm. I do think the goaltender wears the same sweater as the rest of the team. Good or bad, he's part of the team. "team is crap but has great goaltending"/"team is great but has crap goaltending" are both invalid in my view, both of those (hypothetical) teams are mediocre when considered as a whole. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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