Comments on: Are the Montreal Canadiens as bad off as they seem?

By: id4joey

id4joey — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 19:44:51 +0000

Habs need talent at the top of the executive management chain.
Special Hockey Consultant – Serge Savard
Head of Player Development – Pierre Mcguire
General Manager – Julien Brisebois
Asst. GM – Vincent Damphousse
Coach – Patrick Roy

As indicated by this season, if its bad in the office it’s worst on the ice.

And a French Canadian wearing the ‘C’ as mandatory.

By: iamanidiotfan

iamanidiotfan — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 19:17:05 +0000

When you’ve got over $25 million tied up in Gomez, Plekanec, Gionta, Cole & Bourque, and they all have full or modified no-trade clauses, and you have almost $14 million tied up in Markov (NTC), Kaberle and Gorges next year, and Price & Subban are in for some healthy raises as RFAs (not to mention the other TEN RFAs), it’s going to be a difficult task keeping all of that young talent that they’re talking about in the article without doing some wheeling and dealing.

By: bcisleman

bcisleman — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 17:36:55 +0000

The key for the Habs is NOT doing what Gauthier tried to do and what Burke has tried to do in Toronto: shortcut the development process by wheeling and dealing. Build around the good young players you have and patiently add to them. Habs need a big and talented top center and they should be in position to draft their choice of Grigorenko or Galchenyuk absent a lottery win by a higher seed. With sensible management, the team should be contending again in a few years.

By: govtminion

govtminion — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 17:36:03 +0000

They have a solid goaltender in place (and two years ago, I admit I wouldn’t have said that about Carey Price), they have young players like Pacioretty and Subban that they can build around (not that I’m a big fan of either of them, myself)… they’re in far better shape than other basement-teams right now like Columbus or Toronto. They just need to actually do something with that core- and the start of that is a competent GM.

By: firstandonlywarning

firstandonlywarning — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 17:32:26 +0000

Key elements?

Ummmm
The Habs have a team full of 2nd and 3rd liners

Nobody you build around

Seriously? “they have the key elements in place”
LOL not a chance they do
Their best players are Max P and Eric Cole
Cole is about ready to either retire or break his neck for the 4th time and Max would not get top 6 minutes on most teams.

Habs fans are as delusional as Leafs fans

By: firstandonlywarning

firstandonlywarning — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 17:29:29 +0000

Yes
Next question

By: Rick Keene

Rick Keene — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 17:04:44 +0000

http://laforumdemontreal.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/there-are-stanley-cups-rings-blocking-my-ears/

By: metcarfre

metcarfre — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 16:11:41 +0000

Yep. It was on the MvsW podcast. Can’t recall the exact date, it was a few weeks ago. Hit up Jeff Marek on the tweets.

By: habsman

habsman — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 15:17:28 +0000

There was quite a bit of turmoil in the Tampa head office along with the team being sold at the time. Ex GM Brian Lawton and Gainey were ready to pull the trigger but the new owners inTampa nixed the deal and Lawton was removed. This was discussed on talk radio a couple weeks back. Maybe some one can verify?

By: davebabychreturns

davebabychreturns — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 15:09:53 +0000

If they commit to a year or two of retooling (done properly, of course) they could be back competing for a 4-6 spot in the Conference pretty quickly.

I don’t know if you could say the same about most other teams at the bottom of the league standings right now.

Of course, they will still be in tough to replace Markov the next time they lose him.. he is a great player but at his age (and level of durability) they need to learn to win without him.

By: govtminion

govtminion — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 15:09:28 +0000

Good lord… yeah, if that’s true that would have been pretty ugly too. Wow… trying to imagine where Tampa would be with Price alone, let alone the other two is a scary thought.

By: habsman

habsman — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 15:06:52 +0000

I agree 100% about Gomez.

I read an interesting article somewhere last week about the Gomez trade. Montreal aquired Gomez from the Rangers because a deal with Tampa fell through.

To Montreal: Lacavallier and mid round draft choices.

To Tampa: Price, Subban, Plenkaneks and first round draft choice.

Not sure if the details are exact, but sometimes the best trades are the ones you don’t make as they say.

By: govtminion

govtminion — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 14:47:11 +0000

Key elements are in place, sure. But until they get rid of some of the dead weight, they’re going to continue to struggle. If the rumors are true that Scott Gomez is being bought out, that’s a big step.

I’ve not had the impression for several years that the Canadiens have any real direction planned- they’re just kind of wandering. A new GM coming in with a real focus and plan in place would work wonders here (or anyway, one would hope. I thought Toronto had finally found theirs with Burke, and…)

By: 8man

8man — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 14:45:01 +0000

To me a critical stat is goal differential. Right now they have 11 teams worse than them in that stat. Including one that is headed for the playoffs, the Florida Panthers. So in my opinion, they could turn this around very quickly.