HabsAlways

Player has to be signed to an ELC by December of that season to qualify for Post-season roster is what I understood

I'm feeling the same way ... its just greed ...sure, they say at this point no spectators, but you know if they thought they could get away with it they would try and sell tickets.

Anybody remember that photo of George Bush with the "Mission Accomplished" banner ... all the 24 team playoff format does is allow MB to go borrow that

The 90's was a great decade ...

Nothing on NHL.com ... got a link for the TSN article? Most recent talks about practices and that's it

But ... but ... we're not done tanking yet.

Looking at standings today ... we're 8th last Buffalo and NJ 3pts back, 2 games in hand Anaheim 4pts back, playing well LA 7pts back, 8-1-1 in their last 10, game in hand SJ 8pts back, 3-6-1 in their last 10, game in hand Doubtful we sink lower than SJ, who would have to get 10 pts in their 12 games and we lose our last 11. We could fall below Buff, NJ, Anaheim and potentially LA if they keep on their hot streak. So a 4th to 8th finish ... likely 5th or 6th. Our Stanley cup will be the draft lottery .....

Subban's doesn't end when he's 40 ... He also had the Norris, which Weber didn't. Value wise I'd say despite their different skillsets they were equally as valuable on the day of the trade ... so getting younger should always mean giving up a bit more regardless of the contract ... which in this case only has a cap hit different of 1.2 m .... so no, we didn't take on a much worse contract ... quite the opposite since Weber's goes till 2026 and he turns 40. Weber has 6 years left @ 7.8m and Subban 3 @ 9 ... the contract differences in relation to the cap weren't enough to warrant it being 1 for 1 or Nashville getting more.

And this right there is drinking deep of the Bergevin/Therrien cool aid ... he was not a defensive liability for us, he was puck possession monster that drove the offense. Since he's been gone our biggest problem is zone exits and scoring ... strange how that all started when we traded the younger, offensively minded player for the older, slow defensively minded one

It was a loss from the stand point that we traded the younger player straight up for the older one. Ignoring Subban's total regression this year ... at the time of the trade he was a norris trophy winner and had just signed a long term deal with the Habs. We could dissect the value of each player to their teams at the time of the trade, but it came down to trading one skillset for another ... Subban was the better offensive player, Weber the defensive one. Trading him for Weber wasn't the problem ... the problem was Bergevin doing it 1 for 1 ... that's the sign of a GM who doesn't have a clue. If you're going to get the guy who is 4 years older on a contract that doesn't expire till he's 40 you should be getting something along with Weber. And what's even more interesting is you look at our record pre-Weber and post-Weber ... we've missed the playoffs 3 of the 4 years he's been with us. You can try and look at the trade in hindsight all you want (where you include Subban's production this year), but the only fair way to judge Bergevin is not how the trade turned out but how it played out at the time, and bottom line is he gave up a Norris trophy winner for an older player on a terrible contract.

This year was the year to make those moves. Next year ... a) Our veterens like Weber, Petry, Tatar etc will be 1 year older and regressed 1 year more .. their value will be lower. b ) Petry/Tatar are also UFA next year ... the year of the expansion draft. So given we can only protect so many players and that Tatar/Petry will want long term contracts we likely lose both to free agency for nothing. c ) The expansion draft will lower trade value as teams juggle their protected lists. And news flash that's exactly what we are doing now ... watching a bunch of nobodies be bottom feeders for the past 3 years. While scouting might be on Timmins, the rest of the roster is on MB and he's failed utterly in constructing a competent team.

Maybe not take a team that finished 1st in it's conference and tinkering them to the point they miss the playoffs 3 years straight?

I have no issue with someone praying and hoping they win the lottery, a purely random act. Ignoring the standings, how bad this team is etc is just frustrating. As long as we have a multitude of fans who display the same asinine opinion that Bergevin does ("All you need to do is make the playoffs") this team is destined for another few decades of futility to match the past 27 years. We as fans should not be content at "just squeeking in" and to hold out hope we will when this season has been the farce that it has simply reinforces to the teams management that they're doing good enough.

There's a huge difference between playing the lottery ... and a sports team who is failing to qualify for the post season. When you buy a lottery ticket you know full well that it's purely luck. Holding out hope that a team playing bad and poorly constructed will somehow miraculously win 12 out of 14 games (what they needed when this post was made) is ignoring the facts.

So ... with that loss tonight, Habs have to go 12-1 to get 95 pts ... I mean I gave up about 5-6 games before the trade deadline ... is anyone still actually holding out hope?