2013-14 Michel Therrien and staff

[ColRouleBleu]

I heard those rumors too, but to me, lower body means below the waist. If the team's going to bother announcing it's lower body, they should at least be anatomically correct.

well, technically, legs are limbs not body .... or perhaps josh just has short legs so his lower back is part of the lower body?

[FirstStar]

That was one heck of a long shift, he played 7:31 in the 3rd period (22:43 total for the game)

a few of the media guys following the team and watching him during warmup last night said they'd bet a little $2 on a lower back problem

Maybe I misunderstood, i was driving in Montreal traffic while they were talking about it on TSN690.

But one thing for sure, they said he had a short shift in the 3rd and didn't return. The whole topic was our banged up blueline and questioning if he'd be in the line up for Saturday's game. HI/O said he didn't practice with the team, therapy day.

[ColRouleBleu]

Maybe I misunderstood, i was driving in Montreal traffic while they were talking about it on TSN690.

But one thing for sure, they said he had a short shift in the 3rd and didn't return. The whole topic was our banged up blueline and questioning if he'd be in the line up for Saturday's game. HI/O said he didn't practice with the team, therapy day.

That was in the Calgary game

[FirstStar]

That was in the Calgary game

Possible, haven't slept much this last week... got our first tooth.

[ramcharger440]

I felt last nights game was well coached

[kinot-1]

Possible, haven't slept much this last week... got our first tooth.

Crunch time

[Manatee-X]

I thought that Therrien did a good job with his lines last night. I loved the look of them to start the game, but then he also adapted well once Patches went down. That Bourque - Plekanec - Gionta line may not have been completely clicking all the time this season, but they're a great choice when you're trying to protect a two-goal lead in the third.

Props.

[BeanCountingHab]

He's made a lot of positive moves lately, PK and Markov together being one my personal favourites (plus Gorges and Diaz were awesome together last night). Sliding DD to more of secondary scoring role with a couple of big wingers, giving Briere the wakeup call and as you said he adjusted pretty well without Patches. I also love when Beaulieu is in the lineup because it gets Bouillon off the PP and Subban on the PK.

[ramcharger440]

i have always felt he was a really good coach , he just had to get his emotions in check! i think that will always be a bit of a struggle for him. he has the team clicking quite well at the moment i would love to see what it would look like with everyone at his disposal. and at least one more serious scoring threat.

[habby4ever]

General Manager Marc Bergevin signed off on the idea, and voilà, linguistic sports history was made. Montreal is the first N.H.L. club to have a policy of rendering players’ names accurately on their uniforms.

For the Canadiens, Whatever’s in a Name Is on the Back

The Montreal Canadiens’ decision this season to include the accents in players’ names on their uniforms was not born of cultural politics. It arose simply out of one man’s desire to be accurate.

“I like to write things the right way,” said Pierre Gervais, the longtime equipment manager in charge of putting name bars on the Canadiens’ uniforms.

General Manager Marc Bergevin signed off on the idea, and voilà, linguistic sports history was made. Montreal is the first N.H.L. club to have a policy of rendering players’ names accurately on their uniforms.

The grave accent in Daniel Brière’s surname is still the only diacritical mark on a Canadiens name bar, and he is out with a concussion sustained Oct. 19. Another player whose name includes a diacritical mark is Joonas Nättinen of the Hamilton Bulldogs, the Canadiens’ affiliate in the American Hockey League. (Jeremy Grégoire, who is in a junior league, was with the Canadiens in the preseason.)

“If Nättinen gets called up, I’ll put the double-dot over the A,” Gervais said. “I’ll try to do the right spelling, which should be done.”

The rancor over language that roiled Quebec society in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s has largely subsided, so the first sightings of Brière’s accent mark last month generated little reaction in Montreal beyond surprise and delight that the century-old Canadiens had taken the step.

“It’s a minor accomplishment,” the French-language Web site 25Stanley.com stated, “but all the same, it’s a landmark for a team whose history is amazing.”

Players in other sports have had diacritical marks on their uniforms. The Haitian-American wide receiver Pierre Garçon, for example, has had the cedilla on his name bar while he was with the Indianapolis Colts, and now with Washington. But there has long been a special sensitivity to the rendering of proper names in Montreal sports, if for no other reason than two languages are spoken in the city. Montreal is the only city in North America’s major leagues for which English is not the primary language.

The Alouettes of the Canadian Football League have “Montréal” printed on their jerseys, replete with the acute accent used in the French rendering of the city’s name; baseball’s Expos did the same from 1969 to 2004.

When the Belarussian forward Andrei Kastsitsyn attended Canadiens training camp in 2004, the club honored his request to change the spelling to Kostitsyn. When the Russian defenseman Alexei Emelin joined the Canadiens in 2011, Montreal newspapers used the more accurate transliteration of his surname, Yemelin. (The papers have since reverted to the N.H.L.’s official spelling, without the Y.)

“We are definitely more sensitive to language in Montreal than people might be elsewhere in North America, though it’s not just us,” said the hockey historian Michel Vigneault, a lecturer at the Université du Québec à Montréal. “It could be about whether the Canadiens’ captain makes the effort to try to speak French, or it could be about accent marks.”

Gervais said the accents were made possible by technology. Until recently, the strip of cloth for name bars was too shallow.

“I would have had to sew the accent mark onto the uniform itself, above the name bar,” said Gervais, who started working as a Canadiens equipment manager in 1987. “Until a few years ago, we used to reuse the uniforms, so I couldn’t do it.”

Now, he said, the name bars are taller, and machines can print any diacritical mark.

“All of that together, I was sitting in my office last summer and said to myself, You know, why not?” Gervais said.

So he will print players’ names as they appear on the official roster. Does that include Eastern European names with diacritical marks on C’s, S’s, N’s and R’s?

“Honestly, I didn’t know last summer about all the accents on European names,” Gervais said. “I just said, ‘Boom, let’s do it.’ But if a Czech player writes down his name with all those accent marks, I’ll include them.”

[roy_133]

So on the whole, hard to be unhappy with his second tenure but his use of PK is starting to frustrate and trouble me. It's pretty clear he's viewed as basically an offensive DMan and IMO he's so much more. Tonight's game is a good example, Subban didn't touch the ice for the last few minutes of a 1 goal game. The Norris winner. The only DMan on this team who sees less shorthanded ice time per-game is Beaulieu. Diaz is used on the 1st pairing and I don't have an issue with Diaz and he actually played his best game of the season tonight but I just can't understand it. How can anyone believe having Diaz out on the PK is a better alternative to Subban. Subban is our only DMan with that kind of strength and speed combo. There's plenty of use for that.

I don't think this is a case of a coach protecting Subban's minutes for later in the season, he did the same thing through all of last year, big game or not and the fact that he's using a 34 year old Markov, who's been injury prone and prone to wearing down in a more prominent role kind of debunks the theory that he's all that concerned with saving guys.

[Habs_Hockey_Nutz]

So on the whole, hard to be unhappy with his second tenure but his use of PK is starting to frustrate and trouble me. It's pretty clear he's viewed as basically an offensive DMan and IMO he's so much more. Tonight's game is a good example, Subban didn't touch the ice for the last few minutes of a 1 goal game. The Norris winner. The only DMan on this team who sees less shorthanded ice time per-game is Beaulieu. Diaz is used on the 1st pairing and I don't have an issue with Diaz and he actually played his best game of the season tonight but I just can't understand it. How can anyone believe having Diaz out on the PK is a better alternative to Subban. Subban is our only DMan with that kind of strength and speed combo. There's plenty of use for that.

I don't think this is a case of a coach protecting Subban's minutes for later in the season, he did the same thing through all of last year, big game or not and the fact that he's using a 34 year old Markov, who's been injury prone and prone to wearing down in a more prominent role kind of debunks the theory that he's all that concerned with saving guys.

Is PK sick or injured perhaps? Or is it because he has become a marked player by the officials who is getting penalized at bad times?

Though I wouldn't be surprised that there could still be an issue between PK and the coaching staff trying to tame his game using a severe risk-reward assessment. It may be hard for Subban to accept being told to cool it with the fancy stuff. And it could be hard for the coaching staff to let him do what he does because of their principles.

Whatever the case may be it doesn't seem right to me... confusing to say the least.

[BeanCountingHab]

So on the whole, hard to be unhappy with his second tenure but his use of PK is starting to frustrate and trouble me. It's pretty clear he's viewed as basically an offensive DMan and IMO he's so much more. Tonight's game is a good example, Subban didn't touch the ice for the last few minutes of a 1 goal game. The Norris winner. The only DMan on this team who sees less shorthanded ice time per-game is Beaulieu. Diaz is used on the 1st pairing and I don't have an issue with Diaz and he actually played his best game of the season tonight but I just can't understand it. How can anyone believe having Diaz out on the PK is a better alternative to Subban. Subban is our only DMan with that kind of strength and speed combo. There's plenty of use for that.

I don't think this is a case of a coach protecting Subban's minutes for later in the season, he did the same thing through all of last year, big game or not and the fact that he's using a 34 year old Markov, who's been injury prone and prone to wearing down in a more prominent role kind of debunks the theory that he's all that concerned with saving guys.

It blows my mind that we had Murray on the ice for the final minute while Subban was on the bench. He's getting 25 minutes or more most nights so it isn't a total disaster, but the implications with respect to how he views Subban are troubling. Who doesn't play their young Norris winning thoroughbread defensemen in key defensive situations or on the penalty kill? Even another minute or two of PK would push him to 26-27 minutes most nights which he could handle no problem.

It also reinforces the stigma in the media that he's an offense first guy and not really a complete defenseman. That shouldn't really matter, but it bothers me especially in an Olympic year.

[Guest]

So on the whole, hard to be unhappy with his second tenure but his use of PK is starting to frustrate and trouble me. It's pretty clear he's viewed as basically an offensive DMan and IMO he's so much more. Tonight's game is a good example, Subban didn't touch the ice for the last few minutes of a 1 goal game. The Norris winner. The only DMan on this team who sees less shorthanded ice time per-game is Beaulieu. Diaz is used on the 1st pairing and I don't have an issue with Diaz and he actually played his best game of the season tonight but I just can't understand it. How can anyone believe having Diaz out on the PK is a better alternative to Subban. Subban is our only DMan with that kind of strength and speed combo. There's plenty of use for that.

I don't think this is a case of a coach protecting Subban's minutes for later in the season, he did the same thing through all of last year, big game or not and the fact that he's using a 34 year old Markov, who's been injury prone and prone to wearing down in a more prominent role kind of debunks the theory that he's all that concerned with saving guys.

Just speculation on my part, but the reasoning might have something to do with PK being a target for the refs ( or so it seems). MT could be leery of that late game penalty that PK seems to draw on more then one occasion. Other then that possibility,,, i'm pretty much at a loss for an explanation.

[FirstStar]

Just speculation on my part, but the reasoning might have something to do with PK being a target for the refs ( or so it seems). MT could be leery of that late game penalty that PK seems to draw on more then one occasion. Other then that possibility,,, i'm pretty much at a loss for an explanation.

Also, PK doesn't always have the best discipline and has been known to take some bad penalties at the end of games. A week or so ago, he took a bad penalty with minutes left in the game against (I believe) the oilers. Instead of pulling Price in the final minutes to try and tie the game, we were forced to kill off the penalty. Now this does 2 things, takes away our chance to tie it and bring the game to OT and it also takes our best player off the ice at the worst time.

That's the only thing I can think of. There's a lot that goes on that we don't see. Maybe PK was feeling particularly pesty that game and the coaching staff was afraid he may go too far and take a bad penalty, giving Dallas a chance to tie it.

Apart from that I have no explanation. When you see PK play in his own end, against dallas, he played well.

I don't understand MT's decisions either. Close game I can understand if the coaching staff is worried PK may take a bad penalty.

[habby4ever]

Also, PK doesn't always have the best discipline and has been known to take some bad penalties at the end of games. A week or so ago, he took a bad penalty with minutes left in the game against (I believe) the oilers. Instead of pulling Price in the final minutes to try and tie the game, we were forced to kill off the penalty. Now this does 2 things, takes away our chance to tie it and bring the game to OT and it also takes our best player off the ice at the worst time.

That's the only thing I can think of. There's a lot that goes on that we don't see. Maybe PK was feeling particularly pesty that game and the coaching staff was afraid he may go too far and take a bad penalty, giving Dallas a chance to tie it.

Apart from that I have no explanation. When you see PK play in his own end, against dallas, he played well.

I don't understand MT's decisions either. Close game I can understand if the coaching staff is worried PK may take a bad penalty.

Apparently, Therrien had a talk with Subban, Therrien was not impressed with the late penalty, that possible cost the habs a game. Being in Therriens black book, might be whats causing PK to be controlled on ice time. Subsequently, earning his way back. I was perusing, twitter, RDS, etc...

[BigTed3]

Therrien has always seemingly been harder on Subban than other players. He gives lots of leeway to guys like Markov, Gorges, and Bouillon, but when it comes to PK, Therrien keeps him on as tight a leash as the refs. I don't buy the issue being a bad penalty or two; Murray took a bad penalty late last game and he was still thrown right back onto the ice for the end of the game, this despite the fact he was just coming back from injury as well. Therrien's handling of Subban has been inexplicable and as decent as the team has done under him, his personnel decisions when it comes to players like Subban, Markov, Desharnais, and Bouillon is mind-blowingly weak.

[roy_133]

Therrien has always seemingly been harder on Subban than other players. He gives lots of leeway to guys like Markov, Gorges, and Bouillon, but when it comes to PK, Therrien keeps him on as tight a leash as the refs. I don't buy the issue being a bad penalty or two; Murray took a bad penalty late last game and he was still thrown right back onto the ice for the end of the game, this despite the fact he was just coming back from injury as well. Therrien's handling of Subban has been inexplicable and as decent as the team has done under him, his personnel decisions when it comes to players like Subban, Markov, Desharnais, and Bouillon is mind-blowingly weak.

Yeah, not necessarily sure I buy that either. PK has taken 8 minor penalties in 13 games, it's a high number certainly but not otherworldly, it's tied with Shea Weber and 2 behind Drew Doughty. I'm doubting those guys are hidden late in the game for a fear of taking a penalty.

I just think there's so much more PK can give us. He's a horse capable of doing anything. Like I said in my previous post, he's big, strong, fast and smart. We have no one else close to combining his package. The idea of blowing a big playoff game in the last minute with Markov and Diaz on the ice troubles me.

[ramcharger440]

when his winning% starts to take a dump I will worry. I find he is quite good at choosing the right players at the right time. if I was sitting on the bench with all the info to be sure his decisions were goofy I may feel otherwise. we are tooling along with about 2/3's of our team on the ice and we are doing ok. he must have something to do with it? or has it all been dumb luck?

[habby4ever]

Is PK sick or injured perhaps? Or is it because he has become a marked player by the officials who is getting penalized at bad times?

Though I wouldn't be surprised that there could still be an issue between PK and the coaching staff trying to tame his game using a severe risk-reward assessment. It may be hard for Subban to accept being told to cool it with the fancy stuff. And it could be hard for the coaching staff to let him do what he does because of their principles.

Whatever the case may be it doesn't seem right to me... confusing to say the least.

MT is a good coach. Winning is all that matters and catering to one player doesn't necessarily make you a winner. If MT were to agree with everything Subban does then he may lose 75% of the other players. Tough love works better on some players than others while others need to be comforted more than others to succeed. Since MT has become coach, Subban has excelled as a player...whether we want to believe that he would have with any other coach or not.

No one knows what exactly is going on within the dressing room, despite the heavily manicured "reality" that the 24 CH series presents every week. As a case in point, there was the one berating exchange where Therrien called Subban to task on a botched play in between periods. Subban asked a follow-up question and got blasted a little further.

But, what does that even mean? Every player probably goes through the same type of lecture in the anonymity of everyday exchanges between irate coaches and players who are blamed for whatever.

The fact that they are scoring goals and stopping them means the coaching has been good. If everything that is bad is the coaches fault then you also have to make everything good his fault too.

Subban doesn't kill penalties, probably because the only fault with the guy is he takes bad penalties. It's not worth the risk of going down by 2. Once Subban stops taking so many penalties then he might get more PK time. Unless, having your top offensive players playing on the PK is risky as the injuries risk from blocked shots is quite high. Having Markov out there is a problem to when you look at his injury history.. and finally, could Subban's future dollar value, have something to do with it. IMHO.

[BigTed3]

With respect to Subban, he has the best possession metrics on the team at even strength. Sure, he's taken more penalties than many of his teammates but he also plays more minutes (so more opportunity risk to take penalties) and plays against tougher opposition (possibly more need to take penalties), not to mention that we can all agree he's called more harshly than other players as well.

The argument that Subban is a risk to take penalties while we're short-handed is also a farce. He has yet to take a single penalty short-handed this year, although Ryan White and Tomas Plekanec both have, and each of those players continues to play the PK. Last season, Subban drew as many penalties as he took short-handed and two years ago, he drew three times as many penalties as he took. The argument holds no water, never mind the fact that he is clearly one of our strongest penalty killers in terms of dispossessing the other team of the puck and clearing his own zone. The fact that Therrien feels Murray or Markov or Bouillon is a better player to have on the ice at the end of the game speaks to one of two things: either Therrien doesn't like Subban or else Therrien thinks those other players give us a better shot. Both are troubling to me.

[powerplay2009]

PK Subban is the best player, bar none, on our team in all 3 zones. In the waning minutes of a close game, he gives us the best chance to win. Period.

[Habberwacky]

PK is still PK and I think sending a message early in the year is only going to help him improve. He has had a lot of success but made a couple of really bad pinches last night. I think Therrien is sending a message. He needs to know when to go and is definitely not going to be at his best every night. Pairing him with Markov is like putting him with the professor, and a couple of years with Markie might do the trick.

[THEBIGGESTHABSFAN123]

PK is still PK and I think sending a message early in the year is only going to help him improve. He has had a lot of success but made a couple of really bad pinches last night. I think Therrien is sending a message. He needs to know when to go and is definitely not going to be at his best every night. Pairing him with Markov is like putting him with the professor, and a couple of years with Markie might do the trick.

PK has always been PK and will always be PK. That's the kind of style he plays. It's a risky style, but more often than not it works. It's when it doesn't work that he looks bad. You can't change the way he plays. No matter how much he learns he will still make mistakes sometimes costly ones. Even veterans like Markov and Gorges do it sometimes.

[powerplay2009]

PK is still PK and I think sending a message early in the year is only going to help him improve. He has had a lot of success but made a couple of really bad pinches last night. I think Therrien is sending a message. He needs to know when to go and is definitely not going to be at his best every night. Pairing him with Markov is like putting him with the professor, and a couple of years with Markie might do the trick.

3 things:

1. I really hoped that when PK won the Norris trophy the (as far as I can tell) false narrative about his maturity or his one-dimensional play would dissipate. At this point I feel like he could score the next Golden Goal in Sochi and yet he would still get flack for his goal celebration or something.

2. Normally when you pair a defenseman with a Norris winner, its to make him better, not the Norris winner. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Subban has nothing to learn from Markov or that Subban is perfect, but make no mistake- Subban makes Marky better, not the other way around.

3. Even when Subban is not at his best, he's probably still the best player on our team, and certainly better than Boullion and Murray.

On the pinches note, and I could be wrong about this, but isn't part of Therrien's system allowing and even asking defensemen to occasionally take risky pinches in order to keep the puck deep and keep possession, especially because our defense isn't that great in our end? For us the best defense is offence, more specifically keeping the puck.