Poll: 2015 vs. 2016

[BigTed3]

There have been quite a few changes since opening day last year. We want to know if you think those changes are for the better or not. To situate this for you:

Players from 2015-16 no longer on the team include PK Subban, Tom Gilbert, Tomas Fleischmann, Dale Weise, Devante Smith-Pelley, Alex Semin, Lars Eller, and Jarred Tinordi.

Players we have now (and I'll exclude guys who are essentially rookies who were already in the organization last season) that weren't on the roster to start last year include Shea Weber, Andrew Shaw, Alex Radulov, Mark Barberio, Paul Byron, Phillip Danault, Al Montoya, Zach Redmond, and Stefan Matteau.

So do you like the swaps MB has made or do you wish we could go back to where we were a year ago?

[Habberwacky]

While we have Radulov instead of Semin at a higher price. I like the fact that we have more young players coming up out of our system ready to play or much closer to playing on the big club. While I enjoyed watching Fleiscmann's line with Weise and DD. I think we have appropriate replacements within the system and look forward to seeing our youth.

[PAPPAPUMPED]

This years Habs are a far better team than last Marc Bergevin has made the Habs a tougher harder in your face team to play against .

Weber & the much improved Blue-Line will help Price even further & hopefully Carey Price can stay healthy & thus making the Habs play-off bound .

I like the addition of Radulov, very crafty & talented offensive forward that has matured, becoming a father & having responsibilities he never had four years ago when he screwed-up in Nashville .

I commend Bergevin for having the guts to get off his hands, making the Habs a better team .

I was on him, a harsh critic of his doing squat & being far to complacent when it came to making trades,making real hockey moves to make the Habs a contender .

Jeff Molson has handed the reigns to MB & he did what was needed to compete night in & night out .

I would like to feel what people think fans of the Habs once they see what Webr brings to Montreal on & off the Ice .

I'm most certain that the fans will embrace Weber & PK. will be distant memory in no-time .

Great job MB I commend you for doing what was needed to make the Habs a better hockey team, after-all hockey is team sport not an individualistic sport if you can see where I'm going with this,lol .

Go Habs Go !!!!

[fnveenie]

Because of the offensive additions in the offseason, we are probably a better team now, but if we had kept Subban, we'd be even better than we are now.

[habs_93]

Even disregarding the extreme downgrade of Subban to Weber, it's still worse. Nothing happens in a vacuum. We know Shaw is incapable of regularly playing in the top 6, yet we know from seasons of experience with Therrien that he'll end up there. Andrei Markov is a year older, and Therrien will still overuse and misuse him. We lose a valuable defensive contributor in Lars Eller with no replacement. We've signed Radulov, yes, but we've seen Michel Therrien repeatedly punish offensively skilled players for not being plugs, so it makes absolutely no sense to assume that this time he'll magically make the right decision. He hasn't made many of those so far, after all. Even if Subban was still a Hab, this would be a worse team.

But of course, Subban is not still a Hab. Instead, we have a player who gets severely outplayed as a basic part of his game. A player who is much slower, much more prone to being a passenger to the play on the ice than the driving force behind it, and much less effective in every conceivable respect 5-on-5. A player that, due again to Michel Thererien's very pronounced track record, will likely spend some 5-on-5 time with Andrei Markov.

Carey Price is apparently healthy. This is excellent, but we've seen how quickly that can change. We've also seen what this team under Michel Therrien looks like with Carey Price: passive, languid, outdated, and ineffective. Luck remains the strategy. This is not a better team.

[jedimaas]

For me, its a bit unfair simply because we've seen improvements in a number of young players but not significant downgrades in our vets (aside from maybe markov who was already in decline) in the past year.

So even just comparing 2016 Galchenyuk, Gallagher, Beaulieu, Carr, Pateryn, Adrighetto etc to their 2015 versions give us an upgrade.

I do think we've gotten a bit weaker on the back end (although i dont think the drop off will be as dramatic as some think, for at least the next couple of years) but up front we've made some strides, even if its simply anointing Galchenyuk #1 and relegating DD to a lower line. I do think that losing Eller is going to hurt us unless the plan is to play Plekanec in a full time shut down role.

Overall I think we're better, but just barely. I do think our future has been mortgaged though so I sure hope we're ready to win a cup in the next year or 2.

[ramcharger440]

Even disregarding the extreme downgrade of Subban to Weber, it's still worse. Nothing happens in a vacuum. We know Shaw is incapable of regularly playing in the top 6, yet we know from seasons of experience with Therrien that he'll end up there. Andrei Markov is a year older, and Therrien will still overuse and misuse him. We lose a valuable defensive contributor in Lars Eller with no replacement. We've signed Radulov, yes, but we've seen Michel Therrien repeatedly punish offensively skilled players for not being plugs, so it makes absolutely no sense to assume that this time he'll magically make the right decision. He hasn't made many of those so far, after all. Even if Subban was still a Hab, this would be a worse team.

But of course, Subban is not still a Hab. Instead, we have a player who gets severely outplayed as a basic part of his game. A player who is much slower, much more prone to being a passenger to the play on the ice than the driving force behind it, and much less effective in every conceivable respect 5-on-5. A player that, due again to Michel Thererien's very pronounced track record, will likely spend some 5-on-5 time with Andrei Markov.

Carey Price is apparently healthy. This is excellent, but we've seen how quickly that can change. We've also seen what this team under Michel Therrien looks like with Carey Price: passive, languid, outdated, and ineffective. Luck remains the strategy. This is not a better team.

Talk about glass half empty! you may need to get out of stat world for a while and have some hope!

[jedimaas]

Instead, we have a player who gets severely outplayed as a basic part of his game. A player who is much slower, much more prone to being a passenger to the play on the ice than the driving force behind it, and much less effective in every conceivable respect 5-on-5. A player that, due again to Michel Thererien's very pronounced track record, will likely spend some 5-on-5 time with Andrei Markov.

With due respect, you make Weber sound like Boullion. He's still #1 on most teams. I dont think there's many who would argue he's better than PK but to suggest he's as bad as you've said is a bit silly.

Also, give him a chance! I worry that it wont be pretty under Therrien but i think as fans we at least owe Weber the opportunity to show what he can do here. I have a sneaking suspicion that as long as he's paired with a good skater who can clear the zone (read: Beaulieu) much like he was with Suter, his stats may look much improved on our roster.

[habs_93]

With due respect, you make Weber sound like Boullion. He's still #1 on most teams. I dont think there's many who would argue he's better than PK but to suggest he's as bad as you've said is a bit silly.

I certainly didn't mean to imply that, at all. He's reactive, and allows plays to come to him and not the other way around; an "older school" style, which a lot of people find more recognizable as "defence". Weber certainly has offensive ability, of course. But it's more personal points on power play. Between Weber and Muller, it's not inconceivable that we could end up with a top 5 (or even top 3) power play. But we'll undoubtedly be generating less 5-on-5, while conceding more. It's extremely difficult to see defence in the modern NHL at real time, and I contend P.K. Subban gave us a whole lot of it in ways quite a few people didn't look for. Weber simply cannot play the game Subban does. Watching him play, it's clear he hasn't felt a need to. He rises and falls on his enhanced physicality. I'm not arguing he can't do this well, because that's ridiculous. I'm not even arguing he won't be able to do it for a few more seasons. I'm saying that this style, even executed to near perfection, is intrinsically inferior to a more modern conception of defence based on controlling possession, and that we'll notice a significant difference in even strength.

Also, give him a chance! I worry that it wont be pretty under Therrien but i think as fans we at least owe Weber the opportunity to show what he can do here. I have a sneaking suspicion that as long as he's paired with a good skater who can clear the zone (read: Beaulieu) much like he was with Suter, his stats may look much improved on our roster.

I'm almost certain we'd be happier if Weber played with Beaulieu rather than Markov, but are we going to get it? Michel Therrien has a habit of making extremely poor decisions like this. I'll believe it when I see it. I also highly doubt that an older Weber with worse pair mates than Roman Josi and Ryan Suter will look better on a team coached by Michel Therrien.

[roy_133]

Radulov is a big upgrade on any forward we've lost from opening night 2015 so that's a good start. On paper Shaw and Eller is probably pretty close to a push, although in practice it puts us in a pretty unenviable situation down the middle where I suppose they're going to rely heavily on Danault? I'm not factoring in likely coaching mistakes because who knows, yeah Shaw will probably get overplayed but he was overplaying different guys last year so whatever. Shaw is better than Weise. I still really don't like the Shaw move for a lot of reasons.

To Jedi who said that our younger core players getting better will account for some upgrade, that's certainly true but it's somewhat offset by the reality that we can expect continued regression from the likes of Markov and Plekanec and more worrisome is that Carey is a year closer to his 30 and just missed almost an entire season due to lower body injuries. I'm less sure of and less confident in Carey Price of October 2016 than I was in 2015, I still expect high end performance but we were talking about a guy people were mentioning as the best player at any position in hockey. There's room to regress and still be awesome, a scenario that wouldn't surprise me at all.

From there we get to the most obvious negative, 26 year old (at the time) PK Subban to 31 year old (by October 2016) Shea Weber. That's a big 5 year gap in terms of performance. Primes are happening earlier and earlier, there's an argument that we could even be seeing some SLIGHT regression from PK and Pacioretty as it is as they head into their late 20s but while Weber is still a good player, it's a strong downgrade. One that isn't offset by the Radulov upgrade.

[jeff33]

i think we have a good looking 1st line....assuming our coach doesnt mess that up, which is NOT a safe assumption....and beyond that our lineup looks like a mess

subtracting eller for shaw was not only a negative move, it was a sideways move as now the shutdown center role goes either to danault which is a huge downgrade, or desharnais who should have been bought out.

pleks at 2c is just a snowballing regression. pleks at 3c has us with desharnais at 2c which is garbage. i legitimately cannot see what the plan is here.

chuck

plek

eller was obvious...this? god knows.

the subban move is an enormous mistake, i am not even optimistic that its a wash for a couple of years. p.k drove the offence on this team and imo we are going to see how badly we misjudged his contribution to our overall posession game. minus eller, who was a huge posession guy, we just subtracted 2 of our best posession guys on a team with major posession deficiencies in favour of heart and soul guys. i guess that will help us keep up morale in the room when we still cant score a goal to save our lives

there are exactly 2 positives. chuck coming into his own as a star, and radulov, who is a legitimate first line player as an addition. however, our coach is exactly the guy to absolutely ruin both of those situations.

i predict an improved pp and thats it

this team will look just like last year, cant score 5 on 5, 4 bungled lines that work to the benefit of no one, mismanaged skill players, overplaying plugs, horrible possession numbers. therrien will not be fired no matter how bad it goes, and anything less than last place will get them both another season

[BigTed3]

Some people might find my vote surprising, since I've been largely against the Subban for Weber trade. However, I'll reiterate that the worst part of the the deal is what's coming three years down the line and further. Weber is inferior to Subban now, but I don't think we'll feel the effect as greatly for the first couple of seasons. I'm hoping the addition of Muller and Weber and Radulov to the PP can offset the loss of Subban's speed and skill and defensive ability, but it's sad that it takes three individuals to make up for that loss. Without a doubt, if we could make all the other changes but just retain Eller and Subban in place of Shaw and Weber, I think that would have been our best roster.

But as it stands, I think a lot of the changes are essentially a wash. I don't think the movement of players like Weise, Fleischmann, Matteau, Byron, Tinordi, and so on affect the team to much degree. So what it really comes down to for me is this:

- Subban, Eller, Gilbert, and Semin out

- Weber, Danault, Barberio, Shaw, and Radulov in

- maturation of the young guys and aging of the older players

On the last count, I think the increased utilization of players like Galchenyuk, Beaulieu, McCarron, and so on should offset the drop-off in play of the likes of Plekanec, Markov, and Emelin. Much of this comes down to Therrien using the assets properly, but that has little to do with how I evaluate the actual roster available.

On the lists of ins and outs, again, I think Subban is superior to Weber, but I don't think that trade-off leaves us in dire straits. Danault and Shaw probably balance out Eller, and Barberio replaces Gilbert. But the big change for me is looking at Radulov in over Semin. I think that one move gives us sorely lacking offensive ability, and to me, in the end, I think the Radulov insertion is enough to make up for swapping Subban for Weber. It's close, but I give the edge to the current roster. Again that doesn't mean MB made good moves. Most of his decisions have been bad. But getting Radulov essentially for free helps to overcome his many mistakes.

[Guest Regis2]

. But getting Radulov essentially for free helps to overcome his many mistakes.

That's provided the coach ( same guy as last year ) uses him , properly

[BigTed3]

That's provided the coach ( same guy as last year ) uses him , properly

Sure, but then could say the same thing about what MT did with Galchenyuk, Semin, Markov, Beaulieu, Tinordi, Weise, Desharnais, and so on last year. He's made a lot of bad personnel decisions. But he's a constant in the equation from one year to the next, so I'm evaluating what I see on paper.

[Noob616]

Team will definitely have better results but I think the opening night roster was better in October 2015 than it will be in October 2016, unless there's another big trade and we manage to pull off a comparable fleecing of another team to the degree we got fleeced by Nashville. Maybe we'll get lucky and Toronto will do something dumb like trading Gardiner or Kadri.

1) I think the defence is just flat out worse now by a pretty large margin. 31 year old Weber for prime age Subban is a significant downgrade and there has been no other improvements made. The only likely positive is that Beaulieu improves but I don't think that's enough to counteract the large gap between Subban and Weber, and the likely further regression of Markov and Emelin. I just don't see this group of defensemen being able to move the puck consistently, Price is going to have a lot of work and need to have another Hart/Vezina season. I can't stress that enough, Subban and Petry was a huge luxury, two guys that are just flat out studs that move the puck well no matter what, and now Petry is the only guy that fits that mold. Weber is no slouch but I don't think he's anywhere near Subban's level right now and the forwards are really going to miss Subban's skill at moving the puck up the ice.

2) The Shaw trade was kinda dumb. Lars Eller is a defensive stud who took lots of tough minutes from Plekanec who is now going to have to shift back to a heavy defensive role at age 34. It just really screws up the whole layout at center, the team would have been far better off with Galchenyuk-Pleks-Eller instead of starting ANOTHER season with Desharnais in the top 9. This is a fairly big issue, a big part of Plekanec's good seasons was that he was freed up to play a scoring role with Eller's growth as a defensive center. Now he'll be in that role again, and I think people aren't going to be too thrilled when he has a 45 point season. I think it's salvageable if they put Danault as the 3rd line C and play Desharnais on the wing but I still think the team was better off with Eller and not Andrew Shaw at 3.9M for 6 years.

3) Galchenyuk is gonna have a good season but he didn't really "break out" last season, he's scored at a 1st line P/60 rate since his 2nd year in the league, his scoring rates hardly changed during that stretch of offense, he's scored like a 1st liner since he was 19, only difference was he finally got actual 1st line minutes. Plekanec will be fine too but I'm really concerned about him having to take all the defensive minutes again at age 34. A big part of his great last couple seasons was that Eller took on some of those garbage minutes and allowed Plekanec to be in more of a scoring role.

4) As roy_133 mentioned, September 2015 Carey Price came in after a Vezina and Hart trophy season, a gold medal, and as the consensus best goalie in the world. In October 2016 he comes in after missing a season with a knee injury and inching closer to 30. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect some regression. Before anyone jumps down my throat I mean regression from "clearly best goalie in the world" with a .933 to "one of the 5 best goalies in the world" with a .925 which is still excellent. The team is set up expecting Price will be the best goalie in the world, and even a small deviation from that high .933 mark is an issue, especially considering the team will be worse possession wise unless there's a coaching change.

5) Markov and Plekanec still continue to play big roles on the team but they're really starting to get up there. Plekanec will be 34 in October, and Markov will be 38 in December. I really wonder how much those guys have left in the tank, there's young players who will improve and might break into the league but Markov and Plekanec were both really fantastic players and they're hard to replace.

If I'm looking at this glass half full:

1) Top 6 is clearly better. I don't want to evaluate this based on coaching but I feel like at this point Galchenyuk will finally have to get real top 6 minutes, and Radulov is probably the best forward the team's signed since Cammalleri or maybe that one year when Erik Cole was really good. Galchenyuk permanently in the top 6 and Radulov over Semin/Weise is a big upgrade, and Daniel Carr had a pretty decent season so he'll be alright to start the year on the 2nd line.

2) I don't like the Shaw trade in a vacuum but the team's RW depth went from Gallagher-Weise-Semin- to Gallagher-Radulov-Shaw which is much better.

3) Montoya, Lindgren, Condon is probably a better backup trio than Condon/Tokarski/Fucale. I don't really include Fucale in my thoughts for this year, I think he's still a few years away from the NHL and not realistically going to challenge for an NHL spot.

4) You've got to think that at some point this year some of McCarron, Scherbak, Reway, Lehkonen, Hudon, Carr, and Andrighetto will become permanently established in the top 9. The dream scenario is a few of these guys play themselves into the 2LW and 3rd line spots, and push Shaw to the 4th line where he and Danault can be a great defensive line like Prust-White-Moen from a few years back.

5) This is really reaching, but if, and I stress if, Sergachev is actually good enough to step into an NHL second pairing role this year that might just be enough to salvage things with an Emelin move. Beaulieu-Weber, Sergachev-Petry, and Markov-Barberio is actually a pretty solid top 6 if Sergachev is able to play at an NHL level. Sergachev is 6'2" 220lb, he's already physically big enough but of course that doesn't mean he's NHL ready. It's really a stretch and I wouldn't count on it, but it is within the realm of possibility that he plays in the NHL this year, and I think the Habs genuinely believe he might be NHL ready. If he's only good enough to play on the 3rd pairing it's fine, but it doesn't actually improve the roster unless he's a really solid player and at least close to Beaulieu's level.

6) They went out and got Shea Weber, a name brand guy with a huge presence and a lot of career accomplishments. I don't really subscribe to the idea he's this magically gritty "character" warrior, but I think him and Shaw in the room adds some leadership to the team. I don't personally consider this aspect all that valuable but it's certainly a positive thing an optimist could look at.

7) This trade is Bergevin going all in. I have my doubts about his judgment but I think he's realizing he has Price at 6.5M for 2 more years, and that Plekanec and Markov might only have a year left of high level hockey. I see this as him recognizing the Habs need to win this year or next at the absolute latest, and I truly feel like there's going to be less Emelin over Beaulieu or Desharnais over Galchenyuk type garbage going on this year. I wouldn't rule out a coaching change if the team starts slow or if Shaw plays over Radulov. They moved Subban and Eller for two of the league's grittiest, "leaderiest", heart-and-sandpaper guys, so I don't think anyone will buy another round of platitudes about character and being a team in transition. If Price, Weber, and Shaw aren't enough "character" then you may as well blow up the team and start over. I think Bergevin realizes there's "No Excuses" left, so if the team has a slow start they'll have to make a coaching change.

_________________________

Ultimately I think the issue is going to be possession. The Habs are going to probably be a mediocre possession team at best and a bad one at worst, and unfortunately that undoes the upgrade of Radulov over Semin/Weise. Radulov is a really good player but I worry about the forwards in general, I don't see this group of defensemen being able to move the puck out of our zone effectively besides Jeff Petry, and I think the forwards will struggle because of that. Price will still be great but "great" won't be good enough, he'll need to have another Vezina/Hart level season.

[Habs=stanleycup]

They moved Subban and Eller for two of the league's grittiest, "leaderiest", heart-and-sandpaper guys, so I don't think anyone will buy another round of platitudes about character and being a team in transition. If Price, Weber, and Shaw aren't enough "character" then you may as well blow up the team and start over. I think Bergevin realizes there's "No Excuses" left, so if the team has a slow start they'll have to make a coaching change.

LOL. Perfectly said.

[jedimaas]

This trade is Bergevin going all in. I have my doubts about his judgment but I think he's realizing he has Price at 6.5M for 2 more years, and that Plekanec and Markov might only have a year left of high level hockey. I see this as him recognizing the Habs need to win this year or next at the absolute latest, and I truly feel like there's going to be less Emelin over Beaulieu or Desharnais over Galchenyuk type garbage going on this year. I wouldn't rule out a coaching change if the team starts slow or if Shaw plays over Radulov. They moved Subban and Eller for two of the league's grittiest, "leaderiest", heart-and-sandpaper guys, so I don't think anyone will buy another round of platitudes about character and being a team in transition. If Price, Weber, and Shaw aren't enough "character" then you may as well blow up the team and start over. I think Bergevin realizes there's "No Excuses" left, so if the team has a slow start they'll have to make a coaching change.

Could you imagine being the new coach though? "Wait, can i have last year's roster back??" lol

[BigTed3]

Could you imagine being the new coach though? "Wait, can i have last year's roster back??" lol

If I were a coach here, and I knew that I could have any of Subban, Semin, Tinordi, Diaz, Sekac, Ellis, PAP, and so on back for free AND then add in youngsters like McCarron, Hudon, Scherbak, Lehkonen, or Reway... the potential to do something with this roster is huge. If I were coach, you would immediately see Flynn, Matteau, and Byron cut as well. I'd make room for players with skill.

[jedimaas]

If I were a coach here, and I knew that I could have any of Subban, Semin, Tinordi, Diaz, Sekac, Ellis, PAP, and so on back for free AND then add in youngsters like McCarron, Hudon, Scherbak, Lehkonen, or Reway... the potential to do something with this roster is huge. If I were coach, you would immediately see Flynn, Matteau, and Byron cut as well. I'd make room for players with skill.

This.

The sad thing is that I would put up our youth scouting/assessment team against probably any team in the NHL. Our professional scouting/assessment team on the other hand...

[FirstStar]

Hmmm, that's a good but tough question to answer. Since we don't know what our full roster will look like come October.

Who knows, Patches could be traded for P kane. I know, highly unlikely, but you get my point.

With a healthy Price, defensively we're better and we are tougher on the back end. We have more proven fire power in our top 6, compared to the 15/16 season. Chuck finally broke out towards the end of the reg 2015-16 season, which has me anxiously waiting to see his contributions this season.

One of our big issues imo, we don't have a smooth skating puck moving/handling dman to carry the puck into the o-zone. That might give us headaches in the neutral zone. Once in the off-zone, I have confidence that patches, Chuck, Gally and Radulov will entertain down bellow the hash marks and from the half boards. And Weber with his canon of a shot, should contribute 5 on 5 and with the man advantage.

As I said in another thread, don't think we'll have issues this season, but ask me the same question in a few years when Subban is hitting his 30's and Weber is looking like chara has, over the past few seasons.

[Habs=stanleycup]

-The real question is whether the Canadiens are a better team now than they were at the end of this disastrous season. I spoke to my buddy Simon Boisvert – a filmmaker and former QMJHL scout – and his take on the new-look Habs is that this is an “all-in” edition, as in Bergevin wants to win in the next year or two.

But Boisvert calls it a “semi all-in” because the team still doesn’t have the roster to compete with the best teams in the league.

We agreed that presumably the first line next season will be Max Pacioretty, Brendan Gallagher and Alex Galchenyuk, which I suggested is a decent first line but hardly spectacular.

“It’s a second line at best on a championship-winning team,” said Boisvert. “But it’s not a top line on a championship team.”

Then the next line has to be Tomas Plekanec at centre, Radulov on the wing along with maybe Sven Andrighetto. The plus is you presumably have new pick-up Andrew Shaw on the third line.

“So your first line is actually a second line and your second line is actually a third line,” said Boisvert. “Then you have two fourth lines.”

That’s when I told Boisvert he was being too harsh, that we have a fantastic fourth line. We are in fact quite simply overflowing with fourth-liners so if Paul Byron, Brian Flynn, and Torrey Mitchell all go down, Bergevin has an embarrassment of choices for replacements.

Do I need to add ‘#sarcasm’ here?

On the upside, if Radulov suffers the usual Habs scoring discount and only pots 15 and Weber doesn’t fit in to kindly ol’ coach Michel Therrien’s dump-and-chase system, then one scenario has the team stumbling badly in the fall, forcing Bergevin to toss his old pal Therrien out of the foxhole and on to the unemployment queue.

Who says I can’t be positive sometimes?

http://montrealgazette.com/sports/what-the-puck-are-the-habs-a-better-team-than-last-years-edition

[FirstStar]

See, when we had success at the beginning of the 15-16 season, we weren't playing this dump and chase. We were confidently bring the puck in and making things happen, it was actually quite refreshing to see. Have been impressed with teams who could bring the puck (rather than dump) into the ozone. I've been fascinated by this ever since i first saw the Red Army do this in the 70's and 80's.

This sadly, only lasted about 10 games into the 15-16 season. Once injuries started to pile up, panic seemed to set in and this smooth skating, smooth passing style disappeared and we went back to the clumsy dump and chase. If you have big forwards like the ducks and you're playing a team with smaller defenders, this can be very effective. They may be able to handle being checked into the boards by Perry, Kesler and Getzlaf for a period, but by the 2nd period, they're fed up of eating glass. That causes defenders to hesitate, which leads to them being 2nd to the puck, giving up possession deep in the dzone-which is exactly what the forwards were counting on.

[East_Coast_Juggalo_13]

This.

The sad thing is that I would put up our youth scouting/assessment team against probably any team in the NHL. Our professional scouting/assessment team on the other hand...

Maybe we need Timmins as top ops.

[jeff33]

-The real question is whether the Canadiens are a better team now than they were at the end of this disastrous season. I spoke to my buddy Simon Boisvert – a filmmaker and former QMJHL scout – and his take on the new-look Habs is that this is an “all-in” edition, as in Bergevin wants to win in the next year or two.

But Boisvert calls it a “semi all-in” because the team still doesn’t have the roster to compete with the best teams in the league.

We agreed that presumably the first line next season will be Max Pacioretty, Brendan Gallagher and Alex Galchenyuk, which I suggested is a decent first line but hardly spectacular.

“It’s a second line at best on a championship-winning team,” said Boisvert. “But it’s not a top line on a championship team.”

Then the next line has to be Tomas Plekanec at centre, Radulov on the wing along with maybe Sven Andrighetto. The plus is you presumably have new pick-up Andrew Shaw on the third line.

“So your first line is actually a second line and your second line is actually a third line,” said Boisvert. “Then you have two fourth lines.”

That’s when I told Boisvert he was being too harsh, that we have a fantastic fourth line. We are in fact quite simply overflowing with fourth-liners so if Paul Byron, Brian Flynn, and Torrey Mitchell all go down, Bergevin has an embarrassment of choices for replacements.

Do I need to add ‘#sarcasm’ here?

On the upside, if Radulov suffers the usual Habs scoring discount and only pots 15 and Weber doesn’t fit in to kindly ol’ coach Michel Therrien’s dump-and-chase system, then one scenario has the team stumbling badly in the fall, forcing Bergevin to toss his old pal Therrien out of the foxhole and on to the unemployment queue.

Who says I can’t be positive sometimes?

http://montrealgazette.com/sports/what-the-puck-are-the-habs-a-better-team-than-last-years-edition

couple of things here

1. bergevin will not fire therrien, take that to the bank. he will be the coach until molson gets rid of both of them. kind of like the final scene in titanic, except molson floats by and kicks the other one in as well

2. at least we have shaw on the 3rd line, nice, too bad we have no center.

this team looks like absolute garbage on paper, and thats MY on paper, not coach T on paper, who you can rest assured will assemble these players in the stupidest way possible

everyone is expecting that we must have a better year, last year was just this total anomaly. that was the case in the cunneyworth year, ironically the year therrien took over. half the team was injured , we traded cammy for bourque, we just had nobody.

we got a fresh year with our roster back intact and had a winning record. thats not going to happen this year.

we got exposed last year. we were a garbage possession team with a weak roster that cant score a goal, and now we just traded our two best possession guys away.

we have a weaker roster , which will like last year be deployed in the worst possible configuration to perform in the worst possible way.

[ramcharger440]

couple of things here

1. bergevin will not fire therrien, take that to the bank. he will be the coach until molson gets rid of both of them. kind of like the final scene in titanic, except molson floats by and kicks the other one in as well

2. at least we have shaw on the 3rd line, nice, too bad we have no center.

this team looks like absolute garbage on paper, and thats MY on paper, not coach T on paper, who you can rest assured will assemble these players in the stupidest way possible

everyone is expecting that we must have a better year, last year was just this total anomaly. that was the case in the cunneyworth year, ironically the year therrien took over. half the team was injured , we traded cammy for bourque, we just had nobody.

we got a fresh year with our roster back intact and had a winning record. thats not going to happen this year.

we got exposed last year. we were a garbage possession team with a weak roster that cant score a goal, and now we just traded our two best possession guys away.

we have a weaker roster , which will like last year be deployed in the worst possible configuration to perform in the worst possible way.

I disagree i think we are a better balanced team with a stronger roster. as for how the coach assembles the lines well we have no idea how it will pan out! but if it goes poorly we will have a new coach or else we will have both a new coach and gm.