2019-20 State Of The Habs

[CaptWelly]

9 minutes ago, arpem-can said:

I never thought we lost the trade . I was a Subban fan , loved him but I thought the trade was good for the club because Weber brought certain elements that Subban couldn't provide ...if Subban had continued putting points on the board well good for him but there were aspects of his play that were hurting the club regardless ...he was a larger than life  personality with more than one iron in the fire besides just concentrating on playing hockey (his philanthropic endeavours aside) ….since the trade these distractions  have shown to be the most significant of factors  in his overall play I believe ….perhaps Bergevin saw this playing out after all .

That is what is great about Hockey it's a team game and NO ONE should be above the team. If you like that watch Basketball it's all about the individual !

[arpem-can]

11 minutes ago, CaptWelly said:

That is what is great about Hockey it's a team game and NO ONE should be above the team. If you like that watch Basketball it's all about the individual !

there are certain individual players however that you just can't miss the opportunity to see ...like McDavid ….his speed and skill set is truly in the clouds  ...I felt the same way about 99 and Mario or Gilbert Perrault ,  Crosby when he was a little younger had the magic , Lafleur , the Rocket , Mr. Hockey . Mikita (after he stopped fighting) ,Denis Savard , Pavel Datsyuk ,  Bure , Booby Orr  all special players to marvel at for individual skillsets 

[campabee82]

33 minutes ago, CaptWelly said:

As it will always be with most trades especially ones that involve a popular player. It was not a "consensus" that one side or another "won' the trade. There were several GM's media and fans that thought the HABs won the trade at the time also. All trades over time tell how it works out for both teams. Some involve draft choices or prospects that may or may not ever turn out and some have players that one or the other works for one team or both teams. One example is at this time both Montreal and Vegas are happy with the Pacs trade. Myself I liked Pacs but the trade worked out, and at the time Suzuki was still a question mark and Tatar was deemed on his way down. (I live in Michigan and most Wings fans were happy he was gone and his effort had dropped). It turned out good for both. As fans we get attached and only really see what we see on the ice and the rest comes from sources and which we choose to believe. No one will really know what may have been only what it is now. In another year it could be different again. 

While I agree that determining a winner in a trade has to wait until the end of the respective playing careers and things change year to year a trade is made based on value at the time and MB did not do himself any favours by publically saying PK was a distraction and didn't have the right attitude. That decreased his value and thus we didn't get his worth at the time  he did the same with Patches and Galchenyuk prior to their trades. 

[campabee82]

33 minutes ago, CaptWelly said:

As it will always be with most trades especially ones that involve a popular player. It was not a "consensus" that one side or another "won' the trade. There were several GM's media and fans that thought the HABs won the trade at the time also. All trades over time tell how it works out for both teams. Some involve draft choices or prospects that may or may not ever turn out and some have players that one or the other works for one team or both teams. One example is at this time both Montreal and Vegas are happy with the Pacs trade. Myself I liked Pacs but the trade worked out, and at the time Suzuki was still a question mark and Tatar was deemed on his way down. (I live in Michigan and most Wings fans were happy he was gone and his effort had dropped). It turned out good for both. As fans we get attached and only really see what we see on the ice and the rest comes from sources and which we choose to believe. No one will really know what may have been only what it is now. In another year it could be different again. 

While I agree that determining a winner in a trade has to wait until the end of the respective playing careers and things change year to year a trade is made based on value at the time and MB did not do himself any favours by publically saying PK was a distraction and didn't have the right attitude. That decreased his value and thus we didn't get his worth at the time  he did the same with Patches and Galchenyuk prior to their trades. 

[H_T_L]

23 minutes ago, campabee82 said:

While I agree that determining a winner in a trade has to wait until the end of the respective playing careers and things change year to year a trade is made based on value at the time and MB did not do himself any favours by publically saying PK was a distraction and didn't have the right attitude. That decreased his value and thus we didn't get his worth at the time  he did the same with Patches and Galchenyuk prior to their trades. 

This to me says it all. I remember the day of the trade like it was yesterday. I was in my car and got a call from a friend asking what I thought of the trade. I asked him what trade?He tells me PK was traded to Nashville. The first thing out of my mouth was it better be Weber coming back plus. We got Weber but no plus. It seems fair today and maybe even on the win side at the moment but back then I felt Nashville won the deal. Only time will tell if we actually prevail in this trade, because so far Weber has struggled to lead us to the promise land. Between the injuries and the early exits/lack of playoff action,,, it's been a bust on our side.

This deal still pails in comparison to the Roy trade IMO and likely always will.

[HabsRuleForever]

27 minutes ago, H_T_L said:

This to me says it all. I remember the day of the trade like it was yesterday. I was in my car and got a call from a friend asking what I thought of the trade. I asked him what trade?He tells me PK was traded to Nashville. The first thing out of my mouth was it better be Weber coming back plus. We got Weber but no plus. It seems fair today and maybe even on the win side at the moment but back then I felt Nashville won the deal. Only time will tell if we actually prevail in this trade, because so far Weber has struggled to lead us to the promise land. Between the injuries and the early exits/lack of playoff action,,, it's been a bust on our side.

This deal still pails in comparison to the Roy trade IMO and likely always will.

This says it all.

 

I’ve moved on.

[BigTed3]

3 hours ago, HabsAlways said:

Hindsight always makes trades better or worse.    Its easy now to look at the trade given the current circumstances and say we won it easily.    Yet, at the time if it had been say Subban for Weber + 3rd it would have made more sense.     Older player etc, contract lasting till he's 41, that 3rd offsets that.   They were so hell bent on trading Subban that they lowered his value.  

And even given how things have played out, with Subban seeming to have regressed horribly, I can never accept that Bergevin couldn't have gotten more for PK than he did.

This is pretty much my take as well. AT THE TIME the trade was made, Subban had better statistics, better possession metrics, was the younger player, had the better contract, etc. Everything was in favor of Subban then, and the bottom line is that MB should have gotten something more from Nashville than just Weber.

Fast forward a few years, and I'd still say Nashville won the first couple of years after the trade when Weber had a few big injuries and Subban helped Nashville to a Cup final. Last year was a bit of a wash, and this is the first year Weber has clearly smoked Subban in terms of play. But if the NHL were to cease operations today, I'd still say Subban has had the better 4-year span since the trade since Weber. This season, Weber looked pretty bad for a decent stretch and he's had a fair number of defensive lapses in addition to looking pretty bad on the PK. But he's looked good on the PP and his skating ability has looked pretty impressive in the past few weeks. So what's surprising me about Weber is that his mobility has picked up a bit after looking like he might have been in decline. It's nice to see. Conversely, Subban has not been able to dominate any more since coming back from injury last year, and you've got to have doubts about whether he too can get his career going again. Both Weber and Subban are past prime now, so the question is who can mitigate against the aging process best. Based on this season, the answer is Weber, but if you asked me a year ago, I'd have said Subban, so I still think this can change back and forth.

At the end of the day, the trade hasn't looked as bad for us as it did the day it was made, but it's still something that should have been better at the time.

[Windoe]

I think the Subban-Weber trade, on the balance is largely a push, and will be a push when its all said and done.  I miss watching PK on the ice, but Weber does special things too, and he's well liked in the room and around the league, which does help his resale value should MB choose to sell Weber.

My question to the community here though, knowing what we know now, what are MB's three worst moves in your opinions?  
Trading Eller for two second round picks? 
Acquiring Shaw for two second round picks?
Signing Alzner? 
Trading Pacioretty?
Swapping Sergachev for Drouin?
Not getting more for Subban? Really, if that makes your top 3 list, I think that's a pretty good job well done by MB.  Not being able to get more for Subban I put on Subban, not on MB.  Nashville saw PK's undeniable talent and knowingly took the baggage with the deal.  Weber was a fair and steady return as it turns out.
Or is it more the moves he has been unable to make that bother people?
Something else? 

Overall, in my opinion, MB's moves in aggregate have largely panned out, he has improved the team more than weakened it.  Moves like Domi, Danault, Petry,  Suzuki/Tatar,  Armia all outweigh the worst three things he's done.

And yet, we are not really any closer to a Cup.  So...it will be interesting to see what he does with our aging assets as the playoff picture becomes more clear.

 

[claremont]

43 minutes ago, Windoe said:

I think the Subban-Weber trade, on the balance is largely a push, and will be a push when its all said and done.  I miss watching PK on the ice, but Weber does special things too, and he's well liked in the room and around the league, which does help his resale value should MB choose to sell Weber.

My question to the community here though, knowing what we know now, what are MB's three worst moves in your opinions?  
Trading Eller for two second round picks? 
Acquiring Shaw for two second round picks?
Signing Alzner? 
Trading Pacioretty?
Swapping Sergachev for Drouin?
Not getting more for Subban? Really, if that makes your top 3 list, I think that's a pretty good job well done by MB.  Not being able to get more for Subban I put on Subban, not on MB.  Nashville saw PK's undeniable talent and knowingly took the baggage with the deal.  Weber was a fair and steady return as it turns out.
Or is it more the moves he has been unable to make that bother people?
Something else? 

Overall, in my opinion, MB's moves in aggregate have largely panned out, he has improved the team more than weakened it.  Moves like Domi, Danault, Petry,  Suzuki/Tatar,  Armia all outweigh the worst three things he's done.

And yet, we are not really any closer to a Cup.  So...it will be interesting to see what he does with our aging assets as the playoff picture becomes more clear.

 

 

[arpem-can]

1 hour ago, claremont said:

 

ok I'll bite on this ...we don't know how the Shaw picks will work for starters but I think Bergy unloaded him at about the right time ( the picks could be traded as well ) ...I liked him a lot and he was a great team guy but had concussion issues and also made room for a guy like Suzuki to step in ...the Eller trade is a little different in that Montreal traded away a steady for sure 3rd line defensive center with size who hasn't changed much from the guy we had ..in exchange Montreal got Jordan Harris and Samuel Houde as picks and they're still in the system so we can't  know for sure but I'd definitely give the nod to Washington over Bergy ...maybe the best trade is Danault and ( eventual 2nd round pick in 2018 )  Romanov for Fleishmann and Weise ...getting Armia was a major steal , Petry as well and lets not forget Byron on waivers ...Drouin for Sergachev is about even but I'd still make that trade ...Kulak was had for spare parts and Domi has worked out better so far for Montreal ...the Weber trade speaks for itself for me  which bring us to the Pacs trade ...in the end I think Montreal wins this too ...Suzuki will be around for years and fairly cheap and Tatar has actually fared better than Pacs to date and still can be traded down the line  ...all in all the worst thing Bergevin has done is sign Alzner ..No we don't have a Cup but neither do a lot of teams that have been trying for years . However Montreal has its best prospect pool in decades ( ranked ahead of at least 25/26  other teams ) because Bergy has been staying the course and we are still a young roster  even with Weber , Petry ,Thompson and Price driving up the average age ...the moves Bergy hasn't been able to make and what were the circumstances we'll probably never know ...he probably dodged a bullet in Gardiner  

 

[caperns61]

2 hours ago, Windoe said:

I think the Subban-Weber trade, on the balance is largely a push, and will be a push when its all said and done.  I miss watching PK on the ice, but Weber does special things too, and he's well liked in the room and around the league, which does help his resale value should MB choose to sell Weber.

My question to the community here though, knowing what we know now, what are MB's three worst moves in your opinions?  
Trading Eller for two second round picks? 
Acquiring Shaw for two second round picks?
Signing Alzner? 
Trading Pacioretty?
Swapping Sergachev for Drouin?
Not getting more for Subban? Really, if that makes your top 3 list, I think that's a pretty good job well done by MB.  Not being able to get more for Subban I put on Subban, not on MB.  Nashville saw PK's undeniable talent and knowingly took the baggage with the deal.  Weber was a fair and steady return as it turns out.
Or is it more the moves he has been unable to make that bother people?
Something else? 

Overall, in my opinion, MB's moves in aggregate have largely panned out, he has improved the team more than weakened it.  Moves like Domi, Danault, Petry,  Suzuki/Tatar,  Armia all outweigh the worst three things he's done.

And yet, we are not really any closer to a Cup.  So...it will be interesting to see what he does with our aging assets as the playoff picture becomes more clear.
 

Personally trading Sergachev for Drouin was the biggest blunder for me. We traded from our weakest position on the team

[MALMACIAN_CRUNCH]

Ahh, the good’ol Subban/Weber trade debate... 

To start with, I always want to see bonus assets coming back (picks, prospects) regardless of who the trades involve. If not for anything else, it’s a reliable measuring stick for GM’s, and it is one area where MB has a history of leaving me wanting. That’s not to say he never gets that little extra, he just doesn’t get it as much as I’d like.

Now, for this trade specifically, we could go back and forth forever about who had more value. Subban was younger, had more offensive potential, Weber was already established as one of, if not the best all around defensmen in the league. Generally, the rule is never trade youth for age. But the age gap is 4 years. It’s not nothing, but it’s also not on the same level as trading Kotkaniemi for Getzlaf. I see no reason not to expect that both MB and Pollie could have made strong cases for bonus assets in the deal when looking at it player for player. Which brings us to this...

The biggest reason, imo, we didn’t get more back in the trade is the circumstances surrounding it. MB signed Subban to that ridiculous extension, and I believe he had a NTC that was set to kick in. MB knew he had a deadline, and Nashville knew it too.

[Regis22]

5 hours ago, Windoe said:

My question to the community here though, knowing what we know now, what are MB's three worst moves in your opinions?  

Not getting rid of MT and Sylvain L sooner

The year where he did not sign resign  Markov and  pretty much got rid of everyone on  D , and didn't replace them with any quality D men -   they are still paying for that today

 

 

[kinot-2]

1 minute ago, Regis22 said:

Not getting rid of MT and Sylvain L sooner

The year where he did not sign resign  Markov and  pretty much got rid of everyone on  D , and didn't replace them with any quality D men -   they are still paying for that today

 

 

Not resigning Radulov.

[arpem-can]

1 minute ago, kinot-2 said:

Not resigning Radulov.

Radulov could have solved that but he wanted to play both sides against the middle a get less taxes off his paycheck ...that's one reason I'm a little skeptical about signing Russians although Emellin and Markov are exceptions ...they always seem to have the KHL as a back-up 

[arpem-can]

3 hours ago, caperns61 said:

Personally trading Sergachev for Drouin was the biggest blunder for me. We traded from our weakest position on the team

I somewhat agree but I also remember at the time everybody either griping or worrying about Montreal's lack of scoring ...

[kinot-2]

1 minute ago, arpem-can said:

Radulov could have solved that but he wanted to play both sides against the middle a get less taxes off his paycheck ...that's one reason I'm a little skeptical about signing Russians although Emellin and Markov are exceptions ...they always seem to have the KHL as a back-up 

The initial contract ask for Alex Radulov was 7x$7M. He ended up getting 5x$6.25M from Dallas.

He reminds me of Kovalev, he just wants to play, and we were under the cap. Right now he has 24 PTs. in 35 GP. 

[kinot-2]

3 hours ago, caperns61 said:

Personally trading Sergachev for Drouin was the biggest blunder for me. We traded from our weakest position on the team

i will wait until JD and Sergachev have 2 seasons under their belt, when I can evaluate their comparisons, similar to the Weber/PK trade. 

 

[BigTed3]

14 hours ago, Windoe said:

I think the Subban-Weber trade, on the balance is largely a push, and will be a push when its all said and done.  I miss watching PK on the ice, but Weber does special things too, and he's well liked in the room and around the league, which does help his resale value should MB choose to sell Weber.

My question to the community here though, knowing what we know now, what are MB's three worst moves in your opinions?  
Trading Eller for two second round picks? 
Acquiring Shaw for two second round picks?
Signing Alzner? 
Trading Pacioretty?
Swapping Sergachev for Drouin?
Not getting more for Subban? Really, if that makes your top 3 list, I think that's a pretty good job well done by MB.  Not being able to get more for Subban I put on Subban, not on MB.  Nashville saw PK's undeniable talent and knowingly took the baggage with the deal.  Weber was a fair and steady return as it turns out.
Or is it more the moves he has been unable to make that bother people?
Something else? 

Overall, in my opinion, MB's moves in aggregate have largely panned out, he has improved the team more than weakened it.  Moves like Domi, Danault, Petry,  Suzuki/Tatar,  Armia all outweigh the worst three things he's done.

And yet, we are not really any closer to a Cup.  So...it will be interesting to see what he does with our aging assets as the playoff picture becomes more clear.
 

For the most part, Marc Bergevin has done well at trading and I'd say he's won the majority of the trades he made... if we go back through his noteworthy deals, I'd say...

- Deslauriers for a 4th: WIN

- Shaw for a 2nd and a 3rd: WIN (Shaw played great last year but he was a ticking time bomb health-wise, so right time to move on)

- Valiev and Tormina for Kulak: WIN

- Pacioretty for Tatar, Suzuki, and a 2nd (later dealt for Norlinder and another pick): WIN (I think both teams came out winners from this deal, so I don't think anyone got fleeced, but it was time to move on from Pacioretty for us and we received two nice pieces in exchange, maybe three if Norlinder pans out)

- Cap space for Armia: WIN

- Galchenyuk for Domi: WIN

- Plekanec for Rychel, Valiev, and a 2nd (Jacob Olofsson): WIN (that said, we probably held onto Plekanec too long and might have gotten a 1st rounder for him if we had traded him a year or two earlier; it remains to be seen if we'll get anything of major value out of this deal but still a win)

- 5th round pick for Schlemko: LOSS

- Beaulieu for a 3rd: LOSS (even though Beaulieu wasn't a top pairing guy, we ended up going with guys like Schlemko and Alzner instead and that was worse; we dealt Beaulieu at a time when we needed puck-moving LHD)

- Sergachev for Drouin: WASH (As I said at the time of the deal, this is a trade either team could end up winning. We gave up more potential at a more valued position for a guy who had already proven he was an NHLer; the problem I have here is not with the value of the trade but with MB's lack of foresight to have a plan to fill the hole created at LHD. This could have been an easy win if MB had found a LHD elsewhere, but as it is, this deal likely ends up hurting us in the long run)

- Andrighetto for Martinsen: LOSS (just the concept behind the deal is flawed)

- 4th round pick for King: LOSS (ugh)

- 6th round pick for Ott: Loss (ugh)

- Desharnais for Davidson: WIN (Salary dump)

- Pateryn for Benn: LOSS (Benn ended up playing well for us, but Pateryn was the younger guy and I think he was wasted here)

- Subban for Weber: LOSS (MB drove Subban's value into the ground then dealt him for less than market value)

- Two 2nd's for Shaw: LOSS (especially since Timmins said after the draft that the two guys he would have chosen were Debrincat and Sam Girard)

- Eller for 2 2nd's: LOSS (in isolation, not a horrible trade, but he essentially flipped Eller for Shaw and got worse 2nd rounders back in terms of the draft year and draft position; we also never gave Eller a real shot here and he was a key member of the Caps' cup run)

- Weise and Fleischmann for Danault and a 2nd (Romanov): WIN

- Tinordi for John Scott: LOSS (even if this doesn't matter much, what a dumb trade)

- Kassian for Scrivens: LOSS (another dumb move for PR reasons)

- Prust for Kassian and a 5th: WIN (albeit didn't last long)

- Petry for a 2nd and a 4th: WIN

...

there are more going back, but the general essence is that MB won a good number of trades and lost in a lot of trades that didn't matter as much. The one major trade he blew was the Subban trade, in large part because the Habs blasted Subban every chance they got and lowered his value, just as they did with Galchenyuk and Pacioretty and others. He won two big trades in acquiring Danault and Petry. So I think if we were going to list his biggest failures, it has more to do with what he has failed to do. I'd argue

1. Failure to fire Therrien and Lefebvre in a timely manner. Several players have come out recently saying our AHL team was a wasteland with a terrible team environment under Lefebvre. The guy is an awful coach who should probably never have been given a chance. Likewise, people have come out saying Therrien was not a very good coach as well, including Daniel Briere blasting him in his recent book. As noted, MB and MT spent way too much time driving down the value of their own players and focusing on grit and character over speed and skill. So just having Therrien around probably held us back tremendously and caused us to bring in the likes of King, Ott, Martinsen, Murray, etc. for no reason.

2. Failure to fill holes in the line-up. We spent the first part of MB's tenure searching for a 1C, which he still may not have addressed 100%. And more recently, we've needed a top-pairing LHD. All MB has said is that it's too hard to fill those posts, but he's traded away a guy like Sergachev without the foresight to replace him and he's seen other squads find these types of players via trade.

3. Alzner signing. There have been a number of bad UFA signings, but the Alzner one is representative of the misguided strategy for building a team, based on grit, character, physicality, toughness, or whatever you want to call it. Murray, Bouillon, Weise, Alzner, Schlemko, Benn, Ott, Martinsen, King, and so on... all guys who were acquired for size and grit and so on without having much skill. Wasted cap space on the one hand and wasted years on an outdated ideology.

 

 

 

 

[CANADIENS27]

Scoring and defense were excellent last night.  

 

 

[claremont]

Habs play 28th, 29th and 31st - Does Carey play all 3? Do we see Cayden on the 29th or even Lindgren? 

Laval play 27, 28, 31st FYI 

[arpem-can]

 to all Hab fans on these discussion threads have a Happy Holiday and great New Year ….though we may disagree on some issues the discussion is a healthy one and we all want the same thing ...I look at the game against Winnipeg as with other top flight  teams we've beaten and I see that  when the Habs play their game with speed and finesse and back each other up as a team I think we can be very difficult to play against and have a good chance to win every night ..I remain positive and hopeful that Bergevin can make a significant move going forward and for sure some  criticism is warranted in that respect but I won't be holding my breath for him packaging any significant draft picks  or high level prospects to make a trade unless it's an absolute no-brainer with a contract in hand….not with the draft in Montreal next year .

[booboo_mtl]

Was watching “NHLs Best” and of the 50 best plays, not one was from a hab, except the Price save in that NJ game which we should all be trying to forget still.
 

But it got me thinking as to why, why can’t we have a player do something spectacular? 

[CANADIENS27]

Failure to finish and a lack of rebound control by Price.  

 

 

[campabee82]

7 minutes ago, CANADIENS27 said:

Failure to finish and a lack of rebound control by Price.  

 

 

You missed costly give aways in the defensive zone and poor decision making by Domi