2021-22 State of the Habs

[campabee82]

Price set to exit players assistance program on Nov 6th.

[electron58]

The Montreal Canadiens have recalled Alex Belzile.

[jennifer_rocket]

2 hours ago, campabee82 said:

Price set to exit players assistance program on Nov 6th.

Feel bad that he's gonna have to walk back into this mess.

[H_T_L]

Exiting the program and resuming goaltending duties aren't necessarily the same thing.

[habsisme]

4 minutes ago, jennifer_rocket said:

Feel bad that he's gonna have to walk back into this mess.

in a way the pressure is a bit off for price given that we suck and our goltending wasn't really the reason. But honestly there's always the pressure of that contract. The more i think about it the more i think its much better for players to sign team friendly deals

[BigTed3]

5 hours ago, maas_art said:

I agree with all of this but my question is: could a good coach figure out a system to make this roster work? My guess is, yes.  I understand that MB built a team that is strong in some areas but very weak in others... but i also think the coaching staff are a one-trick pony right now. "This is the system. Learn it" wont work if you dont have the right players. 

 

My answer is yes. Because Julien had a pretty similar defence with the same shortcomings and he developed a much better system that allowed for a breakout and a better transition game. You look at Julien's record as a coach and whether it was here or in Boston, his teams were consistently dominating puck possession. We saw the immediate positive effect on this when Julien replaced Therrien (who had no system and was purely a rah rah guy) and we're seeing the drop-off with Julien gone. CJ had his own faults with personnel deployment and the multitude of too many men penalties and so on, but you could never criticize his system directly, which was one that consistently gave us more chances to score than the opposition. I'd love to have seen a coach like Joel Bouchard had a shot to develop a good system and do better with personnel deployment, or maybe the team would benefit from a guy like Bruce Boudreau with more experience. Don't know. All I can say for now is that I'm not overly impressed with Ducharme.

Ultimately, I wonder if the solution is really having the centers provide more D-zone help for the D and then asking the wingers to provide most of the offence. In this regard, I do like the idea of trying Drouin at center, as he's the best transition player we have on the team. The centers we added (Dvorak, Perreault, Paquette) are really not strong at carrying and moving the puck through the neutral zone and that element likely hurts us too. There's a reason that centers and D are more valuable commodities, and we're essentially seeing what happens when you lack the ability to move the puck up ice.

[maas_art]

4 minutes ago, BigTed3 said:

My answer is yes. Because Julien had a pretty similar defence with the same shortcomings and he developed a much better system that allowed for a breakout and a better transition game. You look at Julien's record as a coach and whether it was here or in Boston, his teams were consistently dominating puck possession. We saw the immediate positive effect on this when Julien replaced Therrien (who had no system and was purely a rah rah guy) and we're seeing the drop-off with Julien gone. CJ had his own faults with personnel deployment and the multitude of too many men penalties and so on, but you could never criticize his system directly, which was one that consistently gave us more chances to score than the opposition. I'd love to have seen a coach like Joel Bouchard had a shot to develop a good system and do better with personnel deployment, or maybe the team would benefit from a guy like Bruce Boudreau with more experience. Don't know. All I can say for now is that I'm not overly impressed with Ducharme.

Ultimately, I wonder if the solution is really having the centers provide more D-zone help for the D and then asking the wingers to provide most of the offence. In this regard, I do like the idea of trying Drouin at center, as he's the best transition player we have on the team. The centers we added (Dvorak, Perreault, Paquette) are really not strong at carrying and moving the puck through the neutral zone and that element likely hurts us too. There's a reason that centers and D are more valuable commodities, and we're essentially seeing what happens when you lack the ability to move the puck up ice.

Interestingly, at practice yesterday when he was asked about playing centre he said: 

"We talked about me playing centre during the summer. At centre, I will be able to gain more speed, rather than waiting for a pass to exit the zone. Defensively, I will have to be on the puck, no cheating."

[BigTed3]

12 hours ago, Graeme-1 said:

I don't know if this is right, but it seems a lot more likely to me than some of the other explanations, none of which make a lot of sense to me or really explain why a team full of reasonably talented wingers all seem to be slumping at once. Our defense was never great, and the loss of Weber combined with Petry looking off (hopefully just a slow start and not the wheels fallling off, which can happen fast to a dman aproaching 35) may have caused the entire team to fall off a cliff.

At some point I imagine they go for the coaching change, if for no other reason than there's no clear quick fixes to the roster and it may be worth a shot (I get the sense reading some articles DD is a good Xs and Os coach in theory, but the system may be too complex for the players to implement properly). I don't know if it will work: it may just be this team is bad, but hard to imagine they don't give it a try.

You'd have to think MB is out the door at some point. Mid-season GM firings are rare, but so is having a lame-duck GM. It's hard to see an extension coming (although a "promotion" to president of hockey ops wouldn't shock me, assuming MB didn't burn bridges last summer) and if Molson decides he wants to move on, I'm not sure you want the lame-duck running your trade-deadline, etc. 
 

Here's some pure data in terms of chances the wingers are getting:

- Josh Anderson: Corsi (shot attempts) for per 60 minutes of ice time with him on of 56, this year 51

- Drouin: last year 59, this year 51

- Toffoli: last year 62, this year 54 (his lowest his entire career before this season was 59 per 60 minutes)

- Gallagher: last year 72, this year 55 (career low of 63 prior to this year)

- Armia: last year 60, this year 49

 

I'll stop there but those are our key wingers back from last year and universally their shot attempts at net are considerably lower than a year ago and most of them have hit career lows this season. So this isn't a drop-off in ability to finish, it's a significant drop-off in number of attempts being directed at net.

[maas_art]

7 minutes ago, BigTed3 said:

Here's some pure data in terms of chances the wingers are getting:

- Josh Anderson: Corsi (shot attempts) for per 60 minutes of ice time with him on of 56, this year 51

- Drouin: last year 59, this year 51

- Toffoli: last year 62, this year 54 (his lowest his entire career before this season was 59 per 60 minutes)

- Gallagher: last year 72, this year 55 (career low of 63 prior to this year)

- Armia: last year 60, this year 49

 

I'll stop there but those are our key wingers back from last year and universally their shot attempts at net are considerably lower than a year ago and most of them have hit career lows this season. So this isn't a drop-off in ability to finish, it's a significant drop-off in number of attempts being directed at net.

I also think that to the eye test the quality of those attempts seem ridiculously low.  Its like "omg we have the puck, take a shot, quick!"  firing from all over, far out & just not putting ourselves in a position to have a good chance at a goal. 

 

[BigTed3]

2 hours ago, maas_art said:

I also think that to the eye test the quality of those attempts seem ridiculously low.  Its like "omg we have the puck, take a shot, quick!"  firing from all over, far out & just not putting ourselves in a position to have a good chance at a goal. 

 

I didn't post that data but FWIW, I believe Anderson and Drouin are getting scoring chances per ice time comparable to what they had last year and the rest of the team is pretty much below where they were, so generally what you said is true. Less shot attempts, less quality scoring chances. Overall everything's just down.

[BigTed3]

RDS posting video from practice showing Drouin yelling at Ducharme and Richardson and waving his hands around like he disagreed with the direction they were giving him. Media members saying it looked like Drouin was fed up with what Ducharme was saying. Is this being blown out of proportion or could it be that the players are sick of having a coach who doesn't know what he's doing and is in over his head?

[richard464]

As I read through the comments here regarding DD I am laughing my head off!! Last year when Iposted that DD was in over his head and I was not impressed with his style or his lack of player motivation everyone said " we have to give him some time to allow the players to adapt to his system." Well now he has had the time and everyone including the players are still waiting to find out what the hell his system is. One thing I know for sure is that he loves the strech pass. That is his answer to how the team should break out. Strech passes without support are just a real quick way to get on defence. Last night we looked real good in the first period then we started to revert to the problems that have us in this great start to the new season. Up until the middle of the second period I though we kept the gaps small and player support was there then in the third we slipped away. I watched his post game interview this am and man he has no clue what the team needs, what is wrong with the PP & PK and never has a positive response to anyhing he is asked beacuse he is totally lost!

How much longer are we going to have to put up with this guy? No one behind the bench currently deserves to be there. 

[AH64]

DD is signed for 3 years even though the gm has no deal.. molson must be getting concerned!

[Regis22]

6 minutes ago, richard464 said:

How much longer are we going to have to put up with this guy? No one behind the bench currently deserves to be there. 

At least 71 more games 

[Graeme-1]

On 11/2/2021 at 12:44 PM, BigTed3 said:

Here's some pure data in terms of chances the wingers are getting:

- Josh Anderson: Corsi (shot attempts) for per 60 minutes of ice time with him on of 56, this year 51

- Drouin: last year 59, this year 51

- Toffoli: last year 62, this year 54 (his lowest his entire career before this season was 59 per 60 minutes)

- Gallagher: last year 72, this year 55 (career low of 63 prior to this year)

- Armia: last year 60, this year 49

 

I'll stop there but those are our key wingers back from last year and universally their shot attempts at net are considerably lower than a year ago and most of them have hit career lows this season. So this isn't a drop-off in ability to finish, it's a significant drop-off in number of attempts being directed at net.

Definitely interesting: teams can go through slumps and bad puck luck, but that does seem to back up they just aren't moving the puck properly.

[BigTed3]

Honest question but how many NHL defencemen of value do we have on our team right now? And by that I mean who are we actually benefiting from having on our team? If we lost Chiarot and replaced him with a league-average defenceman, would we suffer? If we lost Savard? Romanov? Kulak? Wideman? Niku? I think most of those guys might pass through waivers if we tried to send them down. I really wonder if Petry is the only guy of value we actually have. Romanov certainly has potential, but he just looks lost. Does he just need a real coach or more experience or is he going the way of Ryan O'Byrne and Tinordi?

[habsisme]

7 minutes ago, BigTed3 said:

Honest question but how many NHL defencemen of value do we have on our team right now? And by that I mean who are we actually benefiting from having on our team? If we lost Chiarot and replaced him with a league-average defenceman, would we suffer? If we lost Savard? Romanov? Kulak? Wideman? Niku? I think most of those guys might pass through waivers if we tried to send them down. I really wonder if Petry is the only guy of value we actually have. Romanov certainly has potential, but he just looks lost. Does he just need a real coach or more experience or is he going the way of Ryan O'Byrne and Tinordi?

I still think Chiarot and Edmundson have some value but yeah our D is just not very good

[campabee82]

You know those fans that go to games with paper bags on their heads cause they are embarrassed to cheer for a team? That is pretty close to how I feel about this team right now. We are the joke of the league every team looks forward to playing us and running up the score. No idea what is going to change but something has got to give.

[habsisme]

5 minutes ago, campabee82 said:

You know those fans that go to games with paper bags on their heads cause they are embarrassed to cheer for a team? That is pretty close to how I feel about this team right now. We are the joke of the league every team looks forward to playing us and running up the score. No idea what is going to change but something has got to give.

Dude I had to offer my tickets to like 5 different people before someone would take them

[campabee82]

12 minutes ago, habsisme said:

Dude I had to offer my tickets to like 5 different people before someone would take them

LOL what is sad is I would have taken them, I have never even been to a live Habs game lol

[ramcharger440]

Yep we suck right now but we are also missing several key players. Now even if they were here I feel we are very very poorly led from the top on down! and like a broken record I have to say why the hell can't sort out our D! sure when Eddy gets back it will be a bit better but come on! we have Petry who is just not up to snuff this year and is old we have Eddy who at best is a second pairing D man Chiarot is serviceable on a third pairing Romanov is having a really tough year so far and the rest is filler at best! Niku looks like he may turn into something but only time will tell. our issues are not with our forwards but with a truly depleted D corps and only one guy is responsible for that.

[maas_art]

58 minutes ago, ramcharger440 said:

Yep we suck right now but we are also missing several key players. Now even if they were here I feel we are very very poorly led from the top on down! and like a broken record I have to say why the hell can't sort out our D! sure when Eddy gets back it will be a bit better but come on! we have Petry who is just not up to snuff this year and is old we have Eddy who at best is a second pairing D man Chiarot is serviceable on a third pairing Romanov is having a really tough year so far and the rest is filler at best! Niku looks like he may turn into something but only time will tell. our issues are not with our forwards but with a truly depleted D corps and only one guy is responsible for that.

Yup.

You can forgive MB the loses of Price, Edmundson, Byron and Drouin.  But the rest of the holes in the roster?  We had literally the entire off season to try to replace Weber.  The answers were Savard and Wideman (and then a last minute hail mary with a Niku signing)   We lost Danault & were going into the season thin, replaced by whom? Poehling? Then JK signs the OS - which i grant you was not expected, I think MB would have matched all the way up to say, $4 - but at that point we were already down a centre.  We need to keep JK AND add Dvorak, not one or the other. 

Its just complete mismanagement.  

As many of us have said before, we have 1 guy who is more than a #4-6 dman. That is unacceptable.  And today, Norlinder was sent to Laval for conditioning. He cant play in Laval, so this implies we are planning on giving him some NHL games.  Arguably our best defensive prospect and we want to bring him into this tire-fire of a season?  

[richard464]

What was it that DD said in the post game interview after last night's game against Detroit? I think he said something like "tonight's game is our new style". 

This guy could not get out of a wet paper bag! I cannot wait for the post game interviews tomorrow. Let's see I am sure we will hear, "we are disconnected", "We all need to look in the mirror and ask ourselves if we are giving 100%," "I know we can do better we just have to work our way through this."

 

Dominic Ducharme fired! That is all I want to hear tomorrow. 

[kinot-2]

59 minutes ago, richard464 said:

What was it that DD said in the post game interview after last night's game against Detroit? I think he said something like "tonight's game is our new style". 

This guy could not get out of a wet paper bag! I cannot wait for the post game interviews tomorrow. Let's see I am sure we will hear, "we are disconnected", "We all need to look in the mirror and ask ourselves if we are giving 100%," "I know we can do better we just have to work our way through this."

 

Dominic Ducharme fired! That is all I want to hear tomorrow. 

Won't happen. 

[Graeme-1]

I keep reading about how Julien is still on our payroll, so I have a crazy idea: ask him to come back to work (he might still be interested, and I'm not a lawyer, but wouldn't he kind of have to if he wants to keep getting paid?) .  That solves the whole concern about having to pay 3 coaches ...

He's already come back once after being fired (granted not by the same GM), but if MB or Molson called up and said "you know that whole firing thing, ya uh, our bad there" I think it could smooth things over.

(not quite sure if this is a joke or a serious suggestion)