Post-Game Talk: Gorton & Hughes End of Season Media Avail 9:30Am EST

[salbutera]

Ridiculous assessment. If you can’t see we’re better off now than under MB, then you have no idea what you’re talking about.

It’s been fairly no heavy lifting till now for HuGo, both Toffoli & Lekhonen deals have been avg-mediocre returns, I like a Dach deal & they’ve done solid things on the hockey ops / culture side. IMO MSL has been their best move to date

As Gorton himself stated accurately, this summer will be the tough task, should have more data to assess HuGo’s performance by start of season… let’s see how it plays out

 

[Egresch]

I agree on your last point, a lot.

For years, what felt like an eternity, we suffered from “no first line”. Now with Suzuki, Caufield & Slafkovsky emerging we became a bonafide “one-line team” - I’ll ignore the last ten or so games where the Newhook like looked good.

We need some size, grit and the smallest bit of scoring touch in the bottom-6 and I think it moves the needle a lot for us. Not to mention the top-6 will be vastly improved with Dach returning, and Newhook maybe moving to his wing.

I’m okay to start with:

xx - Dvorak - Armia
xx - Evans - Gallagher
Pezzetta

BUT we need to somehow offload Anderson. Absolute must. Maybe Roy slots in on the third line. Sign a mid-tier bottom-6 LW who actually hits people and the puck doesn’t die on his stick, and Marty will find confidence in rolling all four lines.

We’ll see.

Caufield- Suzuki- Slaf
Newhook- Dach- xx/Roy
Roy/RHP- Dvorak- Armia
xx- Evans- Gallagher
If we could get 2nd line F trade, Roy can slide to 3rd line. Then RHP might be expandable. Dvorak, Armia, Evans are fighting for new contract, I expect solid performance from them. I hope Anderson and Ylonen are gone this summer.

 

[Adam Michaels]

A lot of people on this website who are praising Hughes are the same sheep who were praising Bergevin....Hughes so far has done nothing hired a coach who is a nice guy with ZERO coaching experience....still does not have a #1 goalie and has a 0% chance to make the playoffs if u do not fix the roster...Montreal is currently better than 1 team that is Columbus if u do not believe me check the standings.

You can look at it another way, Canadiens lost a league leading 27 one-goal games this year. If they won just 5 of those 27, they'd have finished with 86 pts instead of 76, which would put them not far from a playoff spot. They would have finished 1 point behind Philly, 2 behind Pens, and 5 behind Caps and Wings, who were all competing for their playoff lives until Game 82.

If they didn't lose Dach in the 4th period of the season and didn't lose Newhook for 3 months, I think it's fair to predict that these guys could have made the difference in a lot of games. And this was also playing with a 3-goalie system almost all season.

Montreal is definitely not the only team to lose some key players to injury long term. But the 27 one-goal losses tells you that they were in on so many games, that if the injured players were healthy, we'd be looking at this season with a completely different light.

But there needs to be improvement on the roster, there's no debate there.

 

[Sorinth]

Am I the only one who would prefer acquiring a top 9 forward and have Roy start the season in Laval on a line with Beck building chemistry, as I currently see them as 2/3 of the future 3rd line? I honestly feel that Roy can benefit from more consistency and working on his 200 foot game. If it wasn't for all the injuries, I don't feel he would have been called up this season.

The top 9 forward need not be a long-term solution type, but rather someone that has a year remaining on his contract that another team might offer a sweetener with to clear cap room for their incoming signings.

This player would not be instead of the top 6 player that the team would be looking to add via trade or draft.

I guess my question is why would the AHL be more beneficial then the NHL in terms of developing consistency/200ft game?

 

[HABitual Fan]

I guess my question is why would the AHL be more beneficial then the NHL in terms of developing consistency/200ft game?

i would say that if your goal is to develop a scorer the NHL would be fine, if it is to develop the other skills, I doubt that he would get either the playing time or the opportunity to work on those skills here, unlike in Laval. The chance to get used to playing with Beck, he would not have in Montreal next season.

 

[therocket9]

Ridiculous assessment. If you can’t see we’re better off now than under MB, then you have no idea what you’re talking about.

Bergevin who was terrible had four 100 point seasons in 5 years.

 

[LaP]

Bergevin who was terrible had four 100 point seasons in 5 years.

Carey Price has four 100 points season.

 

[Sorinth]

You can look at it another way, Canadiens lost a league leading 27 one-goal games this year. If they won just 5 of those 27, they'd have finished with 86 pts instead of 76, which would put them not far from a playoff spot. They would have finished 1 point behind Philly, 2 behind Pens, and 5 behind Caps and Wings, who were all competing for their playoff lives until Game 82.

Agreed, it's weird that people point to the 16 OTL as evidence that we aren't as good as our points would say. Like to get to OT it means we were just as good as those other teams, it's the OT/Shootout wins where you can get points in a skills competition instead of actually being the better team.

If they didn't lose Dach in the 4th period of the season and didn't lose Newhook for 3 months, I think it's fair to predict that these guys could have made the difference in a lot of games. And this was also playing with a 3-goalie system almost all season.

Montreal is definitely not the only team to lose some key players to injury long term. But the 27 one-goal losses tells you that they were in on so many games, that if the injured players were healthy, we'd be looking at this season with a completely different light.

But there needs to be improvement on the roster, there's no debate there.

Some food for thought using an admittedly iffy stat in individual Point Share.

If we project a healthy Dach to having Caufield's level of PS then that's an extra 6 points in the standings taking us out of the bottom-10. A full year of Slaf producing instead of the half a year he managed would give us another 3 points.

Those 9 points puts us between Buffalo and Philly in the mix but losing out for a playoff spot.

That said we need to replace Monahan's 2.8 PS, and I guess Allen's 3.2, but in his case both Montembeault and Primeau have a higher PS anyways.

 

[Boss Man Hughes]

It’s been fairly no heavy lifting till now for HuGo, both Toffoli & Lekhonen deals have been avg-mediocre returns, I like a Dach deal & they’ve done solid things on the hockey ops / culture side. IMO MSL has been their best move to date

As Gorton himself stated accurately, this summer will be the tough task, should have more data to assess HuGo’s performance by start of season… let’s see how it plays out

And moving out Petry for matheson Somehow getting something for that hack Hoffman. And 2 1sts for Monahan. There were so many players to unload. I don't think it was possible to do a better job. Now we will see if HuGo can add the final pieces to the puzzle.

 

[SannywithoutCompy]

Am I the only one who would prefer acquiring a top 9 forward and have Roy start the season in Laval on a line with Beck building chemistry, as I currently see them as 2/3 of the future 3rd line? I honestly feel that Roy can benefit from more consistency and working on his 200 foot game. If it wasn't for all the injuries, I don't feel he would have been called up this season.

The top 9 forward need not be a long-term solution type, but rather someone that has a year remaining on his contract that another team might offer a sweetener with to clear cap room for their incoming signings.

This player would not be instead of the top 6 player that the team would be looking to add via trade or draft.

Laval would have to commit to playing Beck and Roy on the PK as this is the role they would have to be able to fill on the 3rd line in Montreal.

I thought Roy looked good with us this year. I'd rather just play him with Newhook and Dach and let Beck start in the AHL.

 

[Hope Of Glory]

Bergevin who was terrible had four 100 point seasons in 5 years.

Omg you're right, you should point that out to NHL execs so they hire him as a GM again! Can't believe 31 teams passed on him but you noticed how great he is by looking at the one metric that totally defines GM!

 

[Sorinth]

i would say that if your goal is to develop a scorer the NHL would be fine, if it is to develop the other skills, I doubt that he would get either the playing time or the opportunity to work on those skills here, unlike in Laval. The chance to get used to playing with Beck, he would not have in Montreal next season.

For consistency playing in the more challenging league provides more opportunity to work on game to game consistency. In the AHL he'll be able to get away with being less consistent and still be fine because his skill/talent would enable him to produce even without having a consistent level of play.

For the defensive game, ice time and sheltering does matter so yeah there's more opportunity to work on that in the AHL, but just as if not more important is time spent at practice, time spent in the video room, etc... and that stuff would be better at the NHL level.

As for chemistry with Beck, I'm not sure why that matters all that much. It's just as likely they end up not playing much together in the future.

 

[OldCraig71]

Bergevin who was terrible had four 100 point seasons in 5 years.

I thought he was just a plug NHL defenseman. OldCraig headed straight to HockeyDB.

 

[Sorinth]

And moving out Petry for matheson Somehow getting something for that hack Hoffman. And 2 1sts for Monahan. There were so many players to unload. I don't think it was possible to do a better job. Now we will see if HuGo can add the final pieces to the puzzle.

I think the other poster is being too harsh, but it's true that selling/tanking is a much easier then actually building a winning team. So yeah there's a case that Hughes has looked good doing the easy part of the job and now has the hard part of the job ahead which is where most GMs stumble and stop looking good.

That said I think Hughes has shown enough signs that he understands and can handle the more difficult rebuilding aspects of the job as he's already added core pieces through the trades which was something a guy like Bergevin said could only be done if he traded Price.

 

[bobholly39]

Carey Price has four 100 points season.

I miss him.

Wonder if there's any chance his knee healed this season and he can return next year.

 

[sampollock]

Actually, HuGo is lucky Bergevin gave him:

Suzuki
Hutson
Roy
Mailloux
Guhle
Caufield
Jakeye
Primeau
Dobes
Barron
Struble
Montembault
Harris

That is an INSANE pool to play with. I’m 100% missing a few other good stories.


Plus the unique position to draft in a good spot.

HuGo has done an excellent job with those players PLUS drafting

Slaf
Rein
Engstrom
Mesar
Fowler
And much more.

you are correct there.
the Gally and Anderson and KK pick, is killing the habs now.

KH will fix this

 

[Captain Mountain]

Bergevin who was terrible had four 100 point seasons in 5 years.

Yeah, he did a great job drafting and developing Price, Subban, Pacioretty, Gallagher, etc. No, wait, he didn't do any of that, he just inherited a decent young core (and two get of jail free cards) and failed to build around them.

He left one of the biggest messes any GM has left an organization with in the salary cap era.

 

[LaP]

Yeah, he did a great job drafting and developing Price, Subban, Pacioretty, Gallagher, etc. No, wait, he didn't do any of that, he just inherited a decent young core (and two get of jail free cards) and failed to build around them.

Pretty sure KH would have liked to get two free buyouts

 

[LaP]

It’s been fairly no heavy lifting till now for HuGo, both Toffoli & Lekhonen deals have been avg-mediocre returns, I like a Dach deal & they’ve done solid things on the hockey ops / culture side. IMO MSL has been their best move to date

As Gorton himself stated accurately, this summer will be the tough task, should have more data to assess HuGo’s performance by start of season… let’s see how it plays out

It's too soon to evaluate those trade. You are basically assume 22 years old (and less) players are finite products. NJ got a 2nd round pick and a 3rd round pick for Toffoli 50% retained.

 

[salbutera]

It's too soon to evaluate those trade. You are basically assume 22 years old players and less are finite products.

Barron & Heineman are fledgling NHLers at best

 

[LaP]

Barron & Heineman are fledgling NHLers at best

Probably but we got picks in those trades. Also many players were fledgling NHLers at 22 and then got good 3-4 years later. Those are not bad trades. When you trade vets for picks you will hit and miss but as long as you got fair value those are still good trades. NJ got less for Toffoli retained.

 

[Ozmodiar]

HuGo gonna spend the rest of the off season all the way into camp playing down the P word.
We have far too much garbage on board and way too many players in the wrong chairs.
It's going to have to be one hell of a summer to balance the D, upgrade the top 6, and revamp the bottom 6.

The dead weight isn’t a big problem yet. They can afford to be pushed down the lineup.

Let’s say they land a guy like Marchessault or trade for a player.

CC - NS - slaf
Marche - Dach - Newhook
Roy - dvo - gally
Armia - Evans - Anderson

4 players in the middle of the lineup who weren’t available this season. Outlook even better if they win the lottery.

 

[red devil]

It's too soon to evaluate those trade. You are basically assume 22 years old (and less) players are finite products. NJ got a 2nd round pick and a 3rd round pick for Toffoli 50% retained.

Conroy did well on his Toffoli trade to NJ when he received Sharangovich who scored 31 goals this year

 

[Milhouse40]

It’s been fairly no heavy lifting till now for HuGo, both Toffoli & Lekhonen deals have been avg-mediocre returns, I like a Dach deal & they’ve done solid things on the hockey ops / culture side. IMO MSL has been their best move to date

As Gorton himself stated accurately, this summer will be the tough task, should have more data to assess HuGo’s performance by start of season… let’s see how it plays out

We haven't yet seen HuGo's performance on the ice. We just can't.

Let's hope next year we can start the year with all of Dach, Suzuki, Caufield, Slafkovsky, Newhook, Guhle, Hutson......We barely even saw Caufield and Dach playing on the same team due to their injuries.

 

[red devil]

An area this team really needs to improve next year is their own zone play if they want to take the next step. At the moment they have given up the 4th most goals in the league and Chicago right now are 4 goals behind them who still have one more game left. I didn't calculate shootout goals or empty goals but the point still stands. They need to make the necessary improvements in their defensive play if they are to become a more competitive team.