The Positivity Thread...

[Habs Halifax]

I agree I've seen mediocre habs squads squeeze into the playoffs. If Carey has a decent season the possibility is real RIP

When was this? Was Price in net when these seasons happened?

 

[Belial]

They are magic beans. For all but two of them, expecting something like a top 6 player is expecting something that they've never done before. That's fine on its own. It's fine to say that Lehkonen needs to keep playing the way he's playing and he might end up scoring a lot of goals. It's fine to say that putting Hudon at center with his shooting ability could pay dividends. It's fine to say that Armia was actually really productive given his ice time last, and therefore with a greater opportunity he might be really productive in an absolute sense. In fact, I've made all of these arguments elsewhere on this forum.

Saying that these question marks puts us in any sort of playoff considerations, though, is just silly.

It's just an opinion at the end of the day...

Do you really think the last season finish was the real face of this team?

 

[Rosso Scuderia]

You didn't answer my question though?

Why do you think we're a bad team?

Wtf? I'm sorry but you really didn't understand my last post?

Just look at our centers, compare it to other teams, where do you place us.
Do the same thing with our D and compare it to other teams.

A team with the worst Cs and arguably the worst defense squad for over 1/3 of the season is easily one of the worst team in the league.
And without Pacioretty, our wings is not that good either.

It cannot be clearer than that.

I think that we have the worst centers and worst defensemen the entire league = bad team.

Do you understand now?

 

[Belial]

Wtf? I'm sorry but you really didn't understand my last post?



It cannot be clearer than that.

I think that we have the worst centers and worst defensemen the entire league = bad team.

Do you understand now?

Yeah, no...

Again, it's probably useless...

My question was more like why do you think so or something?

 

[habsterr]

Laval Rockets make the playoffs and have a strong season.

Bouchard and Ducharme, good young coaches in the team's system.

Last 2 NHL drafts look promising at adding future NHL talent.

Hopefully another high draft pick.

 

[NotProkofievian]

It's just an opinion at the end of the day...

Do you really think the last season finish was the real face of this team?

Yes. I don't think last season was some accident, or can be explained by anything else other than the fact that the team is just really bad. I predicted that we'd score as much as we did before the first game of the season, and I'm not predicting a huge jump in our offensive production. This team is good for about 200-210 goals per season, and that's with Pacioretty. Even with a rebounding Carey Price we could still end up allowing somewhere around 220-230 goals against in this new, higher scoring NHL (this was top 10-ish for GA last year). A little math translates that to somewhere around low to mid 30's in wins.

 

[Belial]

Yes. I don't think last season was some accident, or can be explained by anything else other than the fact that the team is just really bad. I predicted that we'd score as much as we did before the first game of the season, and I'm not predicting a huge jump in our offensive production. This team is good for about 200-210 goals per season, and that's with Pacioretty. Even with a rebounding Carey Price we could still end up allowing somewhere around 220-230 goals against in this new, higher scoring NHL (this was top 10-ish for GA last year). A little math translates that to somewhere around low to mid 30's in wins.

Cool, so you predicted Weber out for the whole season, Price having a shit season, Danault getting injured, Shaw getting injured... Pacioretty crapping the bed and so on...

Give me a break man...

 

[NobleSix]

Cool, so you predicted Weber out for the whole season, Price having a **** season, Danault getting injured, Shaw getting injured... Pacioretty crapping the bed and so on...

Give me a break man...

Niemi played admirably last season, playing very well here. Goaltending was not a major issue.

Weber will be out for at least a 3rd of the season, possibly more, and theres no way he's going to be Weber of old when he gets back. I doubt he'll really get back into the swing of things until the 2019-2020 season. He's missed a lot of time and his really banged up.

Danault and Shaw are third liners. They really dont move the needle from being a bottom 5 team to a playoff bubble team. They just dont have that kind of impact.

Who knows what were going to get from Max. It could go either way, especially with how frustrated he is with the current situation, and the fact that he has basically been told flat out that he's not wanted here and will be traded asap.

Chances are decent that we're just as bad next year. It's not like we were losing games that we should have won last season, or even that we were unlucky. This team deserved to finish 4th last. It was that bad, and has not even been improved upon. It's just as bad, arguably worse, on paper than it was last season.

 

[Belial]

Niemi played admirably last season, playing very well here. Goaltending was not a major issue.

Weber will be out for at least a 3rd of the season, possibly more, and theres no way he's going to be Weber of old when he gets back. I doubt he'll really get back into the swing of things until the 2019-2020 season. He's missed a lot of time and his really banged up.

Danault and Shaw are third liners. They really dont move the needle from being a bottom 5 team to a playoff bubble team. They just dont have that kind of impact.

Who knows what were going to get from Max. It could go either way, especially with how frustrated he is with the current situation, and the fact that he has basically been told flat out that he's not wanted here and will be traded asap.

Chances are decent that we're just as bad next year. It's not like we were losing games that we should have won last season, or even that we were unlucky. This team deserved to finish 4th last. It was that bad, and has not even been improved upon. It's just as bad, arguably worse, on paper than it was last season.

Hey man, you know I respect you but we just don't agree what can I tell you...

You keep seeing everything through a highly pessimistic lens while I'm on the other side.

I guess this world needs balance.

 

[NotProkofievian]

Cool, so you predicted Weber out for the whole season, Price having a **** season, Danault getting injured, Shaw getting injured... Pacioretty crapping the bed and so on...

Give me a break man...

Look it up, I estimated that we'd score about 2.5 goals per game. I did not predict that we'd be so awful at keeping the puck out of our net, however.

However, Weber wasn't out for the whole season, and we were just as bad with him in as out. Further, we don't need to predict his absence this year: he'll be out for months. So I'm not sure where you're going with this. You're trying to argue why we'll be a playoff team and you list Weber's absence as causal for why we didn't make the playoffs this year. But he'll also be absent this year. So Weber being absent is or is not a big deal? You should make up your mind. Danault and Shaw are replacement level players. By the sounds of it Pacioretty is a gonner, leaving us Price, whose rebound I've accounted for in the analysis that you responded to.

 

[Belial]

Look it up, I estimated that we'd score about 2.5 goals per game. I did not predict that we'd be so awful at keeping the puck out of our net, however.

However, Weber wasn't out for the whole season, and we were just as bad with him in as out. Further, we don't need to predict his absence this year: he'll be out for months. So I'm not sure where you're going with this. You're trying to argue why we'll be a playoff team and you list Weber's absence as causal for why we didn't make the playoffs this year. But he'll also be absent this year. So Weber being absent is or is not a big deal? You should make up your mind. Danault and Shaw are replacement level players. By the sounds of it Pacioretty is a gonner, leaving us Price, whose rebound I've accounted for in the analysis that you responded to.

Let the season begin then!

 

[nhlfan9191]

Niemi played admirably last season, playing very well here. Goaltending was not a major issue.

Weber will be out for at least a 3rd of the season, possibly more, and theres no way he's going to be Weber of old when he gets back. I doubt he'll really get back into the swing of things until the 2019-2020 season. He's missed a lot of time and his really banged up.

Danault and Shaw are third liners. They really dont move the needle from being a bottom 5 team to a playoff bubble team. They just dont have that kind of impact.

Who knows what were going to get from Max. It could go either way, especially with how frustrated he is with the current situation, and the fact that he has basically been told flat out that he's not wanted here and will be traded asap.

Chances are decent that we're just as bad next year. It's not like we were losing games that we should have won last season, or even that we were unlucky. This team deserved to finish 4th last. It was that bad, and has not even been improved upon. It's just as bad, arguably worse, on paper than it was last season.

Niemi was at almost at a .930 with us last year and still had a losing record. Lindgren had a .924 his first 8 game call up and had a losing record. If the team is as bad as last years, goaltending isn’t going to save it. Weber missing time again is going to hurt, and like last year, even if he does come back healthy, it’s not a guarantee he changes a whole lot unless the rest of the D plays over their heads. Even if Domi out produces Galchenyuk’s last season numbers, Drouin puts up 50-60 points, Danault contributes a little more if healthy, etc, I don’t think it’s going to be enough for an offence that was ranked almost dead last to move up into the top 20, especially if Pacioretty is gone. Everything seems like it’s set up for the team to have another down year.

 

[NotProkofievian]

Let the season begin then!

''It's only been [x] number of games!'' Indeed, let's start the counter.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

Well, I don't think that's how it works...

You could hope for the last spot but I think they'll do a lot better, and if Price decides he's the best goalie in the world again then forget your tanking thing...

You're in denial of you believe Price will bring us to the playoffs by himself, quickly forgetting that he had two #1Ds in front of him in every season he's done well.

 

[Beige Van]

Solid draft
Rocket should be much better this coming season
Ducharme/Bouchard>>Sly/JJ
Price should be much better
Lots of high end centers in the 2019 draft

That's all I got

 

[JohnLennon]

Look it up, I estimated that we'd score about 2.5 goals per game. I did not predict that we'd be so awful at keeping the puck out of our net, however.

However, Weber wasn't out for the whole season, and we were just as bad with him in as out. Further, we don't need to predict his absence this year: he'll be out for months. So I'm not sure where you're going with this. You're trying to argue why we'll be a playoff team and you list Weber's absence as causal for why we didn't make the playoffs this year. But he'll also be absent this year. So Weber being absent is or is not a big deal? You should make up your mind. Danault and Shaw are replacement level players. By the sounds of it Pacioretty is a gonner, leaving us Price, whose rebound I've accounted for in the analysis that you responded to.

To be fair, Weber indeed played last year but he suffered his injury in game 1 and all the games he played, he played injured. He ended up needing surgery on the very foot he broke in game 1. I think it's likely that Belial was saying we basically didn't have a healthy Weber all year last year, whether he was in or out, which is fair. Whether that means we'll be better or worse this year considering we're missing him for a third of the season and we won't know how he looks when he gets back - well, I agree with you in saying that it might just be a moot point regardless.

Belial does have a point in terms of expecting players somewhat bouncing back from poor performances or from injury, though. I don't think it's unfair to predict a better season from (some of) the likes of Alzner, Price, Pacioretty (assuming he stays), Mete, Juulsen, Scherbak, Hudon, Shaw, Lehkonen. In some cases, they almost can't get worse (Alzner). In others, they had their worst seasons in a long time and will probably bounce back (Price, Pacioretty). Others should continue their development and have shown signs of doing just that (Mete, Juulsen, Scherbak, Hudon, Lehkonen). It's also fair to hope that Shaw and Weber (when he returns) recover well from their injuries and have a better season as well.

Of course, not all of the above players will see improvement next year, and it's not fair to expect that. But it's more fair to expect multiple players from that list to improve this upcoming season as opposed to expecting most of them to stay as they were last year, or get worse. For those reasons, I can understand and agree with some of Belial's basic points.

 

[NobleSix]

Hey man, you know I respect you but we just don't agree what can I tell you...

You keep seeing everything through a highly pessimistic lens while I'm on the other side.

I guess this world needs balance.

That's fair, was just chiming in.

I didn't realize this was even the positivity thread. I'm out!

 

[NotProkofievian]

Belial does have a point in terms of expecting players somewhat bouncing back from poor performances or from injury, though. I don't think it's unfair to predict a better season from (some of) the likes of Alzner, Price, Pacioretty (assuming he stays), Mete, Juulsen, Scherbak, Hudon, Shaw, Lehkonen. In some cases, they almost can't get worse (Alzner). In others, they had their worst seasons in a long time and will probably bounce back (Price, Pacioretty). Others should continue their development and have shown signs of doing just that (Mete, Juulsen, Scherbak, Hudon, Lehkonen). It's also fair to hope that Shaw and Weber (when he returns) recover well from their injuries and have a better season as well.

I'm not sure if you saw my other post but I've acknowledged that all of the young players have potential to put up some big numbers. I think actually a couple times now, both in my conversation with Belial and just as my entry in what I find positive about the team.

What's positive about this team is opportunity. We're not a good team, so that gives us the opportunity to play around and see what we've got. We may even be surprised. But that leads me to the point of contention with Belial's outlook...

Of course, not all of the above players will see improvement next year, and it's not fair to expect that. But it's more fair to expect multiple players from that list to improve this upcoming season as opposed to expecting most of them to stay as they were last year, or get worse. For those reasons, I can understand and agree with some of Belial's basic points.

A bunch of question marks don't often make for a playoff team, which was Belial's contention. It's fine to expect any one of a big group of players to show some unexpected panache. But to expect the group of question marks to push us towards playoff contention is just silly. It's something fans say, but won't bet a lot of money on.

Lost in this discussion is the fact that it wasn't all bad last year for everyone. Byron scored 20, Gallagher scored 31, Petry had a career year production wise (let's not talk about his +/- lol). It's not really possible to blame bad luck if you look at how many goals we scored this year, the year before, and you consider what went on between those years. That we might lose 16 goals in total production between letting Radu and Markov walk shouldn't be that surprising and predictive of a huge mean reversion.

 

[JohnLennon]

I'm not sure if you saw my other post but I've acknowledged that all of the young players have potential to put up some big numbers. I think actually a couple times now, both in my conversation with Belial and just as my entry in what I find positive about the team.

What's positive about this team is opportunity. We're not a good team, so that gives us the opportunity to play around and see what we've got. We may even be surprised. But that leads me to the point of contention with Belial's outlook...

All very true. Completely agreed, and sorry for missing your prior posts in this thread. I also enjoy the idea that there is lotsof opportunity to play around with this lineup - it certainly feels like a transition towards youth.

A bunch of question marks don't often make for a playoff team, which was Belial's contention. It's fine to expect any one of a big group of players to show some unexpected panache. But to expect the group of question marks to push us towards playoff contention is just silly. It's something fans say, but won't bet a lot of money on.

Lost in this discussion is the fact that it wasn't all bad last year for everyone. Byron scored 20, Gallagher scored 31, Petry had a career year production wise (let's not talk about his +/- lol). It's not really possible to blame bad luck if you look at how many goals we scored this year, the year before, and you consider what went on between those years. That we might lose 16 goals in total production between letting Radu and Markov walk shouldn't be that surprising and predictive of a huge mean reversion.

Yeah, the three players you mentioned all had career years, which isn't as likely to be duplicated this upcoming year. And it's definitely not logical to EXPECT this team to make a serious playoff push. Those two points are indisputable in my opinion.

Though in my humble, yet optimistically biased opinion, the likelihood of players bouncing back/recovering from injury/developing more trumps the likelihood of those three players taking enough of a significant step back that it hurts us more than helps us as a net result.

The swing can be huge either way, or insignificant, and of course it is certainly possible that the worst case scenario occurs, which still means we get a good pick to add to our pool. Though I will agree, the most likely result is that the team is slightly better than last year, but still misses the playoffs quite easily. I see it as a transition year - not getting my hopes up for anything crazy - and with the proper expectations, I think this season can still be a fun to watch as a Habs fan. Looks like we're on the same page more than I realised.

 

[NotProkofievian]

Though in my humble, yet optimistically biased opinion, the likelihood of players bouncing back/recovering from injury/developing more trumps the likelihood of those three players taking enough of a significant step back that it hurts us more than helps us as a net result.

Or us trading Pacioretty? God that better not be for a roster player.

If you really think that we're going to score more than 210 goals next season, it's a really interesting exercise to write out who scores those goals. Someone's gotta score them, right? Do we start predicting more goals than like...6 of our players have ever scored? I actually haven't checked. I think it's basically not possible to get there without predicting big years for players who have never had big years if we trade Pacioretty for futures, though.

The swing can be huge either way, or insignificant, and of course it is certainly possible that the worst case scenario occurs, which still means we get a good pick to add to our pool. Though I will agree, the most likely result is that the team is slightly better than last year, but still misses the playoffs quite easily. I see it as a transition year - not getting my hopes up for anything crazy - and with the proper expectations, I think this season can still be a fun to watch as a Habs fan. Looks like we're on the same page more than I realised.

I don't think the swing can be that huge in terms of our offence. This team hasn't scored more than 223 goals since it wasn't this particular team. The mean to which we would revert just isn't that high.

Our goals against though? There's a lot of room for improvement.

 

[muzion]

I don't even think we need those things to happen, to be honest.

I was crunching some numbers lately and Jeff Petry got 28 points in the second part of the season(41 games), that's 56 points per season pace...

I have a feeling this guy is just entering his prime at 30 years old...

Alzner was not signed to put up points so I don't know what's your point there...

And then again you keep mentioning all the older players but completely ignoring guys like Hudon, Lehkonen, Scherbak, Armia, Domi, Drouin who could explode...

As a no 1 without Weber, Petry put up these numbers in games that did not matter. He did it at even-strength by going on offense with reckless abandon, and by being part of a 1st PP unit that got hot a couple times. While the team is in "playoff contention", Julien will never let him be a "defense-be-damned" player, so there's no way he puts up similar numbers.

 

[Belial]

You're in denial of you believe Price will bring us to the playoffs by himself, quickly forgetting that he had two #1Ds in front of him in every season he's done well.

I said I think they'll do better as a whole team not only solely riding Price's back.

Again, I'm not saying we'll win the cup next season or something, I just think we had a ton of underachieving players last year.

If some of those players can bounce back and with the natural progression of some of our younger players I can see us being much better next season.

As a no 1 without Weber, Petry put up these numbers in games that did not matter. He did it at even-strength by going on offense with reckless abandon, and by being part of a 1st PP unit that got hot a couple times. While the team is in "playoff contention", Julien will never let him be a "defense-be-damned" player, so there's no way he puts up similar numbers.

Well, he'll be our #1 D next season also for quite some games, and even when Weber is back he could still play on the first PP alongside Shea...

And if you look at his advanced stats there's nothing really that suggest he was a tire fire defensively apart the GA.

I don't think he needs to change the way he was playing, with some better goaltending that GA number should go down.

The team was generating more scoring chances than allowing when he was on the ice but they let in more goals than scored.

 

[nhlfan9191]

I said I think they'll do better as a whole team not only solely riding Price's back.

Again, I'm not saying we'll win the cup next season or something, I just think we had a ton of underachieving players last year.

If some of those players can bounce back and with the natural progression of some of our younger players I can see us being much better next season.



Well, he'll be our #1 D next season also for quite some games, and even when Weber is back he could still play on the first PP alongside Shea...

And if you look at his advanced stats there's nothing really that suggest he was a tire fire defensively apart the GA.

I don't think he needs to change the way he was playing, with some better goaltending that GA number should go down.

The team was generating more scoring chances than allowing when he was on the ice but they let in more goals than scored.

Which players did you feel underachieved last season without Price and Pacioretty being obvious. Patches will likely be gone anyways. Which players do you foresee having bounce back seasons?

 

[Belial]

Which players did you feel underachieved last season without Price and Pacioretty being obvious. Patches will likely be gone anyways. Which players do you foresee having bounce back seasons?

To be honest, I don't even think they need to bounce back, I just think there are quite a few players on this team that just can do a lot better going forward.

This team is young no matter what people say around here.

The bouncing back was indeed related to guys like Price and Max who clearly underperformed as we know they can do a lot better.

But for the rest of those guys is more a potential thing as they don't even have a solid track record in the NHL.

 

[Habssince89]

I think our newfound speed and the very likely occurance of at least one young guy breaking out in production, combined with Price having a good year will result in more Ws than we expect.

That being said, I still expect to miss the playoffs. I just have a feeling we'll be scoring a bit more, giving us some losses that are easier to watch.

I also have a big time gut feeling that were going to play spoiler to the leafs, though they will obviously be a better team. I think we may play the role of "crappy team that somehow bests us" for leafland.