Why retooling is the best option for the Habs

[nhlfan9191]

No he wouldn't. He'd just keep us mediocre. A 90 point guy isn't going to help us win cups. He'll just help us eek into the playoffs...

It’s like people ignore the fact that guys like Hall, Giroux, McDavid, MacKinnon and all the top players this year either missed the playoffs or will be first round exits. It’s a team sport. One, two, three players aren’t going to be able to do everything. We have a serious depth issue and have for years.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

No way Marc trades him anyways... his successor may, but he won't do it.
Really leaves 2 scenarios-
1-Carey sucks again next season (or is injured) and is virtually untradeable due to contract
2-Carey has big bounce back season and then no way the Habs trade their golden regular season goose

Even if Price comes back to form, his yield will be lower as long as our Dsquad is crap. He'll perform, but that won't keep the Habs from losing games.

If he does perform well, but we don't make the playoffs, which is imo the most likely scenario, they'll realize that the goose needed 'donors' to produce.

 

[Scintillating10]

I don't think Carey Price can do very much to impede a rebuild. The idea that he has willed us to 100pt seasons is a total fiction. With Tampa, Toronto, and Boston now solidified as the powers that be in our division, we're essentially just waiting for Buffalo and Florida to permanently surpass us. Fact is we beat up on a division that was in large part rebuilding during those years. Take a look at our record against the western conference since Carey Price has activated ''god mode.'' It's not great.

Doesn't make no sense to rebuild if they keep Price. He will tie up too much payroll and keep us from drafting high. Sounds like they are forced to keep him now though, as he has a big contract and terrible season. Habs have to keep re-tooling.

 

[NotProkofievian]

Doesn't make no sense to rebuild if they keep Price. He will tie up too much payroll and keep us from drafting high. Sounds like they are forced to keep him now though, as he has a big contract and terrible season. Habs have to keep re-tooling.

You're right that we basically have to keep him. IMO, nobody wants to be us right now vis-à-vis Price. Nobody wants that headache. We'd have to pay to get someone to take him. But I don't think he can really keep us from drafting high.

 

[habsfan909]

Even if Price comes back to form, his yield will be lower as long as our Dsquad is crap. He'll perform, but that won't keep the Habs from losing games.

If he does perform well, but we don't make the playoffs, which is imo the most likely scenario, they'll realize that the goose needed 'donors' to produce.

If we make the playoffs, then Bergevin will get extended as some hero who brought us out of the depths. We really need to be terrible for one more year and get more draft picks. Bye bye Marc and hello top 5 pick again.

 

[Ozmodiar]

Try a HUGE emphasis on the PLUS part of your extremely optimistic 2 year + outlook if we go a genuine rebuild route. And then, there's no certainty that team is ever competitive as we don't know what will be available to pick when we are up on the draft podium to speak.

Yes, it is optimistic, but look at the Leafs. It took Shanahan just a couple of seasons for the team to be competitive. Over 2 years is likely because a gifted #1 pick would be unlikely.

I don't see any certainty with the alternatives either.

The team really lacked PMD and centers. The rebuild involves trading Max and Weber. Did the team really look better with these 2 in the lineup this season? Not much. These two could return considerable assets and open up cap space, setting the team up for the future if not for the next couple of seasons.

 

[lamp9post]

When Sedins were 80-100 point players Vancouver was one of the best teams in the league and made a cup final.

EDM had a bad year this year, but last year they made the playoffs finally with McDavid and Drai leading the way.

Philly will be eliminated but Giroux's 100 points got them in the playoffs this year when last year they missed.

Ovie turned Wash into a powerhouse, but yes no cups.

TB is looking like they can get to a QF this year and have been to 2(??) cup finals with Stamkos leading the way. 03-04 season St Lous 94 points and thats the year they won the cup if I am not mistaken ??

There is no gurantee's but put a 90 point forward on this team and they will have a better chance to win a cup. 90 point forward means the players playing with him will have more points. everyone moves down a chair and faces easier matchups so probably more points for them.

In today's NHL I will take a 90 point forward over any other position. Imagine if AG was 90 point player I bet habs would be in the playoffs today. Maybe they lose first round but its better than no playoffs IMO.

Tampa has been to the cup finals once since the Stamkos era (which is what I meant by lately - obviously they won the cup in '04 with St. Louis).

Hey, having talented forwards would be great. I'm certainly not arguing that having a 90pt player on the team would be a bad thing, and having a 90pt scorer is better than not having one. I just don't think it is the silver bullet that will save this team, or a prerequisite to playoff success. It is not uncommon in the playoffs for scoring forwards to turn cold in the playoffs with tighter checking.

 

[Deluded Puck]

Bottom line is the club needs quality depth. Putting all our eggs in 1 or 2 baskets is not the way to build a contender.

Look at the Penguins from 2010-15. They were very front loaded and it got them nowhere. Sid and Geno still got their points regardless.

 

[Dannyhab]

Bottom line is the club needs quality depth. Putting all our eggs in 1 or 2 baskets is not the way to build a contender.

Look at the Penguins from 2010-15. They were very front loaded and it got them nowhere. Sid and Geno still got their points regardless.

I disagree. We have plenty of depth. In fact depth is all we have up front. What we lack are the two centers who can SCORE.

The defense is a bit thin on the left side. We really need someone to play with Weber.

 

[scrubadam]

Tampa has been to the cup finals once since the Stamkos era (which is what I meant by lately - obviously they won the cup in '04 with St. Louis).

Hey, having talented forwards would be great. I'm certainly not arguing that having a 90pt player on the team would be a bad thing, and having a 90pt scorer is better than not having one. I just don't think it is the silver bullet that will save this team, or a prerequisite to playoff success. It is not uncommon in the playoffs for scoring forwards to turn cold in the playoffs with tighter checking.

Ya a 90 point forward doesnt gurante a cup but IMO it would get the team closer. It would transform the team from one that relies on 1-0 goalie standing on his head team to an exciting team. PHI(Giroux) and NJD(Hall) made the playoffs on the backs of their 90 point players (year before no playoffs). It would make that players linemates better, and other players would get lesser match ups. And it would be fun to watch a Hab try and challange for an Art Ross or Rocket.

Like you said its not the silver bullet, but its probably the most important piece to me. More important than an elite goalie. If that player is a Center even better.

 

[Laurentide]

We might not be in this mess if Bergevin had committed to a plan when he arrived in 2012 and stuck to it. But he's a magpie who is attracted by shiny things. He gets sidetracked.

You want to build through the draft? Great. Do that. Don't do it for one season and then abandon it in an effort to "win now".

Want to win now? Fine and dandy. Do what it takes to accomplish that. Like if you're going to trade Subban for Weber. Getting Weber was a "win now" move that should have been followed up with several other moves in an all-out push to get this team to a Cup. But Bergevin didn't have the balls to pull it off. He failed to augment the Weber acquisition with a legitimate center or any other complimentary pieces.

Of course, the reason he did nothing after that trade was because he was never going "all in". He didn't trade for Weber; he simply got rid of Subban. That was the only move. It wasn't part of some grand, "win now" strategy.

But then he didn't go back to his original plan of building through the draft. He got Sergachev and promptly traded him (albeit for a very young player, but still) He allowed veterans Markov and Radulov to walk but then signed Alzner. Instead of committing to a youth movement and moving on from Price and Pacioretty he re-signed Price to a lifetime contract and held on to Pacioretty to the point where he'll wind up trading him for pennies on the dollar, if in fact he even bothers to trade him at all.

When he arrived in 2012 Bergevin could have chosen from at least a couple of options and either one of them would have been fine if he had stuck with them. But flip-flopping back and forth has done nothing but put the team in limbo; not good enough to win but not bad enough to tear down. It's the worst possible outcome. And the longer he hangs around the less likely that anything major is going to happen. Bergevin will just tinker and make things exponentially worse. Every day he remains employed equals another month of the team spinning its wheels.

 

[blarneylad]

I think the biggest revelation from the playoffs thus far is that the big old guys are fading. And fading fast.

You look at Kesler and Perry in Anaheim those guys fell off a cliff production wise. Then you look at LA and Carter. So when it comes to retooling this team trading Pacioretty for a younger player should be thought out carefully. And when they draft their top 7 picks this year maybe looking at skill over size/skill combo is more important. The old ideal size of 5'11" which became 'small' in the clutch and grab era throughout the 1990s and 2000s seems to be changing.

Makes me think twice about Thachuk

 

[Tighthead]

I think the biggest revelation from the playoffs thus far is that the big old guys are fading. And fading fast.

You look at Kesler and Perry in Anaheim those guys fell off a cliff production wise. Then you look at LA and Carter. So when it comes to retooling this team trading Pacioretty for a younger player should be thought out carefully. And when they draft their top 7 picks this year maybe looking at skill over size/skill combo is more important. The old ideal size of 5'11" which became 'small' in the clutch and grab era throughout the 1990s and 2000s seems to be changing.

Makes me think twice about Thachuk

The Kessler contract was one where I instinctively thought it was a disaster upon signing. I had the same reaction to Alzner and Price deals.

I don’t follow peopsepcts very closely, but Tkachuk wouldn’t be my first choice amongst equals.

 

[Laurentide]

The problem stems from the fact that there are 31 GM's in the league all trying to keep themselves employed, each working under varying degrees of desperation. In the old days when players had no rights and were stuck with their teams for life, teams could grind them on their contracts. Today if you don't give a player what he demands or even more than he demands, some other more desperate GM will and you will lose that player. I'm sure that the Ducks didn't want to commit as much money and term to Perry or Kesler as they did, but the alternative was taking the risk of losing them entirely while they were still in their prime. So they essentially made a choice to live with the salary cap implications of the backside of the contract in exchange for having an elite player on the front end of the contract.

The fact that Carey Price is making all that money on his new contract doesn't bother me. The fact that he's going to be making it for the next 9 years is somewhat troubling. But there's no way he was ever going to sign a short term deal. That's not how it works. If the Habs aren't willing to make that career-long commitment then they may as well trade him right away because he will walk otherwise and you'll get nothing.

 

[Tighthead]

The problem stems from the fact that there are 31 GM's in the league all trying to keep themselves employed, each working under varying degrees of desperation. In the old days when players had no rights and were stuck with their teams for life, teams could grind them on their contracts. Today if you don't give a player what he demands or even more than he demands, some other more desperate GM will and you will lose that player. I'm sure that the Ducks didn't want to commit as much money and term to Perry or Kesler as they did, but the alternative was taking the risk of losing them entirely while they were still in their prime. So they essentially made a choice to live with the salary cap implications of the backside of the contract in exchange for having an elite player on the front end of the contract.

The fact that Carey Price is making all that money on his new contract doesn't bother me. The fact that he's going to be making it for the next 9 years is somewhat troubling. But there's no way he was ever going to sign a short term deal. That's not how it works. If the Habs aren't willing to make that career-long commitment then they may as well trade him right away because he will walk otherwise and you'll get nothing.

One thing about player movement in the NHL is that it is very static - thus, as we all learned, cap space isn’t a huge asset. In the NFL, MLB and NBA star and near star players do move at or near their prime seasons. Free agency in the NHL is much more conservative.

Therefore, it’s hard to run the Patriots model of not overpaying for players. If you don’t sign Kessler to an obviously crippling contract, it’s not easy to replace him with a similar player at better value. So if you are a GM, your sense of self preservation is going to pressure you to do the deal. It may buy you three years of employment, and you will deal with the consequences down the road.

This is why I had to laugh at people saying in July and August that Bergevin wouldn’t ride the cap space into the season. It’s not like there were talented players lying around looking for jobs, and all other teams were cap compliant. Other than bad contracts, there isn’t much available.

At least MB didn’t acquire crap like Lucic in a trade to spend the cap money, but that is damning with faint praise.

 

[Istvan]

I consider MB, CJ et al a bunch of tools so I don't care for the term retooling.

 

[Draft]

I'd have to agree with going for a retool over a full-on rebuild. The prospect depth isn't there for a rebuild that will last less than ~4 years and I don't see a single player in the system that will match the contributions of Price/Weber/Pacioretty. We've got two elite players in Weber and Price locked down for the next millennia and Pacioretty is an excellent trade chip... or consistent 30g scorer. This team needs centers, an identity, and growth from its young players to be a competitive team. I see Julien doing a pretty decent job with two of those and after having 6-7yrs to figure out how to do it, I'm really hoping Bergevin can pull his shit together and get the team a consistent top-6 center that can produce offensively.

 

[SOLR]

I'd have to agree with going for a retool over a full-on rebuild. The prospect depth isn't there for a rebuild that will last less than ~4 years and I don't see a single player in the system that will match the contributions of Price/Weber/Pacioretty.

The whole point of a rebuild is to draft 15 players per year for 3 years (6-7 first rounders) and to rebuild the prospect depth.

 

[mariolemieux66]

The whole point of a rebuild is to draft 15 players per year for 3 years (6-7 first rounders) and to rebuild the prospect depth.

That is exactly how i would like things to be. Even after those 3 years we should keep traded our older players for assets.

 

[lo striver]

they have been retooling for 20+ years. let's keep on trying.

 

[NotProkofievian]

I'd have to agree with going for a retool over a full-on rebuild. The prospect depth isn't there for a rebuild that will last less than ~4 years and I don't see a single player in the system that will match the contributions of Price/Weber/Pacioretty. We've got two elite players in Weber and Price locked down for the next millennia and Pacioretty is an excellent trade chip... or consistent 30g scorer. This team needs centers, an identity, and growth from its young players to be a competitive team. I see Julien doing a pretty decent job with two of those and after having 6-7yrs to figure out how to do it, I'm really hoping Bergevin can pull his **** together and get the team a consistent top-6 center that can produce offensively.

Okay, I'm going to magically give you Ryan O'Reilly. Where do you think that gets us?

 

[Runner77]

We might not be in this mess if Bergevin had committed to a plan when he arrived in 2012 and stuck to it. But he's a magpie who is attracted by shiny things. He gets sidetracked.

You want to build through the draft? Great. Do that. Don't do it for one season and then abandon it in an effort to "win now".

Want to win now? Fine and dandy. Do what it takes to accomplish that. Like if you're going to trade Subban for Weber. Getting Weber was a "win now" move that should have been followed up with several other moves in an all-out push to get this team to a Cup. But Bergevin didn't have the balls to pull it off. He failed to augment the Weber acquisition with a legitimate center or any other complimentary pieces.

Of course, the reason he did nothing after that trade was because he was never going "all in". He didn't trade for Weber; he simply got rid of Subban. That was the only move. It wasn't part of some grand, "win now" strategy.

But then he didn't go back to his original plan of building through the draft. He got Sergachev and promptly traded him (albeit for a very young player, but still) He allowed veterans Markov and Radulov to walk but then signed Alzner. Instead of committing to a youth movement and moving on from Price and Pacioretty he re-signed Price to a lifetime contract and held on to Pacioretty to the point where he'll wind up trading him for pennies on the dollar, if in fact he even bothers to trade him at all.

When he arrived in 2012 Bergevin could have chosen from at least a couple of options and either one of them would have been fine if he had stuck with them. But flip-flopping back and forth has done nothing but put the team in limbo; not good enough to win but not bad enough to tear down. It's the worst possible outcome. And the longer he hangs around the less likely that anything major is going to happen. Bergevin will just tinker and make things exponentially worse. Every day he remains employed equals another month of the team spinning its wheels.

I think you've encapsulated what Bergevin's tenure has been about. There is no clear sense of direction.

And, all of it is highlighted by his failure to recognize where the game is going and rostering players that fit the mould. His last major move has been signing Alzner and he continues to defend it.

 

[Phozzwald]

Our window has passed. Forget re-tooling and start rebuilding. If we were going to go for it, it should've happened last summer. Instead we had the worst offseason that I can remember. We had our shot and we blew it.

Scrap everything and start over...

Actually this summer is our chance. Not last summer. The cap space, picks and having Pacioretty as a trade chip, as well as the biggest centre target we could possibly get our hands on is set to become a free agent. This is the summer where the habs can make things happen and I strongly believe they will

 

[Kent Nilsson]

I'd have to agree with going for a retool over a full-on rebuild. The prospect depth isn't there for a rebuild that will last less than ~4 years and I don't see a single player in the system that will match the contributions of Price/Weber/Pacioretty. We've got two elite players in Weber and Price locked down for the next millennia and Pacioretty is an excellent trade chip... or consistent 30g scorer. This team needs centers, an identity, and growth from its young players to be a competitive team. I see Julien doing a pretty decent job with two of those and after having 6-7yrs to figure out how to do it, I'm really hoping Bergevin can pull his **** together and get the team a consistent top-6 center that can produce offensively.

Every major move Bergevin pulled has made the team worse, yet you people think he will figure it out overnight ?

 

[Phozzwald]

Every major move Bergevin pulled has made the team worse, yet you people think he will figure it out overnight ?

Simply don’t agree. The major moves in my eyes make us better. We complain about not being able to score. Drouin helps us more than Sergachev does. Especially if he was put on the wing with a actual centr. I’m exhausted having the Subban/Weber debate. But not everyone is upset that they made that trade and not everyone shares your opinion. Arguments can be made on both sides so you can’t just say Bergevin made the team worse with every major move he made, is just an opinion which is usually based only on being upset about Subban being moved