Player Discussion Alex Galchenyuk - Helen Lovejoy Edition

[Smokey Thompson]

They'll use his awful second half of the season to justify a Pacioretty-esque bargain deal.

I don't see them trading him as his value is pretty low right now, he is a former 30 goal scorer, still has the potential to be a 60+ pt centre, and he's still cap controlled.

 

[sandysan]

Why are the only options top C or wing? Why can't he be 2nd line C, hell even 3rd line center would've been better.

In his rookie year he played a dozen games centering Prust and Gallagher on the third line and the line was dominant (Playing against other 3rd/4th lines). Moving him to wing has never been about him not being ready to be a center.

becuase we still need a 1C ? It cant be danault, it would be great if we had a real 1C where galchenyuk could slot in to 2C (depending on what happens to plekanec) but we need top 6 help, not bottom 6 help. if he ends up being the third line C who are his wingers gonna be ? how well you think that works out ?

 

[Deebs]

People have to stop with the non sense really...

Plekanec, Danault, Mitchell, maybe Ott re-signed... that's more than enough C who can play defensively.

then you have wingers like Pacioretty, lekhonen, Shaw, Gallagher, Byron and co who are at worst average defensively.

who ****ing cares if one or two of the Habs forwards arent really good defensively ??

the ones who witnessed the Habs scoring a grand total of 4 goals in the last 3 games of the PO, 3 games they LOST by the way... do they care that much about defensive play ?? are they really the kind to think Habs lost cause forwards can't play defense or something ??

ALL the Habs C in this serie can play defense (not counting Galchenyuk obviously)... yet we lost. 4 goals in last 3 games... 1.25 PPG from the Habs... let that sink in for a moment... 1.25 PPG, that's what we scored in the last 3... it's actually less than 1.25 PPG given there was OT...


but oh! no! OMG! Galchenyuk can't play defense! we're doomed! only 11 of our forwards are good defensively! it's impossible to do anything with this!

You're out to lunch and it's unfortunate.

 

[JusticeBeaver]

They'll use his awful second half of the season to justify a Pacioretty-esque bargain deal.

I don't see them trading him as his value is pretty low right now, he is a former 30 goal scorer, still has the potential to be a 60+ pt centre, and he's still cap controlled.

Him and Kadri appear to be going to down similar routes contract wise. Their bridges are almost identical. Perhaps they give him a 1 year too? Puts a bit of pressure on him to perform, while also little risk if he does bust or give up on the team. Sucks if he explodes and finds his game, but that'd be a problem I'll be ok with.

 

[sandysan]

What is he stubborn about?

Why punish one of your better offensive players in the playoffs... it isn't time to send messages, it's time to give your best shot at winning.

because he's not good at draws or fantastically responsible defensively ? He also often seems to lack the requisite understanding of his role on the ice. Perhaps this is because he is still somewhat green, perhaps its because hes been up and down and on multiple sides of the forward lines with different teammates. As a C he's also shown a pretty much complete lack of chemistry with our better wingers.

So he might be a good talent for our first line, but he's a bad fit. so we drop him to 2C which means our perpetual 2C is now a three C and im not sure if right now he's better than turtleneck in that role.

There are expectations to play center in montreal, our " big mean C" prospect was also relegated to the wing as they though he wasnt fast enough or had not yet acclimatyed to the speed in the nhl ( McCarron).

I think that he has the skills to be a 1C but I'm not sure of that is going to be in montreal. is radulov leaves, he's pretty much screwed as he does not play well with patches who will be expected to shoulder his load and radulov's load going forward.

we might try and wait it out, or we might cut bait.

 

[waffledave]

Pierre McGuire before the draft quite famously said on TSN radio that Montreal should consider calling up Edmonton and packaging Subban with the 3rd overall pick to get the 1st overall and draft Yakupov plus pick up another unspecified asset.

He also suggested dealing the 3rd overall for Jordan Staal in the same time period.

So maybe don't be so arrogant next time.

Do you have the clip handy? I remember it was more along the lines of trade Subban for the 1st overall (so you have 2 picks) or trade the 3rd overall for a young center like Staal.

I feel like this bit is something that just keeps getting exaggerated more and more. If he famously said it there's got to be a clip somewhere, I mean they keep all their segments recorded on the website.

 

[Smokey Thompson]

Do you have the clip handy? I remember it was more along the lines of trade Subban for the 1st overall (so you have 2 picks) or trade the 3rd overall for a young center like Staal.

I feel like this bit is something that just keeps getting exaggerated more and more. If he famously said it there's got to be a clip somewhere, I mean they keep all their segments recorded on the website.

From what I remember, having listened to him for years on Melnyk's show, he said Edmonton's asking price for the 1st overall pick would have been PK and our 3rd overall pick. Yak was projected to become a prolific goal scorer at the time and PK hadn't gained his elite status around the league yet, even though his possession numbers compared favourably to many of the top defensemen in the league at the time. He never recommended that trade for Montreal.

He was adamant about one point, however: the Habs need a top line centre and have needed one for over decade (still need one). So, you either draft a #1C with the 3rd overall pick or use the pick as leverage to acquire one via trade. Once we picked Galchenyuk, Pierre seemed satisfied he's been convinced since then that Galchenyuk has the tools to become a dominant offensive #1C.

Nowadays he is disappointed with the direction the Habs took vis-a-vis Galchenyuk's role with the team.