Did Trevor Timmins learn from his mistakes?

bsl

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Oct 9, 2009
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Do you guys honestly believe that Timmins was given carte blanche under the goat's watch? He micromanaged everything I have a hard time believing that all those bad picks were on Timmins alone.

So now you're saying yes, actually, TT ****ed up, but it's Gauthier's fault. W. T. F. :shakehead

Which is it? Is TT great, or ****? Please don't obfuscate. I don't, I say he's pretty ****.
 

DAChampion

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Both the GM and the head scout deserve total praise when scouting succeeds and total condemnation when scouting fails.
 

dmanfish90

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I do recall Gainey saying he wouldn't be involved in the draft because he just joined the team. It was Savard's and Timmins draft. If you recall, Savard was the one that pushed for Urquhart in the 2nd round.

As for who is ultimately responsible for drafting, that is going to vary from team to team since it's up to the management on how they want to handle who does what and how much say they have.

Do you actually believe this?

So what you're saying, depending on the team and how they've structured they're authority on who's the senior drafting person and makes the final decision, that in some/most scenarios it's the GM, but in others it could be a head scout?

I highly highly doubt this. At the end of the day, all these scouts (including Timmins) are highly reputable advisors. Maybe in 2003 since Gainey was less than 2 months in the job he let Timmins make more of the selections, but even he TT was less than a year on the job, so he deferred to the entire scouting staff to make the decision collectively and they decided on AK in round 1, with speculation that TT wanted Getzlaf.

My point in all this is, in 99% of the cases, GM gets final say on the draftee.

The story is that Gainey gave Sather a choice of McDonagh or Fischer (which sounds like Gainey), and Sather went for McDonagh. It's kind of like how he gave Sather a choice of Plekanec or Balej back when the Kovalev trade happened.

Following this, Timmins begged Gainey not to trade McDonagh, but it was to no avail. The next day Gainey announced the trade and said that Montreal finally had a first line center. The day after, we signed Cammalleri and Gionta, and Gainey told us they only signed with Montreal because they wanted to play with Gomez.

Frankly that sounds like a story concocted by Habs fans to create a potential scenario where we wouldn't have gotten bent over the table in that deal. Not saying it's impossible, but I'll remain skeptical until a reputable source comes out with it.

Whatever the case, I would have loved to be a fly on the wall in the Habs front office when that deal was hashed out. Hopefully someday we get the truth from either side because it's still a trade that made no rational sense, either back then or in hindsight.

You might be right hototogisu about the story. However being that fly on the wall in that office would have been great.

Taking that out of the equation, let's look at the facts and pieces of the trade:

To MTL

Scott Gomez: An overpaid, barely 2nd line at the time C. My thought process behind Gainey's thought process is if you get Gomer, you would get Gionta hooked come July. Bad decision IMO because Gionta's a smurf who can score 20+ goals. That's great and all, but size + skill is the key, not no size + skill or size + no skill.

Tommy Pyatt: Don't know much, but I remember Tommy being the 12th/13th F and pretty good at killing penalties (although you shouldn't quote me on it)

Michael Busto: An undrafted, TOP 6 CHL PLAYER BY AGE 19, was ECHL fodder for the most part, not even close to respectable prospect.

To NYR

Chris Higgins: Top 9/Top 6 on our very bad depth/injured team. Cancer in the dressing room apparently.

Ryan McDonagh: A slowly progressing NCAA draftee (normal for NCAA). Undervalued by Gainey, righteously valued by Timmins.

Doug Janik: Career AHLer who could barely crack NHL lineups only on injury.

Pavel Valentenko: Career KHLer who drafted in the 5th round, wasn't projected to make teams I would think, and if he ever was, probably the highest projection was probably 3rd line.


So looking back at this trade, the major parts of this trade are:

Gomez, Pyatt for Higgins, McDonagh. In hindsight, yes this was a terrible deal as Higgins was serviceable in their top 9 before handing him off to Calgary and McDonagh turned out to be a good top 4. Gomez was a #2 C for 1 year, and #3 then #4 C by the end. Pyatt wasn't serviceable at all for Martin, so basically you can write him off.

Ridiculously bad trade in hindsight. I don't think as much at the time, still pretty bad though.
 

bsl

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I think you're the one not getting it. Most times when NHL teams go for college players or guys headed to college it's later round picks where they benefit from 3-4 or even 5 years development before they have to commit a contract to that player. Similar to 15 years ago when the Wings would draft Euros in later rounds and let them develop 4-5 years at home before bringing them over.

Actually, I get it completely. So please don't say that I do not.

What you're not getting is that the NHL is younger and younger. Letting guys rot in college may no longer be an option.

And by the way, college brings distractions and pressures that CHL players don't have. No one has mentioned this here yet.

College picks have been for the most part very bad for us, and I think you will see less of them from now on.
 
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dmanfish90

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Both the GM and the head scout deserve total praise when scouting succeeds and total condemnation when scouting fails.

How can you say either?

Do you know for a fact that both wanted X player, or one wanted X player while the other wanted Y player?

Because we're all fans and not in the actual front office, we can't comment about this. All I'm saying is the ultimate responsibility for drafts/prospects/asset management is on the GM. He gets paid the big bucks for this responsibility. He has the right to fire scouts when they give him bad advice. The President has the right to fire the GM when he doesn't do a good enough job in all respects of his job (some of them mentioned above).

So now you're saying yes, actually, TT ****ed up, but it's Gauthier's fault. W. T. F. :shakehead

Which is it? Is TT great, or ****? Please don't obfuscate. I don't, I say he's pretty ****.

TT is great. When your boss goes against what you're saying or likes to micro-manage you, you can't do your job 100% effectively. Timmins was great. Drafted great players for Gauthier in the first round (Tinordi, Beaulieu). Saying otherwise is ludicrous.
 

dmanfish90

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Actually, I get it completely. So please don't say that I do not.

What you're not getting is that the NHL is younger and younger. Letting guys rot in college may no longer be an option.

And by the away, college brings distractions and pressures that CHL players don't have. No one has mentioned this here yet.

College picks have been for the most part very bad for us, and I think you will see less of them from now on.

Where are you getting this from?

CHL players have more pressure I would assume as CHL is more competitive than NCAA. Also, London Knights players probably face the same distractions as some NCAA players (University of Western Ontario, one of Playboy's top party schools :laugh:).

So you can tell that to Kadri, Tavares (for a bit), Max Domi, etc.
 

bsl

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Do you actually believe this?

So what you're saying, depending on the team and how they've structured they're authority on who's the senior drafting person and makes the final decision, that in some/most scenarios it's the GM, but in others it could be a head scout?

I highly highly doubt this. At the end of the day, all these scouts (including Timmins) are highly reputable advisors. Maybe in 2003 since Gainey was less than 2 months in the job he let Timmins make more of the selections, but even he TT was less than a year on the job, so he deferred to the entire scouting staff to make the decision collectively and they decided on AK in round 1, with speculation that TT wanted Getzlaf.

My point in all this is, in 99% of the cases, GM gets final say on the draftee.





You might be right hototogisu about the story. However being that fly on the wall in that office would have been great.

Taking that out of the equation, let's look at the facts and pieces of the trade:

To MTL

Scott Gomez: An overpaid, barely 2nd line at the time C. My thought process behind Gainey's thought process is if you get Gomer, you would get Gionta hooked come July. Bad decision IMO because Gionta's a smurf who can score 20+ goals. That's great and all, but size + skill is the key, not no size + skill or size + no skill.

Tommy Pyatt: Don't know much, but I remember Tommy being the 12th/13th F and pretty good at killing penalties (although you shouldn't quote me on it)

Michael Busto: An undrafted, TOP 6 CHL PLAYER BY AGE 19, was ECHL fodder for the most part, not even close to respectable prospect.

To NYR

Chris Higgins: Top 9/Top 6 on our very bad depth/injured team. Cancer in the dressing room apparently.

Ryan McDonagh: A slowly progressing NCAA draftee (normal for NCAA). Undervalued by Gainey, righteously valued by Timmins.

Doug Janik: Career AHLer who could barely crack NHL lineups only on injury.

Pavel Valentenko: Career KHLer who drafted in the 5th round, wasn't projected to make teams I would think, and if he ever was, probably the highest projection was probably 3rd line.


So looking back at this trade, the major parts of this trade are:

Gomez, Pyatt for Higgins, McDonagh. In hindsight, yes this was a terrible deal as Higgins was serviceable in their top 9 before handing him off to Calgary and McDonagh turned out to be a good top 4. Gomez was a #2 C for 1 year, and #3 then #4 C by the end. Pyatt wasn't serviceable at all for Martin, so basically you can write him off.

Ridiculously bad trade in hindsight. I don't think as much at the time, still pretty bad though.

Even straight up the trade was absurd.

Next: You do not even mention the elephant in the room: Gomez was a salary dump. He could have been had for far less. I remember reading about this trade the day after and just knowing it was a disaster. We all knew it.

The only comfort I get from this trade is that we got Chuckie because of it.
 

hototogisu

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Do you actually believe this?

So what you're saying, depending on the team and how they've structured they're authority on who's the senior drafting person and makes the final decision, that in some/most scenarios it's the GM, but in others it could be a head scout?

I highly highly doubt this. At the end of the day, all these scouts (including Timmins) are highly reputable advisors. Maybe in 2003 since Gainey was less than 2 months in the job he let Timmins make more of the selections, but even he TT was less than a year on the job, so he deferred to the entire scouting staff to make the decision collectively and they decided on AK in round 1, with speculation that TT wanted Getzlaf.

My point in all this is, in 99% of the cases, GM gets final say on the draftee.

I think montreal is right in saying it depends. I'm no scout myself but I've read a bit about the profession and it seems like that's the case - some GMs are more hands on, and some are not. As an example, I believe Doug MacLean was so high on Nikolai Zherdev that he would have drafted him no matter what his scouts said. Gainey always maintained the position that he deferred to Timmins, I don't know about Gauthier or Bergevin's styles in comparison.

I think it's reasonable to say that in the first round, the GM has final say, especially if it's a high pick. There's a good chance he's seen the player too. In the second rounds and beyond, it's much more of the head scout's final call.

Of course, this is just from what I've gleaned...we have an actual ex-NHL scout floating around here that could probably set us all straight ;)
 

Andy

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I think montreal is right in saying it depends. I'm no scout myself but I've read a bit about the profession and it seems like that's the case - some GMs are more hands on, and some are not. As an example, I believe Doug MacLean was so high on Nikolai Zherdev that he would have drafted him no matter what his scouts said. Gainey always maintained the position that he deferred to Timmins, I don't know about Gauthier or Bergevin's styles in comparison.

I think it's reasonable to say that in the first round, the GM has final say, especially if it's a high pick. There's a good chance he's seen the player too. In the second rounds and beyond, it's much more of the head scout's final call.

Of course, this is just from what I've gleaned...we have an actual ex-NHL scout floating around here that could probably set us all straight ;)

Timmins in an interview with the Gazette said he pushed Gauthier to find a way to trade up to nab Tinordi. Not sure if that is the way it always was, but it gives a little insight.

Also the picking the prospect in the Gomez trade story sounds like people are mixing the Kovalev trade story about Balej and Plekanec with the Gomez one. Don't know where the latter one came from either, but there are always these stories, which conflict with other ones, like the one habs fans invented that Gauthier wanted Fischer over Giroux, even though Grant has repeatedly said it was a Habs scout that went to bat for Fischer (another example of the Canadiens GMs deferring to their scouting staff).
 
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hototogisu

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Scott Gomez: An overpaid, barely 2nd line at the time C. My thought process behind Gainey's thought process is if you get Gomer, you would get Gionta hooked come July. Bad decision IMO because Gionta's a smurf who can score 20+ goals. That's great and all, but size + skill is the key, not no size + skill or size + no skill.

Also if I remember correctly at the time of the trade, Lapierre was our top signed centre going into next year. I don't think (but I could be wrong) Plekanec was under contract yet.

We had overturned our entire roster by letting all our UFAs walk, but had no signed 1st or 2nd line center - it's a tough sell trying to get players to sign with your team on the promise of playing with Maxim Lapierre.

That was at the time that the Lecavalier-to-Montreal rumors were at their hottest, and it's confirmed that there really was a deal in place that fell through at the last second. Maybe Gainey was banking on having Lecavalier on the team before July 1 and building around him. When the deal fell through, it was a panic move to get someone who even looked like a #1 centre to be able to start courting UFAs. The Rangers knew we were in a bad spot, and put the screws to us, coupled with what must have been a severe misread of McDonagh's supposed "regression" winding up with him being included in the deal.

Those are the best justifications I can come up with but yeah, it's not pretty no matter how you slice it.
 

Andy

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btw here is the article regarding Timmins asking Gauthier to trade up

http://www2.canada.com/montrealgaze....html?id=e3a24653-d758-42bc-9fa3-989edd7a10ec

but Timmins recognized his potential and convinced former general manager Pierre Gauthier to move up in the draft to get the defenceman.

And here is the Grant quote about another scout and not Gauthier or Gainey (the story changes depending on which GM a fan hated more) vouching for Fischer

Actually the scout is still with the team, and he coached Fischer in minor hockey and went to bat for him in terms of his character and potential having coached him. Timmins really liked Giroux..but he liked Fischer as well....he wouldn't have drafted him in the first round if he didn't think he was a future NHLer. Timmins was hoping to get a crack at Giroux in the second round with the two picks they had...they traded down from 16 to 20 with San Jose IIRC.
 

dmanfish90

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let's look at the facts and pieces of the trade:

To MTL

Scott Gomez: An overpaid, barely 2nd line at the time C. My thought process behind Gainey's thought process is if you get Gomer, you would get Gionta hooked come July. Bad decision IMO because Gionta's a smurf who can score 20+ goals. That's great and all, but size + skill is the key, not no size + skill or size + no skill.

Even straight up the trade was absurd.

Next: You do not even mention the elephant in the room: Gomez was a salary dump. He could have been had for far less. I remember reading about this trade the day after and just knowing it was a disaster. We all knew it.

The only comfort I get from this trade is that we got Chuckie because of it.

What part of "An overpaid" did I not mention the "elephant in the room". Maybe i forgot the word "grossly" in there, but whatever.

How did we got Chuckie because of the Gomez trade which happened 4 years before?

I think montreal is right in saying it depends. I'm no scout myself but I've read a bit about the profession and it seems like that's the case - some GMs are more hands on, and some are not. As an example, I believe Doug MacLean was so high on Nikolai Zherdev that he would have drafted him no matter what his scouts said. Gainey always maintained the position that he deferred to Timmins, I don't know about Gauthier or Bergevin's styles in comparison.

I think it's reasonable to say that in the first round, the GM has final say, especially if it's a high pick. There's a good chance he's seen the player too. In the second rounds and beyond, it's much more of the head scout's final call.

Of course, this is just from what I've gleaned...we have an actual ex-NHL scout floating around here that could probably set us all straight ;)

WHO's the scout? And don't say Monctonscout...because I know that can't be true (well sometimes Moncton ;))

Also if I remember correctly at the time of the trade, Lapierre was our top signed centre going into next year. I don't think (but I could be wrong) Plekanec was under contract yet.

We had overturned our entire roster by letting all our UFAs walk, but had no signed 1st or 2nd line center - it's a tough sell trying to get players to sign with your team on the promise of playing with Maxim Lapierre.

That was at the time that the Lecavalier-to-Montreal rumors were at their hottest, and it's confirmed that there really was a deal in place that fell through at the last second. Maybe Gainey was banking on having Lecavalier on the team before July 1 and building around him. When the deal fell through, it was a panic move to get someone who even looked like a #1 centre to be able to start courting UFAs. The Rangers knew we were in a bad spot, and put the screws to us, coupled with what must have been a severe misread of McDonagh's supposed "regression" winding up with him being included in the deal.

Those are the best justifications I can come up with but yeah, it's not pretty no matter how you slice it.

First off, Pleks was RFA that summer so he could have been easily re-signed. There's our #1/#2 C.

As for TB, the deal I heard proposed to TB was Pleks, Subban, Pacioretty for Lecavalier which I believe they declined. Hahaha for TB and thank god for us.

It looks like NYR used this as leverage to screw us, but at the time don't think it was such a huge screw-up. The only reason it was is because of Gomez' salary. Had he been a 5-million cap hit and not almost 7.5 million, wouldn't be nearly as bad of a trade.

Some good justifications/context there. It's a shame though. With McD, our defense would be set for years.

2013-14:

McD-Subban
Markov-Emelin
Gorges-Diaz
Bouillon-Tinordi

But one can only fantasize for so long...(I have to stop lol).
 

montreal

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The story is that Gainey gave Sather a choice of McDonagh or Fischer (which sounds like Gainey), and Sather went for McDonagh.

Do you have a link cause I never heard that before.

This has NOTHING to do with my or some others criticisms of Timmins.

My criticism of him is his completely blowing 2, now possibly 3 with LL, first round picks, when there were much better choices.

Who CARES if he drafts well for plugs in the 5th round? Gally aside.

His first round record is awful. That is the round that counts.

And, except for Gally, name one legit star TT has drafted beyond the second round.

He's **** in the first. And no hidden gems past round 2 except Gally in 11 years. WOW.

Timmins 1st round picks have had their share of problems Galchenyuk aside, it's a concern for sure.

As for the 5th round, we'll see what Dietz and Hudon can do. You got to admit, Timmins last 3 5th round picks are impressive (gallagher/dietz/hudon) granted it's still very early and things could end up very different down the road.

As for hidden gems, everyone's opinion of the definition of hidden gem will vary, but outside the 2nd round,

Halak- @ 271st overall, great value pick
Streit- @ 262nd overall, also great value pick
Grabovski- @ 150th overall, he's a ****** bag but still a very good 5th round pick
Emelin- it's too bad they couldn't get him over here sooner but a very solid pick for sure
S.Kostitsyn- @200th it's too bad it didn't work out here but still a good pick this high.

With the more recent drafts, we'll see if any more step up.




Yes, I don't think you heard my right, once again, this is so obvious, I can't do anything else than agree. But, coincidentally the success that had Timmins in the later stages of the draft mainly come from CHLers. I was just explaining you my take on the logic behind it.

I think I understand what you are saying now but it could be coincidence. It would be interesting to hear Timmins take on the later round picks and how much stock they put into what league each plays.


My take on the 50 contracts argument is; I agree that for the NCAA players the 2+ more years you have to evaluate them help you diminish the risk of wasting a contract on rookies that doesn't deserve it. But even then, the evaluation doesn't become perfect with those extra years, some players are still "borderliner", for example, we signed Joe Stejskal when it was unnecessary. Nevertheless at the end on the day, the goal is to select the best player and I don't think that this futile technicality really make any difference when drafting a prospect. And, if it has made a difference, I believe it was a mistake, particularly if you compare our list of CHLers and NCAA players we have drafted in the later rounds. Anyway, when you are drafting NCAA players your goal is to sign them one day or an other, so signing them in 2 years or in 4 years doesn't really make a difference in the end. And as an offset, if you are finally able to lend on a good player, those extra years become a risk because you might lose the player, as Anaheim did with Justin Schultz for example.

Just to be clear, this isn't always the case, the loophole is only for players that don't go directly to the NCAA. Guys like Didier, Stejskal, Walsh, McDonagh, Fischer etc... the loop hole wouldn't have applied to them.

Do you actually believe this?

So what you're saying, depending on the team and how they've structured they're authority on who's the senior drafting person and makes the final decision, that in some/most scenarios it's the GM, but in others it could be a head scout?

I highly highly doubt this. At the end of the day, all these scouts (including Timmins) are highly reputable advisors. Maybe in 2003 since Gainey was less than 2 months in the job he let Timmins make more of the selections, but even he TT was less than a year on the job, so he deferred to the entire scouting staff to make the decision collectively and they decided on AK in round 1, with speculation that TT wanted Getzlaf.

My point in all this is, in 99% of the cases, GM gets final say on the draftee..

What i'm saying is, that it's up to the GM on how much stock he wants to put into his head scouts opinions and that there's no cut and dry answer that every GM will do things their own way. Some may want to be in on every pick, but others know they don't have the time to scout a ton of players so after the early round picks they will leave it up to their scouts to make the correct call.

Ask yourself this, do you recall hearing a lot about Gainey scouting the CHL, NCAA/USHL, or Euro leagues? Not talking about the WJC's or development camps, or other big events that all management attends like Memorial Cup, etc... Everything i've heard is that Gainey was more inclined to go with what his scouts had to say. I've heard that PG was the opposite, that he was heavily involved in the draft.

Timmins was brought in by Savard after working with Savard, Timmins started right around the '02 draft so one would think that Timmins was highly thought of by Savard in regards to his opinions at the draft table. I do remember clearly right after the draft when Savard started talking about the Urquhart pick as he brought up the good playoffs he had with the rocket. So it sure sounded like Savard had a lot of say in the '03 draft.
 
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Andy

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The players in the Tampa Lecavalier trade change every year lol. At time the actual deal was said to be Higgins, Plekanec, Gorges and our 1st and Gainey got pissed their names leaked at the three players had to play with their names constantly in the rumors. If I recall he even suggested or used it as an excuse for part of their lack luster performances in 08-09.

The following year the names in the deal got changed to Plekanec Pacioretty and Gorges, then the following to Plekanec Pacioretty and Subban, when finally this year it was changed to Pacioretty Price and Subban.
 

Andy

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I had read about it here.

You're confusing that story with the one about the Kovalev trade where Sather had the option to choose between Plekanec, Balej or Hossa. Another story which was never backed up by anyone other than other fans.
 

Ginu

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The players in the Tampa Lecavalier trade change every year lol. At time the actual deal was said to be Higgins, Plekanec, Gorges and our 1st and Gainey got pissed their names leaked at the three players had to play with their names constantly in the rumors. If I recall he even suggested or used it as an excuse for part of their lack luster performances in 08-09.

The following year the names in the deal got changed to Plekanec Pacioretty and Gorges, then the following to Plekanec Pacioretty and Subban, when finally this year it was changed to Pacioretty Price and Subban.

It was Pacioretty, Price and Subban. The Tampa GM of the time confirmed it on TSN.
 

hototogisu

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WHO's the scout? And don't say Monctonscout...because I know that can't be true (well sometimes Moncton ;))

Grant McCagg posts here quite a bit and used to scout for the Habs.

First off, Pleks was RFA that summer so he could have been easily re-signed. There's our #1/#2 C.

Yes - but he wasn't signed. That's the point. I think it was a foregone conclusion that he would sign with us for sure, but until his ink is on the paper, it's Max Lapierre as our best signed center. And let's face it, even if you considered Plekanec our #1 center at the time, that was no great shakes - he was coming off a 39 point season.

As for TB, the deal I heard proposed to TB was Pleks, Subban, Pacioretty for Lecavalier which I believe they declined. Hahaha for TB and thank god for us.

Yeah I'm not even going to bother with figuring out who the pieces really were. Like Andy said, it changes every year. Soon we'll hear about how they were going to get Galchenyuk and Gallagher in the deal as well.
 

Andy

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It was Pacioretty, Price and Subban. The Tampa GM of the time confirmed it on TSN.

Yeah I know, we had a discussion about that, about how he conveniently mentioned these names 5 years after the fact even when it was Lawton that leaked the names of Plekanec, Gorges and Higgins back in 08 when the talks had just died, which ended up pissing off Gainey at the time. Lawton is a shark.

The rumour at he time, involved Chris Higgins, Tomas Plekanec, and Josh Gorges going to the Lightning. If it had played out, Lecavalier would be wearing the colours of the Canadiens for a month now.

"The names that you heard, it was them who brought them up, not us", said Gainey, in reference to the Lightning management.

http://www.habseyesontheprize.com/2009/2/18/763096/lecavalier-to-habs-was-lig
 

montreal

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I had read about it here.

Odd cause I don't recall ever hearing that before. I can recall the reaction around here at the time and it wasn't pretty but I don't remember anything about NYR getting a choice. Doesn't really matter though cause if it were true it wouldn't matter as McDonagh was clearly more highly thought of so I can't see any GM at the time picking Fischer over McDonagh as McDonagh was the much better player in the USHS as they faced each other in the Minnesota stat championship (highly scouted) when McDonagh was a junior at CDH and Fischer was a senior at Apple Valley and McDonagh had a very good tournament. In the NCAA McDonagh was also much better then Fischer so it would have been an easy choice to make if so.
 

hototogisu

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It was Pacioretty, Price and Subban. The Tampa GM of the time confirmed it on TSN.

I still don't think that holds much water. A notoriously awful GM goes on TSN and talks about how he had a deal in place that would make him look like a mastermind - seems pretty self-serving to me. Especially since none of the pieces in any of the rumors before he opened his mouth were to be Pacioretty and Price, and that apparently the Habs balked when the Bolts asked for Subban.

The guy who railroaded Dan Boyle out of town in return for Ty Wishart is suddenly plucking our 3 best players from us at the time? And Gainey, a Price fan almost to a fault, agreed to trade "his guy"? Doesn't add up to me.
 

Andy

Registered User
Jun 26, 2008
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Montreal
I still don't think that holds much water. A notoriously awful GM goes on TSN and talks about how he had a deal in place that would make him look like a mastermind - seems pretty self-serving to me. Especially since none of the pieces in any of the rumors before he opened his mouth were to be Pacioretty and Price, and that apparently the Habs balked when the Bolts asked for Subban.

The guy who railroaded Dan Boyle out of town in return for Ty Wishart is suddenly plucking our 3 best players from us at the time? And Gainey, a Price fan almost to a fault, agreed to trade "his guy"? Doesn't add up to me.

I provided a link already of what it was at the time. Lawton was the one who revealed the names of Plekanec, Higgins and Gorges and then conveniently changed the names 5 years later.
 

Andy

Registered User
Jun 26, 2008
31,760
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Montreal
So, we don't know the name of the scout who recommended Fischer? Is he still with the org.?

Actually the scout is still with the team, and he coached Fischer in minor hockey and went to bat for him in terms of his character and potential having coached him. Timmins really liked Giroux..but he liked Fischer as well....he wouldn't have drafted him in the first round if he didn't think he was a future NHLer. Timmins was hoping to get a crack at Giroux in the second round with the two picks they had...they traded down from 16 to 20 with San Jose IIRC.
There's your clue.

Edit: to clarify that the scout wasn't McCagg, but that quote was attributed to him.
 
Last edited:

Runner77

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Grant McCagg


There's your clue.

Thanks. I enjoy reading Grant here and I'm sure he's also made recommendations that panned out. Has Grant ever discussed his position, here? Just shows you how tough and unforgiving the evaluation process can be.
 

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