You don't need to read my text to answer the poll but if you want to relive the events of the past since 1979, you are at the right place but be aware a lot of stuff as occur in the last 44 years. I have do this at the best of my knowledge with some language issue and I give my opinion on some points who can be a lot different than yours.
The Habs are one of the most successful teams of all-time with 24 Stanley Cup, only the Yankees have more titles in a major sports, and to think they can be cursed is something that can seem ridiculous because in their glorious years, everything they do seems to be the right choice and they always found a way to win. Back in the times, every fan of hockey loved or hated the Habs because of their winning success, every team who played hockey tried to imitate what they do and every player wanted to play for this team or want to beat this powerhouse team; no one was indifferent about "Les Glorieux"! This time has changed, it's seemed the opposite for quite a while and nobody found this team special anymore, a part of their old history or their fans!
I think they have created their own "Curse" in thinking they can replace anyone and they can survive to anything. At some point, they have take the success for granted! This resulted in some awful moves since 1979 we still can't understand to this day which are not based on hockey but more because of a different point of view between 2 humans or their relationship! I would try to make a pedigree of some of the moves who made this franchise decline and lose its prestige over the years and create the bad karma we have now! I would start in 1979 even if they had won the Stanley Cup in 1986 and 1993 with Patrick Roy, the Habs were not what they used to be even if they had some pretty good teams in the end of the 1980's and the start of the 1990's!
------------------------ 1979 : Grundman vs Bowman ---------------------------------------
Sam Pollock retires and the Habs need to name a new GM. Some rumors say "The Godfather" never accepted to have missed Mike Bossy in the 1977 draft; he has chosen Mark Napier instead of him. They have Scotty Bowman, the head coach who has won 4 Stanley Cup in a row at the time, who wants the job but the Habs choose Irving Grundman, a bowling GM without a knowledge of how to manage a hockey team to be the next Habs GM. Scotty Bowman got pissed and went somewhere else, the Buffalo Sabers, to become a Head Coach and a GM. At the time, Scotty was known for having a bad temper and the Habs didn't want to give him full control because they thought he would not be patient enough for the job and he would make too many impulsive moves!
------------------------------------ 1985 : Lafleur vs Lemaire ----------------------------------
The history between Lemaire and Lafleur is famous. They played on the same line for close to a decade but when the first one became head coach everything changed. "Le Démon Blond" got pissed and asked to be traded because he didn't want to play the way Lemaire wanted, a defensive style, and he couldn't get the linemates he wanted. The Habs didn't want to trade him and he decided to leave the Habs and not play anymore until his comeback with the Rangers in 1988! The leader of all-time for the Habs for assists, points, shots and game winning goals; missing only 26 goals to reach the magic number of Maurice Richard, 544 goals.
---------------------------------- 1990 : Chelios vs Corey ---------------------------------------
Everyone knows the rumors between the wife of Corey and Chelios. He got traded the day after he got in an altercation where he had beat 2 policemen after getting caught urinating outside of a bar in Madison, Wisconsin. I will never buy the "Knee Argument" because the Habs got the first rebuild with success of a knee with Sergio Momesso a couple of years before, he got traded the day after the altercation, how Corey manage his team and I would never believe Serge Savard because he has never said something bad about himself and this is by far his worst trade as a GM; HM to Mark Recchi! Maybe Savard himself doesn't even know the truth but someone somewhere in this organisation knows at the time the knees of Chelios are not in bad shape like they said! Corey is the only one who gain something to trade Chelios because he always try to make the Habs look good in the community, he doesn't try to build a hockey team but a priest choral. and he doesn't like when something makes the team look bad; to resume, no bad boy with Ronald Corey or it's only a question of time before you get trade somewhere else! If the "Knee Argument" is true and I had some money to bet, I would say Corey had talked to the doctor before Savard and the doctor told him what he needed to know to move him and the rest is history! The Habs try to correct a mistake they made before at the 1980 draft with Wickenheiser vs Savard in making another one and don't get fool the Chelios trade as never be a "hockey trade" but a problem who need to be addressed something we have see with Mike Ribeiro more recently!! To resume, they tried to correct two "mistakes" with 1 move and they traded a ""bad boy" not a "bad knee"!
----------------------------- 1990 : Naslund vs Young Core --------------------------------------
The Habs got plenty of young productive players like Richer or Corson and "Le Petit Viking" got a lesser role at the same time. He really didn't seem to enjoy that without being able to be productive like before and he decided to go back to Europe where he can play hockey like he wanted. Something like Lafleur, after being used like the offensive threat of this team for multiple years they came to be used like another player like they have never achieved anything and the team became too think they are too old to be used and effective like before too soon even if they have slowed down versus their prime years. These 2 guys have a lot of pride and they can't accept being discredited by their own team in some ways, they prefer to quit before becoming someone they're not!
---------------------------------- 1995 : Roy vs Tremblay ----------------------------------------
Everyone remembers where they used to be on December 2,1995 because of the clash between Roy and Tremblay, two old teammates. Two character guys who want to win more than anything else but in this famous game everything goes bad and the situation between the two becomes something else like adding fuel to a fire and "Casseau" loses his mind after Tremblay didn't pull him fast enough! After that, Roy tries to make his apologies to Ronald Corey to stay in Montréal but Corey never likes him and uses that to ship him out of the town; he already said to Serge Savard, the GM before Rejean Houle, to trade him before and Savard had some talk with Quebec before being fired about a deal including Owen Nolan and Stéphane Fiset! Like I have said before, Corey didn't like the bad boy, the strong head or the guy who takes too much space and Savard never liked how the goalie got the credit for the success of the team and he sees that much more like a problem than a good thing. Roy cried like a baby on the plane to Colorado knowing they lost something that doesn't have a price, to be a part of the Montreal Canadiens!!
Because of some stupid decisions, the priest mentality of Corey or simply because of a different point of view of 2 humans who lead to broke the relationship between them, the Habs lose the best head coach in the game maybe a Sam Pollock number 2, their most prolific forward in the franchise history, the clutchest goalie in the history of the game, their last 100 points guys and one of the best if not the best american defenseman of all-time! How to shoot yourself in the foot more than that? This creates something else called "Bad Karma" at your best player and more!
--------------------------------------------- Saku Koivu -------------------------------------------
In his second year, Koivu hit the number one rank in the leaderboard before being injured by Jeff Shantz at his knee. He has never comeback with the same offensive upside after that and his history only got worse after that being injured by Justin Williams at an eye and beating the cancer in less than a year. After all of that, he got kicked out of Montréal because he will beat the longevity record as captain of Béliveau and to make the thing better they give McDonagh to find his replacement with Gomez! God Bless Captain SISU!
----------------------------------- Andrei Markov --------------------------------------------------
An elite defenseman who plays the game the right way with or without the puck. He will never have the credit he deserves because at some point this guy has nothing to envy Lidstrom, the only thing he didn't have is the exposure to have a great team. At his prime, he begins to suffer from a ligament injury and never being able to become the same after that. At the same time, Subban establishes himself as a very good defenseman but like we have seen before we can never seem to have all the tools at the same time!
------------------------------------------- Carey Price ----------------------------------------------
The better technical goalie in the history of the game and the reference if you want to be a goalie! At the time, he used to be the best goalie in the world and the most valuable player in the league, David beat Goliath 2 times out of 3 with this goalie but Kreider changed everything and without being awful after that he never used to be the same goalie until his last playoff run! The only goalie with Dominik Hasek who can win a NHL game with a Bantam B roster! They got used like Tom Hanks in "Cast Away" and came close to winning "alone"! A real waste because we don't even try to win with him onboard! Only Montréal and Bergevin can't win a Stanley Cup with this guy ...
------------------------------------ Centennial Year - 2009 ---------------------------------------
The best Habs team on paper since the trade of Roy and probably the only one who could win something without a miracle with the addition of Tanguay and Laraque in the off-season. Koivu, Plekanec and Lang in the middle, the Kostitsyn brothers with Lang on a 3rd line, 3 first line players with Koivu, Kovalev and Tanguay, Laraque on the 4th; a deep team on all levels. A lot of injuries occur during the season, everything goes bad and the Habs have a total meltdown getting swept by the Bruins in the first round : 4-2, 5-1, 4-2 and 4-1 for a total of 6 Goals For vs 17 Goals Against!
---------------------------------- Marc Bergevin ------------------------------------------------
I would not talk about his tenure as a GM, the results we see in the last two years speak for themselves, but the damage he has done to this team because of the human thing. Over the last few years, the Habs have lost Subban, Markov, Radulov and Danault much more because of the relationship they have with Bergevin than anything related to hockey and he replaced them with Weber, Alzner, Drouin and Dvorak! I don't need to explain more than that ...
----------------------------------------------- The Draft -------------------------------------------
Each time we got a good draft pick we didn't pick the good guys and/or it's a bad draft year. Galchenyuk 3rd in 2012 when Huberdeau got picked 3rd in 2011, KK 3rd in 2018 instead of Brady Tkachuk 4th or Miko Heiskanen 3rd in 2017, Slafkovsky 1st in 2022 when Bedard will be the 1st in 2023. With only better "timing" or better choice they can be a powerhouse in the near future but they never seem to be bad at the right time and they still find a way to miss the impact player when they can draft him!
------------------------------- Florida 1st pick in 2023 ------------------------------------------
HuGo got a unprotected 1st round pick for the 2023 draft from Florida in the Ben Chariot deal at the 2022 deadline. This pick seems to be destined to be a lottery pick for the Connor Bedard draft since the start of the year but everything has changed recently. Florida has one of the best if not the best goalie tandem in the NHL on paper but the 2 have a rough year and became unavailable to play with 8 games to go at the season; a dream come true for all Habs fans because they need to use their 3rd goalie, Alex Lyon who has a career record of 7-7-3 3.18 .905% at this moment, with 5 or 6 teams who battle with them for one of the last playoff spot. The only problem Alex Lyon became the MVP of this team with some terrific numbers in his last 7 games : 6-0-1 1,55 .954% with 1 Shutout and the Penguins and the Islanders totally collapse giving one of the last ticket for the playoff at Florida. For the first time this season Florida has some faith in a goalie! They can do some damage in the playoffs, I would not want to play them at the moment, and the pick can become a lot worse than at the first sight! What is the odd of something like that if the Habs are not involved?
-------------------------------------------------- Injury ---------------------------------------------
At the time, we broke all the records for winning but now we are the king of the injury. It's become worse in the last few years and at some points it's something unreal. You need 40 players to pass a season and nobody can explain that!
--------------------------- Head Coach or GM : The French Factor ----------------------------
The Habs are the only team in the NHL who doesn't try to add the best man available but the best "French" man available because of the language issue. They try to change that with Jeff Gorton and to hide that with Ken Hughes; it's already a step in the good direction. It's already hard enough to win don't handcuff yourself in limiting your choice; you never have too many options. I'm a QC myself, I understand how much important this can be but not at every cost; I want to win more than anything else! Sometimes the good choice is the French guy but sometimes they try to fund something who doesn't exist; a good french candidate! Bob Berry (1981-1984) is the last non-interim coach who was not fully bilingual in English and French, though he spoke French well enough to have a simple conversation.
* I could add the money issue to the list because the Habs will always have a disadvantage in a salary cap world versus others teams because of the Canadian dollar and high rate of taxes. *
Each time the Habs have the possibility to achieve something everything goes bad and this is a thing we saw for a couple decades now. I really like the vibe HuGo+MSL brings to this team and I believe they would be able to change the curse over the time, at least they build the team the right way, but in the next year 2 players can achieve that faster for two different reasons.
---------------------------------------- Connor Bedard --------------------------------------------
No need to explain what he can bring to this franchise, he would change everything! We got lucky 1 time with Price, why not with Bedard!
----------------------------------------- Pier-Luc Dubois (PLD) -----------------------------------
If he came here via the UFA market this can change the outcome for us because he will sign here for the good reason and not the money; something we have not seen since forever. Showing some commitment to Montréal in bringing back the old habit : playing for the logo in front of the jersey instead of the name on the back and wanting to be with this team; the key of the success for this team since the debut of the NHL and breaking the idea of nobody want to play here until late in his career. I believe PLD is one of the rare actual NHL players who understands what Montréal means, how special this place can be when everything goes right and how the Montreal Canadiens is something else, much more than a hockey team!
One of these 2 guys can break this "Curse" and a first step in the right direction to bring back the Habs to something else like before. If not we will need more patience, maybe a return to the Old Forum will be needed, just kidding, but we will be there at some point! The Habs will never be what they used to be in his glorious time but this team will revive from his ashes and without dominating like before they will think to win like they always do! Like they said in Field Of Dreams : If you built it, They will come! Make this team competitive again and the good thing will happen like before because the Montreal Canadiens would never be a team like another one, you can feel the magic vibe in playoffs, and this "Curse" would be over in quite some time! Help yourself and heaven will help you!
PS : I didn't talk about Rejean Houle who has done a lot of damage to this team. Without defending him, I think he got used as a "scapegoat" by the guys ahead of him in the organisation to cut the payroll at the time when the Habs lost money before trying to sell the team! He got there to do the "dirty jobs", not to try to make a better hockey team! This did not change what he has done but he didn't do it on purpose and he is probably the first one disappointed by that because Houle bleed Bleu-Blanc-Rouge and is ready to do everything to put this team where it used to be before and he has done the opposite. If you have seen him in the documentary "The 1970 Habs" you will understand what the Habs mean for Houle : Le CH avant tout!
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