Post-Game Talk: Habs played better but lose to Mackinnon, Rantanen et al.

[BB88]

I disagree. I think Kotka is fine on a 3rd line in a sheltered role with little responsibilities.
You put him on with Gallagher and Tatar, you give him the added stress of actually needing to step up and produce more.

Keep him on lower lines, it's fine...he's not even 18 and a half yet.

Can you honestly say that?

All eyes are on Kotka and if he's not producing people are questioning him already. "I wonder if he'd be better off in the AHL", "he looks tired" comments are brought alive.
Atleast give him the top6 wingers for better chance to produce consistently.

You can leave Danault play the defensive minutes but Kotka the offensive. Armia was part of a quality shutdown line in Winnipeg with Lowry on the 3rd line.

 

[Censored Toad]

Imagine Metropolit / Bonk / Smolinski playing top minutes with the Habs when they were here.

That's Danault right now. I was defending him but 2 goals in 35 games ... yeah, that's gonna be a not good enough for me boys.

We areback at the same situation when Little Petite David had like 36 games on top PP minutes without a blooody point... (goal) ? It got so bad that the mayor of MTL was like WTF on twitter

That is where we are with phil now..

 

[WeThreeKings]

What are we at this month? 0-3 vs. Playoff teams with a combined score of 13-2?

 

[Tyson]

Oh well... give @Kudo Shinichi props for calling it...



View attachment 167293

Plus side, we play Arizona next so that should be a lock for a win.

Note: Jokes about Voldemort aside, remember the rules folks.

With Niemi in net?

 

[Tyson]

Price is showing interested GM’s that he is still a great goalie but the ECHL defense makes it tough.

 

[Censored Toad]

I dont think Petry is going anywhere either, because Bergevin is thinking about POs. He wont trade our 2nd best D.
I expect him to stick with status quo...maybe add depth pieces..that's about it.
Only way that changes is if we see significant improvement or drop in our game.

I agree, as it stands right now we can threaten for a PO position. Marcs "anything can happen" ideal holds true. We could easily string together a 5-7 game hot streak and be in the PO's . The flip side is we could continue to slide as we are not getting the same offensive contributions from players who were likely overproducing (Domi) returns to what is likely their true form and not the form that alot of players experience on a new team (production bump)

As long as we aren't so far out of the PO's, Marc will try to go all in citing the following:
" Anything can happen in the PO's"
"Insert Player X and we are a contender"
" We are only 5-10 pts out of the playoffs, therefore we will try to get into the PO's"
"My goal is to win the Stanley cup, and I think we can win with the group we have"

Of course it won't be so nicely spoken as what I have written, but I think you guys get the idea.
This is what frightens me so much, this semi decent record is enough of a boon to marc to buy him more time as the GM because we have improved and it also means he will try to push for the POs, which means not selling a very desirable asset in petry , tatar etc. to actual contending teams.

The push for the tank, is more to force marcs hand into doing what 95% of HFhabs think is the right choice with respect to the direction of the team moving forward. Again, we want contenders not pretenders. Marc wants to save his job. Then again, how many years of missing the PO's until this asshat is fired?? He will likely be here until the end of his contract.

That being said marc basically has failed at every TDL regardless of what direction the team was going for (PO push or selling good assets for Draft picks) at least based on my memory, with vanek being the only outlier so I have very little faith that anything good will happen.

This offseason is the first time in many years that Marc did not make the team worse.... was that an outlier too? Is Timmins pushing Marc, was it a fluke or will we go back to poor choices and therrible sound bytes about dogs , loyalty and excuses?

I am hoping that marc see's the light and we are sellers.. but I doubt it. Mediocracy and poor choices for a PO push is in our future unless we really continue to slide with loss after loss.

Should we miss the PO's I will be really excited to see what excuse marc can cook up this year. Price was here for the year, we got weber back.... your move marc......

 

[Rapala]

Pk we do. Danault, Lehkonen & Byron are particularly effective there. We need Drouin & Domi to lead the PP & they're failing miserably.

If anything we have too many role players. Guys who can play 3rd line on any team (Shaw, Lehkonen, Byron, Danault, Armia) but are expected to do/be more for us.

Reality is teams who have #1 picks go on to be good teams for the most part.

The last time Montreal had a #1 OA pick was in 1980 28 years ago, when we took Wickenheiser.

Montreal has never been an organization that has gone into a season to lose like Toronto did in the McDavid & Matthews draft or Buffalo did the same years.

I respect the organization for doing that, but am also frustrated at the lack of elite talent because of it.

I was thinking in terms of production. Sure we have a ton of role players but the underlying numbers are accurate we aren't very good in any one area other than 5v5 and even that is likely to fall off IMO.
So I'm still talking quality over quantity just like warm bodies don't necessarily equal depth. It is very possible our decimated D is skewing the numbers but honestly we haven't been good in the special teams areas for the final couple of seasons under Therrien and never under Julien.

 

[Censored Toad]

I was thinking in terms of production. Sure we have a ton of role players but the underlying numbers are accurate we aren't very good in any one area other than 5v5 and even that is likely to fall off IMO.
So I'm still talking quality over quantity just like warm bodies don't necessarily equal depth. It is very possible our decimated D is skewing the numbers but honestly we haven't been good in the special teams areas for the final couple of seasons under Therrien and never under Julien.

Wasn't it JM as the HC when our PP was like #1 in the league?

 

[Rapala]

Wasn't it JM as the HC when our PP was like #1 in the league?

I was up there for sure and got progressively worse under Therrien. Our PK was always decent until we got rid of the players who didn't like losing enough. When it fell off we suffered those historical losing streaks.

 

[Rapala]

What are we at this month? 0-3 vs. Playoff teams with a combined score of 13-2?

We are probably in deep with any team who even thinks they can make the playoffs.

 

[WeThreeKings]

We are probably in deep with any team who even thinks they can make the playoffs.

Can't play Ottawa every game

 

[slybel]

danault is useless in a top6

True... he's a 3rd center! Move up KOKO!

 

[Rapala]

that's exactly what he did at the beginning of the game, he is the only reason we didnt end the 1st down by 2 or 3...

I commented on the autobahn to our net in the GDT it was pathetic. Price made a mistake not giving the puck to Benn on that turnover but neither D were in very good positions to help him heck I might have bypassed Benn myself. The second goal was clearly a case of players bearing down on him I don't think Price played much catcher in his youth. He clearly had the puck in his glove and then bobbled it when he took his eyes off the puck and onto the incoming traffic.

 

[LaP]

Gonna be tough to beat good teams when you have 2 nhl caliber d men in the lineup

And one on our first pairing. With Benn on the first pairing we honestly deserve to lose. At one point stubbornness must be punished.

 

[sandysan]

Hence the this where a 10 million goalie should make the difference. It's during these kind of nights where we need that extra save in crucial moments and not bumbling it for the tying goal. I mean, I like the guy but he can be so deflating. The team won't score 3-4 every night. He's paid to be a difference maker and our best player. He hasn't been in two seasons now.

So when he plays lights out in the first after, again, bailing out our crappy D we just ignore it?

Look at grade a scoring chances. He stops 1, not a big deal. He stops 5 in one period do the freaking math.

Yeah the puck handling was 100 percent on him. What about game changer drouin? We pay him 6 million to do crap all. Danault, hudon, shampoo all of those guys can suck on ice and then becuase they can't score ( cough cough our power play) you pin it on the goalie?

Is the expectation that price, no matter how bad the D in front of him, no matter how bad out top six preforms, that he and he alone is responsible for making up ALL the teams systemic problems?

Becuase if that IS the expectation, is an idiotic one.

 

[Censored Toad]

And one on our first pairing. With Benn on the first pairing we honestly deserve to lose. At one point stubbornness must be punished.

When you have a total f***ing tool at the top go unpunished for the better part of 6 years... you shouldn't expect punishment to come out unless you have a Russian sounding name.

 

[LaP]

I commented on the autobahn to our net in the GDT it was pathetic. Price made a mistake not giving the puck to Benn on that turnover but neither D were in very good positions to help him heck I might have bypassed Benn myself. The second goal was clearly a case of players bearing down on him I don't think Price played much catcher in his youth. He clearly had the puck in his glove and then bobbled it when he took his eyes off the puck and onto the incoming traffic.

Benn must take his part of Blame on that play. Yeah it's mostly Price's fault but on a play like that when you see your goalie attempting a risky pass in front of your net your job is to follow thru the play and cover your position (in this case the front of the net). Anyway that's how i learned to play hockey when i was young. Yeah you wont be in a position to assist Weber if the pass is a success but if the pass misses the front of the net will be covered. He turned and was on his way to the corner or behind the net and was totally 100% out of position when the turnover occurred. I personally learned that you don't position yourself to assist the other dman until said other dman is in perfect control of the puck. If he's not in perfect control of the puck you must cover your position which Benn was not doing at all when the goal was scored.

Benn was on the ice for both goals yesterday and was behind the play all night. Avs played kind of an average game and still had many high quality scoring chances thru the night.

 

[Rapala]

So when he plays lights out in the first after, again, bailing out our crappy D we just ignore it?

Look at grade a scoring chances. He stops 1, not a big deal. He stops 5 in one period do the freaking math.

Yeah the puck handling was 100 percent on him. What about game changer drouin? We pay him 6 million to do crap all. Danault, hudon, shampoo all of those guys can suck on ice and then becuase they can't score ( cough cough our power play) you pin it on the goalie?

Is the expectation that price, no matter how bad the D in front of him, no matter how bad out top six preforms, that he and he alone is responsible for making up ALL the teams systemic problems?

Becuase if that IS the expectation, is an idiotic one.

Yeah but 10.5 million reasons keep cropping up.

 

[Rapala]

Benn must take his part of Blame on that play. Yeah it's mostly Price's fault but on a play like that when you see your goalie attempting a risky pass in front of your net your job is to follow thru the play and cover your position (in this case the front of the net). Anyway that's how i learned to play hockey when i was young. Yeah you wont be in a position to assist Weber if the pass is a success but if the pass misses the front of the net will be covered. He turned and was on his way to the corner or behind the net and was totally 100% out of position when the turnover occurred. I personally learned that you don't position yourself to assist the other dman until said other dman is in perfect control of the puck. If he's not in perfect control of the puck you must cover your position which Benn was not doing at all when the goal was scored.

Benn was on the ice for both goals yesterday and was behind the play all night. Avs played kind of an average game and still had many high quality scoring chances thru the night.

I laughed yesterday when I saw 18 yr old KK pulling a puck off our line when I realized our D rarely if ever do that.

 

[HockeyDBspecialist]

I laughed yesterday when I saw 18 yr old KK pulling a puck off our line when I realized our D rarely if ever do that.

the more I see this team play the more I blame the problem to the D. They can't make a first good pass or bring the puck in the offensive zone, they just can't. The only ones that can are Petry, and Weber who is always placed correctly on the ice.

Mete and Reilly shots need a LOT more power, it's way too weak to beat any good goaltender.
Schelmboy and benn need to get traded or waived. We need a trade for a fast,mobile and intelligent LHD asap. We have none in our system and it's killing us game after game.

 

[ArtPeur]

Yeah but 10.5 million reasons keep cropping up.

Thank God we have almost as much in capspace

 

[Rapala]

Thank God we have almost as much in capspace

Yeah I've never brought up the salary other than I didn't like the deal. I used to argue Max Patch's salary didn't make him a better player like many here insisted and the inverse is true of Price. As a matter of fact the number of players allowed to skate beelines towards our net should be worth about 3M in danger pay.

 

[nhlfan9191]

The Habs are not the only team who has been average, so who knows. In any way, the Habs rarely have a succesful trip before Christmas. This is the yearly slump that lasts until February or so

Boston isn’t healthy at all and they’re still ahead of us. Nobody is touching the top 3 in the Atlantic and I don’t see Pittsburgh staying out of a playoff spot all season. I guess one of the Metro teams could drop, but likely not as much as we will. Us making the playoffs is a mirage right now.

 

[Rapala]

Are we getting Niemi in nets tonight?

 

[Kriss E]

Should we miss the PO's I will be really excited to see what excuse marc can cook up this year. Price was here for the year, we got weber back.... your move marc......

I think unless we collapse completely Bergevin is going to be happy with the results and can point to improvements to argue we've progressed in the right direction.