The 7th player

[Price4Prez]

Didn`t really know how to label this thread..but lets talk about that 7th player. The fans. Now most of the time, that expression is used during home games to label the local teams fans cheering their players on and help them out.

BUT what about OFF the ice. I have been watching hockey for over 20 years, 100% Habs homer. In that time, I have NEVER witnessed such uneducated hockey fans who cheer for the Habs.

Few stupid remarks from this playoffs:

-Therrien should be fired. Find me a team who wants or should fire their head coach after a 100 point season and a ECF appearance. If he was THAT bad, we wouldn't be this far regardless of the team we have.

-Eller is SOO bad, trade him for pucks Anyone who doesn't notice that Eller is BY FAR our best centerman this playoff, is delusional as can be. It certainly isn't Plekanec and Desharnais that are lighting it up. (with twice the ice time may I add)

-Price is the reason we wont win First off, I believe Price is the best goalie in the NHL right now, bar none. No homerism there, any hockey fan watching him play can see that. BUT Tokarski, while not being as technically sound, and playing like an all star, has done more then enough to help his team win. Price or no Price, you need more then 2 goals a game to win.

- Grinder X should play instead of Vanek I wont get into what kind of player Vanek is, Ive done that already. If you don't get it by now, its hopeless. Can someone explain to me how playing Moen or White will help us win a hockey game. Will they score a couple of goals? Body check Lundqvist into the 3rd row, putting him out? Sorry, if you know hockey, you don't sit a game breaking player out for a 5th liner, especially ones who shouldn't be in the NHL in the first place.

That is just a few idiotic remarks Ive heard or read from fellow Habs fans. What are some other stupid comments you`ve heard?? Im sure there are plenty more....seems like there is more bandwagon, uneducated Habs fans then ever!?

Click to read more...

 

[David Suzuki]

Who the hell hates on Eller? He's probably this boards favorite player lol

 

[Nynja*]

A couple people have, saying he's not scoring, and he's a turnover machine.


-Therrien should be fired. Find me a team who wants or should fire their head coach after a 100 point season and a ECF appearance. If he was THAT bad, we wouldn't be this far regardless of the team we have.
As far as this goes, the team got 100 points because Carey Price. Look what happened when he went down, and look now. Yes Tokarski is doing all that was expected, and he's exceeding those expectations too. Theres a reason our team finished with a NEGATIVE even strength goal differential. I checked the numbers 3 weeks ago, roughly when the vesina nominee's came out and people were harping on Price's low win count, and if I remember, the habs were shut out 6 or 7 times, and another 20 or so times they scored 1 goal.

Therrien smartened up post season, but he's reaping his regular season BS. He's not playing the rookies in the post season because he doesnt trust them. But he doesnt trust them because all season he went with MOARBIG USS Murray.

 

[overlords]

Who the hell hates on Eller? He's probably this boards favorite player lol

Depends on the time of the year.

 

[MD thaivuN]

-Therrien should be fired. Find me a team who wants or should fire their head coach after a 100 point season and a ECF appearance. If he was THAT bad, we wouldn't be this far regardless of the team we have.

-Eller is SOO bad, trade him for pucks Anyone who doesn't notice that Eller is BY FAR our best centerman this playoff, is delusional as can be. It certainly isn't Plekanec and Desharnais that are lighting it up. (with twice the ice time may I add)

So, you're acknowledging that Eller is the best centerman of this playoff and at the same time you're defending Therrien who has idiotically been using said "best" centerman as a 4C. Is that not contradictory?

 

[Price4Prez]

So, you're acknowledging that Eller is the best centerman of this playoff and at the same time you're defending Therrien who has idiotically been using said "best" centerman as a 4C. Is that not contradictory?

Look Im not a Therrien fan by any means. So not going to spend the day defending him, but simple logic that i see is , if Patches can only play well with Desharnais and Plekanec is paid to be a top 2 center. Where does that leave Eller?? 3rd line. Add to that the fact his line has been the best as of late, why brake that up.... where I don't agree, is how much ice he is getting, definitely should be more. BUT you cant fire a coach because your top 2 centers suck

 

[Haburger]

Eller has been garbage these last 4 games.he will make an excellent 3 rd line center for years to come.

 

[eFFeRR]

Didn`t really know how to label this thread..but lets talk about that 7th player. The fans. Now most of the time, that expression is used during home games to label the local teams fans cheering their players on and help them out.

BUT what about OFF the ice. I have been watching hockey for over 20 years, 100% Habs homer. In that time, I have NEVER witnessed such uneducated hockey fans who cheer for the Habs.

Few stupid remarks from this playoffs:

-Therrien should be fired. Find me a team who wants or should fire their head coach after a 100 point season and a ECF appearance. If he was THAT bad, we wouldn't be this far regardless of the team we have.

-Eller is SOO bad, trade him for pucks Anyone who doesn't notice that Eller is BY FAR our best centerman this playoff, is delusional as can be. It certainly isn't Plekanec and Desharnais that are lighting it up. (with twice the ice time may I add)

-Price is the reason we wont win First off, I believe Price is the best goalie in the NHL right now, bar none. No homerism there, any hockey fan watching him play can see that. BUT Tokarski, while not being as technically sound, and playing like an all star, has done more then enough to help his team win. Price or no Price, you need more then 2 goals a game to win.

- Grinder X should play instead of Vanek I wont get into what kind of player Vanek is, Ive done that already. If you don't get it by now, its hopeless. Can someone explain to me how playing Moen or White will help us win a hockey game. Will they score a couple of goals? Body check Lundqvist into the 3rd row, putting him out? Sorry, if you know hockey, you don't sit a game breaking player out for a 5th liner, especially ones who shouldn't be in the NHL in the first place.

That is just a few idiotic remarks Ive heard or read from fellow Habs fans. What are some other stupid comments you`ve heard?? Im sure there are plenty more....seems like there is more bandwagon, uneducated Habs fans then ever!?

1) The consensus on Therrien before the playoffs started was to have him fired at the end of the season. The fact that our young players (Chucky & Eller) regressed and were misused was the main issue everyone had. His dumb decisions on player usage in general were questioned by everyone here. Why Boullion and Murray over the young guys during the Regular Season?. Why give Gionta top 6 minutes. Why are we relying on Price to bail us out. Some of this is STILL true in this years playoffs, although I think Therrien's reputation has went up a notch around here.

2) I was part of the group that disliked Eller. He made some boneheaded decisions with the pucks that cost us a couple games this year. That was when my frustrations truly came out. While not really given a fair shot this year, I would like to see him back and give him one more year to see what he can really do. He has played much better these playoffs. If his playoff performance matched his Regular Season he would still be hated around here. Another player who's reputation has got better since the playoffs have started.

3) I didn't know this was an issue. Do people really think Tokarski is the reason why we lost Game 2 and 4? I didn't think so. He's continued right where Price left off and you couldn't of asked for any more then that. Kudos to Tokarski.

4) Actually I disagree with you here. Nothing Vanek has done indicates better times ahead. He's dogged it all playoff long. Perhaps he's injured, but at this point it would be better to have a White/Moen in the lineup. Chances are White/Moen are not going to score, but what they will do is contribute on the Penalty Kill and possibly get under the Rangers skin, something Prust did so well in Game 3. Are you saying that having someone in the lineup who contributes NOTHING to this team is better then having a 4th line player who could contribute in other ways besides scoring is the better option. Having Vanek in the lineup just because of his "name" does not make any sense at this point.

 

[David Suzuki]

Depends on the time of the year.

True enough. Lately it seems Eller playing 13 minutes a game is literally the only issue with this team.

FWIW I love Eller and think he should play more than Plekanec.

 

[Le Barron de HF]

Eller has been garbage these last 4 games.he will make an excellent 3 rd line center for years to come.

I guess you don't see a good possession player when you see one...

 

[Kriss E]

Who the hell hates on Eller? He's probably this boards favorite player lol

Literally 5 posts after yours:

Eller has been garbage these last 4 games.he will make an excellent 3 rd line center for years to come.

 

[Price4Prez]

1) The consensus on Therrien before the playoffs started was to have him fired at the end of the season. The fact that our young players (Chucky & Eller) regressed and were misused was the main issue everyone had. His dumb decisions on player usage in general were questioned by everyone here. Why Boullion and Murray over the young guys during the Regular Season?. Why give Gionta top 6 minutes. Why are we relying on Price to bail us out. Some of this is STILL true in this years playoffs, although I think Therrien's reputation has went up a notch around here.

2) I was part of the group that disliked Eller. He made some boneheaded decisions with the pucks that cost us a couple games this year. That was when my frustrations truly came out. While not really given a fair shot this year, I would like to see him back and give him one more year to see what he can really do. He has played much better these playoffs. If his playoff performance matched his Regular Season he would still be hated around here. Another player who's reputation has got better since the playoffs have started.

3) I didn't know this was an issue. Do people really think Tokarski is the reason why we lost Game 2 and 4? I didn't think so. He's continued right where Price left off and you couldn't of asked for any more then that. Kudos to Tokarski.

4) Actually I disagree with you here. Nothing Vanek has done indicates better times ahead. He's dogged it all playoff long. Perhaps he's injured, but at this point it would be better to have a White/Moen in the lineup. Chances are White/Moen are not going to score, but what they will do is contribute on the Penalty Kill and possibly get under the Rangers skin, something Prust did so well in Game 3. Are you saying that having someone in the lineup who contributes NOTHING to this team is better then having a 4th line player who could contribute in other ways besides scoring is the better option. Having Vanek in the lineup just because of his "name" does not make any sense at this point.

Therrien is NOT the reason Eller had a below average regular season. if he played like he did during these playoffs, he would of had a much better season. I like Tinordi & Beaulieu as much as the next guy, but fact is, they would NOT have faired better then Bouillon. Proof is in the pudding, Bealieau wasn't that great last few games, worse then Franky Boo actually. Now I will chalk that up as in experience, but that is the EXACT reason why the youth isn't being played right now. We give Gionta top 6 minutes, because etheir isn't a better option. We rely on Price because our defense is horrible.

Vanek is NOT playing well, agreed. BUT he has a much better chance of waking up and scoring a couple of timely goals then the said grinders. The penalty killing benefits are not greater then that goal scoring potential. Half our team can penalty kill already.

 

[Price4Prez]

Eller has been garbage these last 4 games.he will make an excellent 3 rd line center for years to come.

Point proven right here. If Eller pans out to be more than a 3rd liner remains to be seen. But if you think Eller has been garbage this playoffs, then the HFBoards filters wouldn't even allow you to post your thoughts on our other 2 centers.... talk about lost.

 

[Wats]

Therrien hates Eller. He is probably only player aside from Subban that can skate puck into offensive zone and maintain puck possession. This completely goes against the Habs dump and wait for other team to clear strategy on the PP.

 

[Haburger]

Wow he can skate the puck into the o zone.then what does he do? Cause he aint contributing any offense.oh yea he s a possession beast.lol.great .time for him to ******* man up and produce.

 

[Andy]

Wow he can skate the puck into the o zone.then what does he do? Cause he aint contributing any offense.oh yea he s a possession beast.lol.great .time for him to ******* man up and produce.

The Canadiens have scored 6 goals in the last 3 games and 8 in the last 4. Of those 8 goals, Eller has points on two of them.

No one is producing offensively this series.

Also, not a coincidence that he stops producing when his role gets reduced, ice time cut and gets weaker linemates...what a surprise.

He leads the forwards in points with NO POWERPLAY TIME. He has the same amount of points as DD, Gionta and Pacioretty in this series and has more points in this series than Gallagher, Vanek and Plekanec who are getting top 6 ice time and PP time.

 

[Kriss E]

Look Im not a Therrien fan by any means. So not going to spend the day defending him, but simple logic that i see is , if Patches can only play well with Desharnais and Plekanec is paid to be a top 2 center. Where does that leave Eller?? 3rd line. Add to that the fact his line has been the best as of late, why brake that up.... where I don't agree, is how much ice he is getting, definitely should be more. BUT you cant fire a coach because your top 2 centers suck

Except that MaxPac can play with other centers.
Eller can be on the 3rd line, just like Jordan Staal was in Pittsburgh, but there's no reason for him not to get PP opportunities.

It's not about firing the coach because his top 2 centers suck.
First off, it wouldn't be a firing. Therrien's contract comes to an end, we would simply not renew it and go in a different direction.
Second, there's a lot of issues that people said were going to catch up to us and now that they have, some act surprised.

People have argued all year that we should not make DD our primary offensive line.
We wanted to see just how far can Eller go in a more offensive role. That didn't happen.
We wanted to see the growth of the EGG line, that didn't happen.
We wanted to establish a solid top 9, that didn't happen despite having the personnel.
We wanted to solidify ourselves as a great ES team, but the opposite happened, we became one of the worse ones.
The way he's used a lot of players has been a real question mark. Choosing dead vets over promising youngsters. Accepting the mistakes of veterans instead of those of rookies. Benching our best Dman in order to put our worst one in the dying minutes of a game we lead. The public blaming of his Norris Dman for losses when he preaches ''No excuses'' and ''win as a team, lose as a team''. The fact the vast majority of the team regressed, some even had career lows.
Bouillon on the PP? I mean, really? Bouillon?
We have a potential #1 center in our ranks. Our offense should be built around him. Even if he isn't ready, that's who we should be building towards. We barely tried him at center. He should have been the one centering an exploitation line.
If not him, we should have given Eller much more opportunities to see just how far he can go. We didn't. Therrien was mainly focused on making DD-MaxPac work together. That was his personal decision. Looking at the way he's using our players these POs, am I supposed to think next year Galchenyuk will be used as the center of MaxPac next year?
This is not a knock on DD. I love the way he's played these POs, but I wish Therrien would have done things way differently during the season so we know come PO time that we definitely are putting forward the best combinations.
This is not even getting into our horrible puck cycling in the defensive end, our confused coverages, our terrible break out, and our dumb-ed down offense.

There were so many things Therrien did that were stupid. It's a long list. So no, it's not let's fire him because our two centers suck. There's a lot of reasons why we should be looking for a replacement more so than extending the guy.

 

[Haburger]

He has been invisible this series .I dont card what his icetime is.its enough to produce.and I could care even less who his linemates are.good players over come that.fact is we lucked out against the bruins and have slammed back to earth.we are loaded with decent players up front but lack the pure talent to contend.eller hasnt shown any offensive flash this series so why would therrien play him more?im tired of eller personally but we got nothin else.

 

[Andy]

He has been invisible this series .I dont card what his icetime is.its enough to produce.and I could care even less who his linemates are.good players over come that.fact is we lucked out against the bruins and have slammed back to earth.we are loaded with decent players up front bug lack thd pure talent to contend.

What to say of all the other players who are getting more ice time but are producing less?

Plekanec, Gallagher, Vanek all have less points than him this series while getting more minutes and offensive opportunities. Does that mean they suck more than Eller?

Also, DD, Gionta, Pacioretty have the exact same amount of points as Eller this series. Does that mean they are as "garbage" offensively as Eller?


You make no sense.

 

[Kriss E]

Wow he can skate the puck into the o zone.then what does he do? Cause he aint contributing any offense.oh yea he s a possession beast.lol.great .time for him to ******* man up and produce.

Eller is our scoring leader for forwards. He's 2nd on the team overall behind Subban.
Just like it happened in the regular season, Eller sees his production stop when he's given 4th liners and lowered ice time.
Always the same story. He doesn't need stars either. There were no reasons to break up the Bourque-Eller-Gio line, they were the best line since the start of the POs and we broke it up after game 1.

Our coach decides to put our leading scoring forward with 2 scrappers/grinders, no PP time, and reduced overall time. Is it surprising we have difficulty scoring and we're down 1-3?

 

[optimus2861]

if Patches can only play well with Desharnais

... Then Desharnais has to be moved so that Patches can pull his head out of his ass.

I've had a thought for some time that Patches has grown far too complacent in his game, floating about the ice waiting for DD to feed him pretty passes. He can pull that kind of crap against weak competition and get away with it, but turn up the intensity and it ruins him. DD is too easily neutralized by quality opposition, and then that neutralizes Patches too because he's become so dependent on DD he can't create his own offense any more.

Max can be a much better player than he's shown in the playoffs, and he needs to be a much better player for us to progress toward a future Cup run, but his 'bromance' with DD is holding him back. They need a breakup.

 

[missthenet]

Eller has been garbage these last 4 games.he will make an excellent 3 rd line center for years to come.

Eller has 11 points and is a plua three so farin these playoffs, playing minimum time and very little power play, nothing wrong with Eller, It's Vanek, Gionta, Desharnais and Plecanec that are the problems and Bourque with 1 goal in the last 8 games.

 

[Doc McKenna]

Eller has 11 points and is a plua three so farin these playoffs, playing minimum time and very little power play, nothing wrong with Eller, It's Vanek, Gionta, Desharnais and Plecanec that are the problems and Bourque with 1 goal in the last 8 games.

This, but haters gonna hate. I defended Eller all year. I am happy he is proving me right, even if MT is so dense he won't even play him third line minutes.

 

[Haburger]

What did eller do in the biggest game of the year? Exactly.we ll see what he does tomorow.

 

[Le Barron de HF]

What did eller do in the biggest game of the year? Exactly.we ll see what he does tomorow.

And what did Pacioretty the 1st liner do exactly in the biggest game of the year? Yep.