The Positivity Thread...

[Belial]

The D was garbage all season and yes, Price didn't have a good season at all. I wouldn't put too much emphasis on Niemi's play as he faced an awful lot of crappy teams.

Pointing out that there's a correlation between the play of the defence and goals against isn't an excuse, it's a fact. When was the last time you saw a Montreal defence as bad as the one on the ice last season?

You're like Bergevin, picking out single players to blame the season on, when in reality it's the entire gawd-awful team that Bergevin built playing at the odious level any reasonable person would expect.

You still didn't answer my question though...

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

That calculation works in a vacuum where the quality of the D corps is irrelevant to GA and Save%.

Look at the defense and tell me again how all Price needs to do is play up to his own standards.

It's like asking @jaffy27 to fly his 737 with an engine out and failed landing gear and expecting an uneventful landing.

This man gets it

Great anology.

 

[Svart]

I'm so positive right now.

 

[Miller Time]

While I agree with your logic those players will replace guys like Froese, Mitchell and Logan Shaw who combined for 5 goals last season.

If armia & peca are playing on the 4th line, then don't get your hopes up for big goal production from either...

I hope both get top 9 roles and have career best/ break out seasons

 

[OldCraig71]

Who can't move the puck on that D? This whole puck moving thing is overblown IMO.

We don't have a lot of rushing D's apart Petry that I agree but moving the puck?

All those guys are able to make decent tape to tape passes on a regular basis...

Maybe not Markov type passes that would split the opposition in one pass but the puck is able to get out of the zone on a consistent rate.

This is exactly what I mean, it really affected the game of a guy like Pacioretty, it is his bread and butter. Teams need this type of D that is able to make several of these passes a game, a guy like Mete might develop into that, time will tell. Sorry for any partial derailment of this thread.

 

[JohnLennon]

That math doesn't work...

Those three roster players will "replace" Galch AND two other roster players.

Assuming they are all in the top 9, then you'd have to add the bumped players goals to galch's in comparing the production difference... And even that is a specious comparison.

Net GF is all that really matters. As bad as we were last year, Galch was a key offense contributor despite not getting great min or deployment.

Hard to look at our current fwd/D group & feel bullish on it improving on last year's goal output, imo.

Yeah, that's a good point I hadn't considered. They will be replacing other players, and the wings are pretty deep as it is.

It's still possible, almost likely, the net gain is positive considering the caliber of player they're replacing. But that was never my main point in the original post regardless. No one should be super bullish, but to expect a slight uptick is very reasonable, for other reasons I've mentioned earlier. Again, where the real improvement should be made is on GA.

 

[Miller Time]

Yeah, that's a good point I hadn't considered. They will be replacing other players, and the wings are pretty deep as it is.

It's still possible, almost likely, the net gain is positive considering the caliber of player they're replacing. But that was never my main point in the original post regardless. No one should be super bullish, but to expect a slight uptick is very reasonable, for other reasons I've mentioned earlier. Again, where the real improvement should be made is on GA.

Healthy Carey & Julien putting his influence on the roster should indeed help drop the GA...

GF, on the other hand? I don't see how this opening day roster is better equipped than last fall, but I guess this is the positivity thread

 

[JohnLennon]

Healthy Carey & Julien putting his influence on the roster should indeed help drop the GA...

GF, on the other hand? I don't see how this opening day roster is better equipped than last fall, but I guess this is the positivity thread

Yeah, I don't expect this to be anything close to a playoff team, but I do think we will improve in terms of both GF and GA over last year. Unless of course we trade Pacioretty for futures, in which case... Ouch this year will be tough.

 

[groovejuice]

I'm so positive right now.

The Habs haven't been relegated, so far. If that isn't a reason to celebrate...

 

[Miller Time]

Yeah, I don't expect this to be anything close to a playoff team, but I do think we will improve in terms of both GF and GA over last year. Unless of course we trade Pacioretty for futures, in which case... Ouch this year will be tough.

interestingly, while I wouldn't bet on this team making the PO's, I also wouldn't be shocked for it to surprise fans and pundits alike and finish far higher in the standings than expected.

we have perhaps the least talented group of top-6/top-4 in the league, and the weakest C & D depth in the league... that's pretty clear.

but with a goalie of Price's caliber, if the team gets lucky on the injury front (as it did early in MB/MT's tenure), we have some of the ingredients for an "upstart" type season.
- gally, pleks, alzner (and weber, shaw, byron when they return) are all high work ethic/low ego vets (leadership)
- lack of established stars means open door for young players to compete for minutes (opportunity)
- peca, armia, hudon, lekhonen, sherbak, domi, danault, drouin, dlr... lots of young players all with something to prove (hunger)

if price/julien can make up for our terribly assembled & weak defensive group, maybe, just maybe, the group strikes early and rides the wave of magic that exceeding expectations in a market like Montreal can create.

for all the talk about how "hard" it is to play here, the reality is that when a team surprises, the fan energy becomes a net advantage that most other places only really experience come playoff time.

as a fan thinking short term, i'd love nothing more than to see that happen... of course, the downside would be further extending the inept current regime, but that's for another thread

 

[nhlfan9191]

Who can't move the puck on that D? This whole puck moving thing is overblown IMO.

We don't have a lot of rushing D's apart Petry that I agree but moving the puck?

All those guys are able to make decent tape to tape passes on a regular basis...

Maybe not Markov type passes that would split the opposition in one pass but the puck is able to get out of the zone on a consistent rate.

I couldn’t disagree with the bolded more. The defenseman need to be able to move the puck. If you can’t properly make good passes out of your own end, it puts extra stress on the forwards to carry the play 2 or 3 zones which leads to turnovers or dump and chase scenarios with little probability of regaining the puck. Not to mention Price has the ability to stop other teams entire forecheck which is a huge benefit, but it was almost a disadvantage most of the time last season since whenever he came out to play the puck, there were no options for him to pass to most of the time. My opinion is that had a lot to do with a huge turnover in defenceman in such a short amount of time and lacking familiarity and chemistry with most of our D, but the entire thing was a dumpster fire last season. Puck transition is incredibly important.

 

[JohnLennon]

interestingly, while I wouldn't bet on this team making the PO's, I also wouldn't be shocked for it to surprise fans and pundits alike and finish far higher in the standings than expected.

we have perhaps the least talented group of top-6/top-4 in the league, and the weakest C & D depth in the league... that's pretty clear.

but with a goalie of Price's caliber, if the team gets lucky on the injury front (as it did early in MB/MT's tenure), we have some of the ingredients for an "upstart" type season.
- gally, pleks, alzner (and weber, shaw, byron when they return) are all high work ethic/low ego vets (leadership)
- lack of established stars means open door for young players to compete for minutes (opportunity)
- peca, armia, hudon, lekhonen, sherbak, domi, danault, drouin, dlr... lots of young players all with something to prove (hunger)

if price/julien can make up for our terribly assembled & weak defensive group, maybe, just maybe, the group strikes early and rides the wave of magic that exceeding expectations in a market like Montreal can create.

for all the talk about how "hard" it is to play here, the reality is that when a team surprises, the fan energy becomes a net advantage that most other places only really experience come playoff time.

as a fan thinking short term, i'd love nothing more than to see that happen... of course, the downside would be further extending the inept current regime, but that's for another thread

Oh for sure. If there's one thing I've learned from this team over the past decade or so, it seems every bad season is followed with some miraculous climb to the top of the division. And a disappointed playoffs... Haha.

As you mentioned, Price alone can carry a team to the playoffs. There are a lot of hungry young players on the team. Many players should rebound from their performances last year. If nothing else, it should be an entertaining year for the reasons we've mentioned.

As I said earlier, if we frame our expectations properly (clear miss of the playoffs, developmental year) it could still be a fun year to watch. I enjoyed that they started handing the reigns to the youth by the end of last season, hoping that continues this year.

 

[lo striver]

I'm so positive right now.

Me too. Plan the parade, we are going all the way!

 

[Cobra Commander]

Me too. Plan the parade, we are going all the way!

 

[smirob]

We have a lot of flippable assets we can swing for more picks (Petry,Byron,Benn,Plek)

All coaching additions were good, though I’m unsure on burrows

 

[Belial]

The D was garbage all season and yes, Price didn't have a good season at all. I wouldn't put too much emphasis on Niemi's play as he faced an awful lot of crappy teams.

Pointing out that there's a correlation between the play of the defence and goals against isn't an excuse, it's a fact. When was the last time you saw a Montreal defence as bad as the one on the ice last season?

You're like Bergevin, picking out single players to blame the season on, when in reality it's the entire gawd-awful team that Bergevin built playing at the odious level any reasonable person would expect.

This man gets it

Great anology.

Niemi played 19 games for us last year and 11 out of those games were against teams that made the PO.

The only really crappy teams he faced are Buffalo once and Detroit once.

So yeah what's the excuse now?

 

[Rosso Scuderia]

I couldn’t disagree with the bolded more. The defenseman need to be able to move the puck. If you can’t properly make good passes out of your own end, it puts extra stress on the forwards to carry the play 2 or 3 zones which leads to turnovers or dump and chase scenarios with little probability of regaining the puck. Not to mention Price has the ability to stop other teams entire forecheck which is a huge benefit, but it was almost a disadvantage most of the time last season since whenever he came out to play the puck, there were no options for him to pass to most of the time. My opinion is that had a lot to do with a huge turnover in defenceman in such a short amount of time and lacking familiarity and chemistry with most of our D, but the entire thing was a dumpster fire last season. Puck transition is incredibly important.

We all know it's important.. He only says that because he knows the GM basically traded or get rid of all of them away and now he's f***ed.

The transition game was horrible last season. Very little odd-man rush or breakaway. The plays always got broken down in the neutral zone. We rarely attacked the offensive zone with speed.

 

[nhlfan9191]

Niemi played 19 games for us last year and 11 out of those games were against teams that made the PO.

The only really crappy teams he faced are Buffalo once and Detroit once.

So yeah what's the excuse now?

Will you give a counter arguement against my post? I’m only asking because in July 2017, transition was what I thought would cripple the team and it did. Which defenseman this season do you see changing the trend?

 

[Belial]

Will you give a counter arguement against my post? I’m only asking because in July 2017, transition was what I thought would cripple the team and it did. Which defenseman this season do you see changing the trend?

Is there even an argument in your post?

Do you have any numbers to back up what you're saying?

 

[sandviper]

Is there even an argument in your post?

Do you have any numbers to back up what you're saying?

I don’t want to speak for @nhlfan9191 but I believe his point is basically a puck moving defenceman isn’t just a guy who can “skate”. The term has to do more with a defenceman’s ability to transition play from defence to offence. If the defence is hemmed in their zone and forwards are basically forced to chase the puck around, there is no transition.

@nhlfan9191 also pointed out the turnover in such a short time period had much to do with this and this is something I agree with. The team basically lost 3 major puck movers in three seasons. PK just goes without saying. Markov, while getting long in tooth, was still effective and arguably would have been our #1 LHD last season. Beaulieu, for all his shortcomings and general lack of hockey IQ, was a decent puck-mover.

Of course, saying all this is one thing. Numbers support it.

Analyze This: Habs' lack of puck-moving rearguards stifling Pacioretty

The article (published after training camp last season) focuses on Pacioretty but you could extrapolate this and apply it to anyone really. I think we can all agree Pacioretty had a poor year by his standards and while he isn’t blameless, the statistics are obvious.

During the last three seasons, Pacioretty scored 102 goals. Sixty-four of them were assisted by Andrei Markov (30), P.K. Subban (25) or Nathan Beaulieu (9), who are no longer with the team. Subban and Markov provided both assists on four of those 64 goals, so we can lower the number of goals assisted by former defencemen to 60, or a stunning 59 per cent.

So, at least to me, stats backup the gist of the argument @nhlfan9191 made.

 

[Belial]

I don’t want to speak for @nhlfan9191 but I believe his point is basically a puck moving defenceman isn’t just a guy who can “skate”. The term has to do more with a defenceman’s ability to transition play from defence to offence. If the defence is hemmed in their zone and forwards are basically forced to chase the puck around, there is no transition.

@nhlfan9191 also pointed out the turnover in such a short time period had much to do with this and this is something I agree with. The team basically lost 3 major puck movers in three seasons. PK just goes without saying. Markov, while getting long in tooth, was still effective and arguably would have been our #1 LHD last season. Beaulieu, for all his shortcomings and general lack of hockey IQ, was a decent puck-mover.

Of course, saying all this is one thing. Numbers support it.

Analyze This: Habs' lack of puck-moving rearguards stifling Pacioretty

The article (published after training camp last season) focuses on Pacioretty but you could extrapolate this and apply it to anyone really. I think we can all agree Pacioretty had a poor year by his standards and while he isn’t blameless, the statistics are obvious.



So, at least to me, stats backup the gist of the argument @nhlfan9191 made.

I know exactly what nhlfan9191 is talking about but there's nothing available on the internet in term of stats to back up that claim.

Something like outlet pass completion% or % of successful tape to tape passes in the D zone or neutral zone under pressure and so on.

If yo can find somewhere those type of stats then we can have a real debate.

The article you linked was written after 6 regular season games! 6 games Caaaarl!

I have seen Pacioretty having longer droughts even with Markov and Subban in the lineup...

 

[Hockey Joe]

Something positive about Bergevin: he would make a good 4th line scout.

 

[NotProkofievian]

View attachment 131213 View attachment 131215 View attachment 131217 View attachment 131219 View attachment 131221 View attachment 131223

Underrated post, IMO.

 

[Cobra Commander]

Something positive about Bergevin: he would make a good 4th line scout.

Not even, Dwight King.

 

[sandviper]

I know exactly what nhlfan9191 is talking about but there's nothing available on the internet in term of stats to back up that claim.

Something like outlet pass completion% or % of successful tape to tape passes in the D zone or neutral zone under pressure and so on.

If yo can find somewhere those type of stats then we can have a real debate.

The article you linked was written after 6 regular season games! 6 games Caaaarl!

I have seen Pacioretty having longer droughts even with Markov and Subban in the lineup...

I get what you are trying to say but unless the stats are readily available, you can't really debate this in good faith... especially when you are pointing out specific stats to support your own claims. I don't know if you studied advanced stats in university... I did. If you did, you should know already then that stats themselves may not always be representative of the experiment as a WHOLE. You'll have to use stats sometimes to extrapolate.

So, the article I linked... you are 100% correct. It was indeed only ~6 games into the season. However, what we do know is the team struggled in pre-season and Pacioretty struggled all of last year. We can argue he's had longer droughts with Markov and Subban in the lineup, but the stats are there... those two guys were partially or wholly responsible for ~60% of his goal totals in the time frame examined.

Again, the article was 6 games into the season but in the end, Pacioretty scored ~52% less than prior years as an average. While he was a forward, losing Radulov also probably didn't help matters.

As for Max, granted, he had an off year as did the whole team, but even just watching, the transition game in the defensive zone wasn't as effective. Again, this particular article was a sampling of games, but this sort of thing we did see all year:

Examining the breakout: The St. Louis Blues exposed what works and what doesn’t for the Montreal Canadiens

Thing is, the whole puck moving defenceman thing isn't just a player's skating ability or his ability to make an effective pass. It is also the players ability to make decisions quickly.

The lack of puck movers didn't just affect Max. It forced guys like Drouin to play more defence than he probably should have, let alone could have. Everyone's favorite whipping boy Galchenyuk was not exempt from this:

Alex Galchenyuk needs to play with offensive-minded defencemen

I am a Galchenyuk fan but even I acknowledge his defensive play leaves much to be desired. However, the article points out something similar to what I said where more efficient puck movers relieve the burden from forwards and allow them to attack themselves more efficiently.

As for your specific stat requests, a show of good faith would be to point me in the right direction to look at the stats or present the stats yourself to support your prior claim that the defence are regularly hitting those tape to tape passes and have high completion rates. What I can say though is advanced stats state the defence struggled:

Benn: 49.8% CF
Schlemko: 49.4% CF
Mete: 50.1% CF
Alzner: 49.8% CF
Weber: 54% CF
Petry: 52% CF

Of the main 6 last season, only 2 were above the team average of 50.2% CF. Mete was above 50% though so that isn't bad, especially as a rookie, but the defence as a group controlled play less than their counterparts.