Therrien - The Offseason Edition

[Lshap]

So yeah, you mention multiple times how great our regular season was, even without an elite Price. You then go on to downplay playoff failure, so it sure sounds like a "regular season champs" bragging session to me. I get what you're trying to say, but there's a difference between saying "without Price we still make the playoffs" and "without Price we're still a top team in the East".

If we were a bubble team in 2013 or 2014 I could see why the slightest drop-off by Price could have made the difference between making it or not. But Habs were never close to being out of the playoffs. We were way up near the top of the standings for the past three years, with Price having seasons ranging from okay to spectacular.

It has nothing to do with bragging about the regular season. The only thing that really matters is the playoffs. The only point I originally made was that despite the variance in Price's performances the Habs were a playoff team.

Sorry, I don't see reaching the ECF once as succeeding in the playoffs. The fact that so many people wanna cling to a 2nd round exit this year and an ECF appearance last year and hold them up as proud moments in Canadiens history is bewildering to me...do you really see that as playoff success? Are you happy with the Habs' playoff performances?


I'm simply trying to understand why you seem to think that losing in the ECF last year is synonymous with success? I mean honestly, who cares if they reached the ECF once? And if you do care, as apparently you do, wouldn't this year be a regression for you?

I do think being in the final-four is at least a measure of success, but absolutely nobody called it a "Proud moment in Canadiens history". That's just as inaccurate as calling last year's finish a failure.

To be clear, I think an ECF finish is pretty good, as long as it's a building block to the next step. That's how I gauge success -- are we improving or regressing? Given our relative windows, I'd rather be Montreal losing in round-two than New York losing in round-three, because the Rangers are running out of time while our window is more firmly opening. They may have gone further this season, but it may be as far as they get. Obviously a Stanley Cup is the ultimate success, but seeing as how rarely that happens I'm happy to accept 'measures of success' along the way, as long as we're headed in the right direction.

 

[HabsDieHard*]

The Habs are 3-3 in series.

The last 2 years, to me, they have gotten the easiest match up in the playoffs.

This year, Ottawa was far and away the worst playoff team, in any division.

Last year, Tampa lost their goaltender and didn't have an NHL calibre guy on the bench.

They beat the Senators, but they also really didn't outplay them over the course of 6 games.

They lost to the Lightning, and despite Therrien-esque whining about missed offsides and last second goals...this team put itself in a 3-0 hole againts a good team and that's the end of it.

Montreal has also always played Boston hard, especially in recent years...and Rask for some odd reason has really struggled against Montreal over his career. That relaly is the only worthwhile series win in the last 3 years, and they hardly wiped the floor with the Bruins either.

 

[HabsDieHard*]

And the Rangers have 2 centers under the age of 30 who are better than any center the Canadiens currently have.

They might have a goalie who is 5 years older than Price (as Bergevin so gleefully pointed out) but to say they are a team that likely will have its' window close soon is a bit insincere and baseless I'd say.

 

[DAChampion]

Detroit, New York, Chicago all did better against Tampa than Montreal did. Anaheim did better than Tampa against Chicago. Nashville did as well as Tampa Bay.

So that is six teams that showed greater vigour in the playoffs.

 

[jaffy27]

The Habs are 3-3 in series.

The last 2 years, to me, they have gotten the easiest match up in the playoffs.

This year, Ottawa was far and away the worst playoff team, in any division.

Last year, Tampa lost their goaltender and didn't have an NHL calibre guy on the bench.

They beat the Senators, but they also really didn't outplay them over the course of 6 games.

They lost to the Lightning, and despite Therrien-esque whining about missed offsides and last second goals...this team put itself in a 3-0 hole againts a good team and that's the end of it.

Montreal has also always played Boston hard, especially in recent years...and Rask for some odd reason has really struggled against Montreal over his career. That relaly is the only worthwhile series win in the last 3 years, and they hardly wiped the floor with the Bruins either.

What a bunch of horse manure.....quite the story though!

 

[DAChampion]

Jaffy27,

HabsDieHard is making the case that the Habs have had relatively easy matchups in the playoffs. He is not arguing for the tooth fairy. He is making a plausible argument.

In response to HDH, I will say that the Habs have been a top eastern conference, so of course they face easy first round matchups.

 

[habsfanatics*]

He is one of the rare coaches who arent overrated.

Nope, he's highly overrated, just about any coach could coach the Hawks with the same amount of success. The team is stacked, which has basically nothing to do with the coach.

 

[PTK]

Except that Price was exposed and made highlight reel saves on a regular basis.
If we collapsed in front of Price and played strong defensively, allowing around 24-27 shots like strong defensive teams usually do, then I wouldn't have as much of a problem with it. That's not how we played at all.
We were completely disorganized in our zone and rarely seemed to have a strategy breaking out of the zone. That's why we constantly had trouble leaving our own zone and often just dump it out.
I have no problem whatsoever with playing in a defensive system. I can appreciate and be entertained by teams that are absolutely solid at shutting down their opponents. But in order to play that way, you need a smart tactician. Therrien has never had this reputation. He's an old school player type of coach, who's qualities are more about mental focus and motivation.

Moving the puck starts from your back end, we have one of the most mobile and best puck moving group of Dmen in the NHL but they seem to struggle to make a first pass for most of the season. That says a lot about the lack of structure.



Well it is what I saw, and as I said, the possession stats backed up the eye test because they all improve. When we opened up, we out possessed the opposition, out shot them and out chanced them. That's what happened.
We never tried to ''open up'' in the first periods. Most of the time it seemed the players left their skates in the locker room. We were slow and lost, spending a lot of time in our own zone because we had zero structure. We weren't ''opening up'' in our zone while defending.

So again, I really don't know what you're talking about. Either you're completely wrong here or we just have a different understanding of what ''opening up'' is.

I get where you're coming from, but that isn't what happened. You think it's a system change that allowed better possession stats. It's not, it's the players upping their game while following the same existing system.

 

[ECWHSWI]

I get where you're coming from, but that isn't what happened. You think it's a system change that allowed better possession stats. It's not, it's the players upping their game while following the same existing system.

13/14
- more goals allowed during regular season
- more goals allowed (per game obviously) during the PO

result : ECF appearance.

 

[Lshap]

13/14
- more goals allowed during regular season
- more goals allowed (per game obviously) during the PO

result : ECF appearance.

You've made this point a few times. But unless I'm misunderstanding, you seem to be drawing a linear relationship between the number of goals scored and allowed, and the number of playoff games won. The formula is never that simple. For me, the biggest factor in our playoff performances was the matchup differences in 2014 versus 2015. Last year we faced a raw Tampa without Bishop and our favourite whipping-boys from Boston. No surprise we scored more goals against those teams. Also no surprise that a core of dmen that include Bouillon, Murray and Gorges will be stuck in their zone and allow more goals against.

This year we faced our two worst matchups -- a much-stronger, healthy Tampa, and an ultra-hot Ottawa -- featuring Bishop and Anderson, goalies who traditionally shut us down. Again, no real surprises. We missed chances, dinged goalposts, and simply couldn't put the damn puck in the net when we needed to. But let's give credit where it's due and recognize the Habs played a much stronger series against Tampa than what we saw in the regular season. Sure, Tampa was the better team, but Montreal could have easily won another game or two.

Moving forward there's no question which issue needs to be addressed: scoring, the PP. But there were enough positive signs in their two series to suggest the Habs could easily be back in the ECF, and possibly beyond, as soon as 2016.

 

[Monctonscout]

The Habs are 3-3 in series.

The last 2 years, to me, they have gotten the easiest match up in the playoffs.

This year, Ottawa was far and away the worst playoff team, in any division.

Last year, Tampa lost their goaltender and didn't have an NHL calibre guy on the bench.

They beat the Senators, but they also really didn't outplay them over the course of 6 games.

They lost to the Lightning, and despite Therrien-esque whining about missed offsides and last second goals...this team put itself in a 3-0 hole againts a good team and that's the end of it.

Montreal has also always played Boston hard, especially in recent years...and Rask for some odd reason has really struggled against Montreal over his career. That relaly is the only worthwhile series win in the last 3 years, and they hardly wiped the floor with the Bruins either.

That's funny...I could have sworn I heard everybody say that Ottawa was a team they didn't want to face in the playoffs, hottest one coming in.

TB lost their starting goalie, but we beat them a lot easier than NYR did after Price went down and we had Tokarski, who is not much better than Lindback and a worst puck handler.

The TB series this year could have gone either way, 2 games they won despite being outplayed. Winning just one completely changes the series.

 

[Lshap]

That's funny...I could have sworn I heard everybody say that Ottawa was a team they didn't want to face in the playoffs, hottest one coming in.

TB lost their starting goalie, but we beat them a lot easier than NYR did after Price went down and we had Tokarski, who is not much better than Lindback and a worst puck handler.

The TB series this year could have gone either way, 2 games they won despite being outplayed. Winning just one completely changes the series.

Exactly right. If there were two teams we DIDN'T want to face in 2015, it was the hottest team in the league, Ottawa, and our single-worst matchup, Tampa. At least half the people here expected us to lose against Ottawa and gave us almost no chance against Tampa. So much comes down to matchups.

Price's injury last year was a great opportunity missed. New York was a good matchup that might've been. On the other hand, I doubt we would've beaten LA even with a healthy Price.

 

[bsl]

Really? Not what I see. I don't see the puck magically ending up on their sticks without doing the dirty work. Maybe you don't know what you're actually seeing?

If you want an example of them playing like you want them to, just look back at a majority of our first periods this year. It's like they forgot all the time.
It's not that surprising, it doesn't come naturally to a lot of our guys, no wonder MT tries to drill it into their heads.

Possessing the puck is as much about skill, smarts and speed on the backcheck, and taking the puck away, as it is about wining board battles. Watch Hossa.

I remember a game against Bruins in the 70's Gainey was backchecking and all he did was poke the skater's stick blade he was chasing hard so that the puck went back to Robinson. A simple, efficient smart play. And one they probably practiced.

The Habs are exhausted by end of year because they are lousy at staying off the boards, in fact. They are there too much.

I'm in the 50-50 camp.

I just don't think Habs have the skills and smarts of players like Hossa etc. Possession problems and lack of finish/skill smarts are not all Therrien. That is on MB

However Therrien's lines, lineup on the PP, his constant juggling, and most of all his ****ing around with Galchenyuk and DD is all on him.

 

[bsl]

The 48 game season allowed for the outlier bad performances on the season to more significantly impact the goalie stats.

Price had, I believe, his worst short handed save percentage that season.

His .905 % was a bit of an anomaly.

He also has been significantly better since Waite was hired. So that's a factor worth mentioning.

Either way, the Habs have won 3 series in the last 3 seasons.

They have won 2 Eastern Conference Finals games.

They were badly outplayed over the course of 82 games in the regular season. By basically any team measure you'd like to use the Habs were a bottom 10 team in the NHL.

I mean, for a team to have a starting goalie with a save percentage that Price had, and have what.. a 35 goal differential? That's pretty sad.

The Senators series was wildly underwhelming, the Senators got AHL goaltending from an AHL goalie for 2 games and then pretty much dominated the Habs the rest of the way. They also lucked into the worst team in all of the playoffs. Outside of 2 games in the playoffs the Habs barely broke 1 goal per game in the playoffs, even with those games they were one of the worst performing teams.

Their powerplay has more or less been a disaster since November 2013.

Desharnais, for reasons unclear to everyone involved except for Therrien and Bergevin, got over 700 minutes at Even Strength with Max Pacioretty this season.

They have arguably the worst group of centers in the entire playoff picture moving forward...although Galchenyuk COULD emerge as a solid center at some stage...and Eller could absolutely be better than a 25 point center wtih somewhat respectable linemates. But as of right now, there's almost no team someone can truly look at and say the Habs' center depth outweighs any other likely playoff team, either now or in the future.

Markov played 50+ more minutes on the PK than Subban did last year. Taxing minutes. He also played 81 games, when the team seemingly had the depth to let him play 73-75 games.

Eller was used on the wing for stretches, in this case for reasons that are unclear to anyone other than apparently just Therrien.

There are a lot of reasonable questions about this Montreal team under Therrien, both so far and moving forward...anyone arguing otherwise is badly blinded by Prices' absurd play in the last 20-22 months.

I'll add one more: The number of losses to the teams at very bottom of the league was absurd, and shows lack of motivation and killer instinct.

 

[OnTheRun]

You've made this point a few times. But unless I'm misunderstanding, you seem to be drawing a linear relationship between the number of goals scored and allowed, and the number of playoff games won. The formula is never that simple. For me, the biggest factor in our playoff performances was the matchup differences in 2014 versus 2015. Last year we faced a raw Tampa without Bishop and our favourite whipping-boys from Boston. No surprise we scored more goals against those teams. Also no surprise that a core of dmen that include Bouillon, Murray and Gorges will be stuck in their zone and allow more goals against.

This year we faced our two worst matchups -- a much-stronger, healthy Tampa, and an ultra-hot Ottawa -- featuring Bishop and Anderson, goalies who traditionally shut us down. Again, no real surprises. We missed chances, dinged goalposts, and simply couldn't put the damn puck in the net when we needed to. But let's give credit where it's due and recognize the Habs played a much stronger series against Tampa than what we saw in the regular season. Sure, Tampa was the better team, but Montreal could have easily won another game or two.

Moving forward there's no question which issue needs to be addressed: scoring, the PP. But there were enough positive signs in their two series to suggest the Habs could easily be back in the ECF, and possibly beyond, as soon as 2016.

Well we didn't get the ultra-hot version of the Senators but the Mission Accomplished version of the Senators, so this one was a favorable matchup for us in the end.

With that said, as far as playoffs matchups goes, we will need to prepared/ready to beat Tampa to win the Atlantic and NYR (or whoever is the top dog in the Metro) to win the East... Every year.

 

[Monctonscout]

Exactly right. If there were two teams we DIDN'T want to face in 2015, it was the hottest team in the league, Ottawa, and our single-worst matchup, Tampa. At least half the people here expected us to lose against Ottawa and gave us almost no chance against Tampa. So much comes down to matchups.

Price's injury last year was a great opportunity missed. New York was a good matchup that might've been. On the other hand, I doubt we would've beaten LA even with a healthy Price.

People gave TB no chance this year and at one point they were up 2-1 vs Chicago, if they win game 4 they probably win the cup. The games were all basically 1 goal games, so a break here and there...

 

[jaffy27]

Jaffy27,

HabsDieHard is making the case that the Habs have had relatively easy matchups in the playoffs. He is not arguing for the tooth fairy. He is making a plausible argument.

In response to HDH, I will say that the Habs have been a top eastern conference, so of course they face easy first round matchups.

I don't know how the Tampa and Ottawa match up was easy, we lost all our games except 1 against the two of them combined in the regular season, it's quite the feat to have taken out Ottawa and take TB to 6 games.
I hate when people on here always try to find an angle to discredit anything we do, I've never seen this stuff in my life till I came here on this forum....there's always a ya but or a it's because. The team does well but they hate Therrien or DD and they'll go to any length to try and find out some stat that will discredit our success, now it's because we had easy match-ups, like come on!...when will it stop...les excuses!!.....This place is EASILY the place where I've heard the most whining in my life..even more than my ex-wife and that's saying a lot

 

[HabsDieHard*]

Exactly right. If there were two teams we DIDN'T want to face in 2015, it was the hottest team in the league, Ottawa, and our single-worst matchup, Tampa. At least half the people here expected us to lose against Ottawa and gave us almost no chance against Tampa. So much comes down to matchups.

Price's injury last year was a great opportunity missed. New York was a good matchup that might've been. On the other hand, I doubt we would've beaten LA even with a healthy Price.

Why do people always bring up this nonsense about Ottawa and not wanting to face them?

There were a lot of people who saw the SEnators as a team playing middling hockey and getting unsustainable goaltending from a not very good goalie.

As for Prices' injury...if you watn to make that part of your argument, you should probably acknowledge the easy 1st round match up they got as a result of playing a team in Tampa without an NHL goalie at the time. It goes both ways after all.

 

[Habsfan2731]

Another thing, only in Montreal would the coach implement a dump & chase, grinding system, meanwhile his go-to offensive threat is a 5'7 soft David Desharnais who still can't produce well even with Pacioretty, usually falls over, can't take a hit & is awful defensively.

All things Therrien doesn't want in a player.

He wants big, physical, able to take hits, able to grind & play well defensively that fits his system yet his go-to O is David Desharnais, I for one will never understand it.

 

[HabsDieHard*]

Another thing, only in Montreal would the coach implement a dump & chase, grinding system, meanwhile his go-to offensive threat is a 5'7 soft David Desharnais who still can't produce well even with Pacioretty, usually falls over, can't take a hit & is awful defensively.

All things Therrien doesn't want in a player.

He wants big, physical, able to take hits, able to grind & play well defensively that fits his system yet his go-to O is David Desharnais, I for one will never understand it.

Yep, even within his own bizarre and inefficient "system" his little teachers' pet really has no place in the line up.

But we all know why he does it, it's quite easy to understand.

 

[Lshap]

Why do people always bring up this nonsense about Ottawa and not wanting to face them?

There were a lot of people who saw the SEnators as a team playing middling hockey and getting unsustainable goaltending from a not very good goalie.

You're denying reality. Go back and check for yourself. The majority of hockey fans along with the majority of 'experts' picked Ottawa to win, and about half our own fan base felt the same. Check the boards for yourself, then check Ottawa's record in the final two months. There was nothing remotely middling about how they were playing.

That said, I still thought they were unsustainable, though certainly not an easy out.

As for Prices' injury...if you watn to make that part of your argument, you should probably acknowledge the easy 1st round match up they got as a result of playing a team in Tampa without an NHL goalie at the time. It goes both ways after all.

I did exactly that. Good matchups last year, tough matchups this year.

 

[Habsfan2731]

Yep, even within his own bizarre and inefficient "system" his little teachers' pet really has no place in the line up.

But we all know why he does it, it's quite easy to understand.

I remember his love affair with Michel Oulete in Pittsburgh, it doesn't make sense at all.

 

[Brainiac]

I remember his love affair with Michel Oulete in Pittsburgh, it doesn't make sense at all.

Most coaches play favorites. But Therrien is on a completely different level in that regard.

At this point, it's pretty obvious that it's detrimental to the team. Last year it was Bouillon, this year it was Desharnais, especially in the playoffs and on the PP.

It's really holding the team back.

 

[Habsfan2731]

Most coaches play favorites. But Therrien is on a completely different level in that regard.

At this point, it's pretty obvious that it's detrimental to the team. Last year it was Bouillon, this year it was Desharnais, especially in the playoffs and on the PP.

It's really holding the team back.

Agreed so weird that it's the complete opposite of what he tends to like, they're tiny.

 

[Winter Eclipse]

You're denying reality. Go back and check for yourself. The majority of hockey fans along with the majority of 'experts' picked Ottawa to win, and about half our own fan base felt the same.

Can you provide links to these predictions calling for Ottawa to win?

Bleacher Report had Ottawa at 25-1 for winning the Cup and Montreal a 16-1.

Hockey-Reference had Montreal at a 6% chance to win the Cup and Ottawa at only 3.8%

The Washington Post, while calling Ottawa the best bet for an upset, also only gave them a 45.5% chance of winning the series, obviously meaning the Habs were still the favorite.

Puck Daddy had Montreal at 10 to 1 to win the Cup and Ottawa at 18 to 1.

So yeah, not really sure where you got the impression that we were the acknowledged underdogs from.