Where would you rather the Montreal Canadiens finish this year? (Part 2)

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Mario Lemieux fan 66

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Nov 2, 2012
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I dont understand why people would not take short-term steps back (or short-term pain) for long-term enjoyment. We throw one season away, we are rewarded with years of elite talent, aka Last season and Kotkaniemi. Had we tanked, with the deep draft this season and next one, we would have a chance to build one of the best cores in the NHL and compete for a cup in an NHL where young players are now starting to dominate.
So not only are we entering a young player friendly era (unlike when the Oilers and Sabres undertook their centuries-long rebuild) we are entering a couple of high-end elite drafts, again unlike both those teams that had to cotempt themselves with relative mediocre talent as their top 3 picks (Yakupov, Reinhart, Hopkins, etc..)

That last season almost killed the love of the fans for the team. It was one of the worse Habs season ever. Molson would not have allowed an other tanking year and Bergevin would not have survive an other tanking season. The hope for a rebuild was killed when Bergevin sign Price to a monstruous contract.

Bergevin re-tooled with the Pacioretty and Galchenyuk trade. Domi, Tatar, Petry and Danault having personnals best year and Kotkaniemi being NHL ready this year put the Habs out of the Hughes and kakko derby unless the Habs miss the playoff and win the lottery like Dallas, Carolina and Philadelphia did.

So tanking wasn't even an option this season. Unless there is a Forsberg-Erat type trade ( a clear robbery) Tatar and Petry will not be traded.
 

BaseballCoach

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Dec 15, 2006
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wrong.

the post is very clear. you told there's was 12 teams going from your "no mans land" to SCF the next year...

I then asked you how many went from your "no mans land" to bottom 5 (the other extreme you know) the next year...

didnt look as good as you thought is my guess... so you made brand new calculations.

There are two ways to make the comparison fair: we could either compare going from no man's land to the top 5 and bottom 5, or we could compare going to the top 2 and bottom 2.

It's hard to know what is the top 5, unless we decide it is the second round loser with the most RS points.

Would you accept it if I compared the number of no man's land teams that went to LAST PLACE only, versus those who won ONE ROUND? No, you would not because it would not be fair of me to make that comparison. There would be eight times more opportunities to win one round than to finish last, so the absolute number will almost surely be higher winning an extra round, but we would not learn anything.
 

BaseballCoach

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Dec 15, 2006
20,497
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I dont understand why people would not take short-term steps back (or short-term pain) for long-term enjoyment. We throw one season away, we are rewarded with years of elite talent, aka Last season and Kotkaniemi. Had we tanked, with the deep draft this season and next one, we would have a chance to build one of the best cores in the NHL and compete for a cup in an NHL where young players are now starting to dominate.
So not only are we entering a young player friendly era (unlike when the Oilers and Sabres undertook their centuries-long rebuild) we are entering a couple of high-end elite drafts, again unlike both those teams that had to cotempt themselves with relative mediocre talent as their top 3 picks (Yakupov, Reinhart, Hopkins, etc..)

The problem is that the difference between the Habs or other 95-100 point teams and the 70 point teams at the bottom are four or five good players. If the only way to be a 70 point team is to get rid of four or five good players (or hope the players you just acquired are not good), then adding the one top-5 pick does not get you where you want to go, you are still behind where you started from.

If Price did not bounce back, Weber retired with his injury, Domi was a 9 goal scorer for life, Tatar was getting healthy scratched, do you think the one player we got from tanking last year, Kotkaniemi at #3, would be enough to make up for all that even in 1-2 more years, all by himself? Even McDavid can't do it, even Ovechkin could not do it for 13 years. You need more than just the elite player, and if you already have the complementary talent, you might as well build from there rather than destroy the roster to start over again.

Besides, this is not a video game! How do you actually "throw one season away", and how many of the 31 teams do you think should be doing this, given their situations. I listed 13 teams clearly worse than the Habs. Why would the Habs win a race to the bottom?
 
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scrubadam

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Apr 10, 2016
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Saying to lose and get elite talent isn't some new stratgey, its really just a cheap way out.

97-2017 there were 40 1st and 2nd overalls drafted, only 8 have won cups (by my count I may be off by 1 or 2 if I missed someone).

Saying just lose and then an elite talent will turn the team around isn't a stratgey. And to make this team lose you would need to essentially sit everyone in the lineup. No Domi/BG/Tatar/Weber/Petry/Price/Danault/KK/Amria/Shaw etc...

In 2017 the two teams that drafted 1 and 2 are in position this year to draft top 5 again, maybe even top 3. I wonder if anyone is going to say that PHI (singed JVR) or LA (signed Kovalchuk) tanked this year? What about NJD?

The team is better than most thought so evaluate it after the season and decide which direction to move forward with and which players. I hope that the playoffs can show which players can play and which can't and we move on from those ones.
 

BaseballCoach

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Dec 15, 2006
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Saying to lose and get elite talent isn't some new stratgey, its really just a cheap way out.

97-2017 there were 40 1st and 2nd overalls drafted, only 8 have won cups (by my count I may be off by 1 or 2 if I missed someone).

Here is the list, with the added qualifier if the player was important to the team:
1996 - Chris Phillips NO and Marco Sturm NO
1997 - Joe Thornton NO and Patrick Marleau NO
1998 - Vincent Lecavalier WON in 2004 and David Legwand NO
1999 - Patrik Stefan NO and Daniel Sedin NO
2000 - Rick DiPietro NO and Dany Heatley NO
2001 - Ilya Kovalchuk NO and Jason Spezza NO
2002 - Rick Nash NO and Kari Lehtonen NO
2003 - Marc-André Fleury WON three times without starring and ERIC STALL won in 2006
2004 - Alex Ovechkin WON in 2018 and Evgeni Malkin WON three times
2005 - Sidney Crosby WON three times and Bobby Ryan NO
2006 - Erik Johnson NO and Jordan Staal WON in 2009 (as 3C)
2007 - Patrick Kane WON three times and James Van Riemsdyk NO
2008 - Steven Stamkos NO and Drew Doughty WON twice
2009 - John Tavares NO Victor Hedman NO
2010 - Ryan Nugent Hopkins NO and Tyler Seguin WON in 2011 but not a contributor
2011 - Taylor Hall NO and Gabriel Landeskog NO
2012 - Nail Yakupov NO and Ryan Murray NO
2013 - Nathan Mackinnon NO and Aleksander Barkov NO
2014 - Aaron Ekblad NO and Sam Reinhart NO
2015 - Connor McDavid NO and Jack Eichel NO
2016 - Auston Matthews NO and Patrik Laine NO
2017 - Nico Hischier NO and Nolan Patrick NO


10 Cup winners out of 44 players, of which 7 were elite members of the team

As for the other Top-5 spots
3rd overall - 1 out of 22 so far
4th overall - 2 out of 22 so far
5th overall - 0 out of 22 so far
 
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Habs Halifax

Loyal Habs Fan
Jul 11, 2016
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Saying to lose and get elite talent isn't some new stratgey, its really just a cheap way out.

97-2017 there were 40 1st and 2nd overalls drafted, only 8 have won cups (by my count I may be off by 1 or 2 if I missed someone).

Saying just lose and then an elite talent will turn the team around isn't a stratgey. And to make this team lose you would need to essentially sit everyone in the lineup. No Domi/BG/Tatar/Weber/Petry/Price/Danault/KK/Amria/Shaw etc...

In 2017 the two teams that drafted 1 and 2 are in position this year to draft top 5 again, maybe even top 3. I wonder if anyone is going to say that PHI (singed JVR) or LA (signed Kovalchuk) tanked this year? What about NJD?

The team is better than most thought so evaluate it after the season and decide which direction to move forward with and which players. I hope that the playoffs can show which players can play and which can't and we move on from those ones.

With me, I tend to drool over top 10 picks cause I would like to see about two more inserted into our system (at positions we need). I would of tried to delay our rebound/price year but it's too late now. I believed in this core when they are healthy and it comes down to our ability to address the holes moving forward. This was the issue starting in 2012 and we had peanuts to use in trades. Not the same situation today.

Other teams know fully well how good our prospect pool is and if they have a surplus of top 4D on the LD side, they will be calling. Lets hope we are able to make a hockey trade similar to RyJo for Jones or Sergachev for Drouin. I know we didn't trade from position of strength with Sergachev but we can today. I'm OK with making a young player for young player hockey trade.

At the moment, the Canes would be a good fit. They need help up front and have a stock pile of assets on D. If they trade Hamilton or Fleury for help up front like some rumors I have been hearing, they would need a young RD.

Bean for Juulsen? LD for RD swap. Add a 3rd or 4th if you have too. Might be overpayment but Bean both will be NHL ready next year and Bean fits our LD needs.
 
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scrubadam

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Apr 10, 2016
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Here is the list, with the added qualifier if the player was important to the team:
1996 - Chris Phillips NO and Marco Sturm NO
1997 - Joe Thornton NO and Patrick Marleau NO
1998 - Vincent Lecavalier WON in 2004 and David Legwand NO
1999 - Patrik Stefan NO and Daniel Sedin NO
2000 - Rick DiPietro NO and Dany Heatley NO
2001 - Ilya Kovalchuk NO and Jason Spezza NO
2002 - Rick Nash NO and Kari Lehtonen NO
2003 - Marc-André Fleury WON three times without starring and ERIC STALL won in 2006
2004 - Alex Ovechkin WON in 2018 and Evgeni Malkin WON three times
2005 - Sidney Crosby WON three times and Bobby Ryan NO
2006 - Erik Johnson NO and Jordan Staal WON in 2009 (as 3C)
2007 - Patrick Kane WON three times and James Van Riemsdyk NO
2008 - Steven Stamkos NO and Drew Doughty WON twice
2009 - John Tavares NO Victor Hedman NO
2010 - Ryan Nugent Hopkins NO and Tyler Seguin WON in 2011 but not a contributor
2011 - Taylor Hall NO and Gabriel Landeskog NO
2012 - Nail Yakupov NO and Ryan Murray NO
2013 - Nathan Mackinnon NO and Aleksander Barkov NO
2014 - Aaron Ekblad NO and Sam Reinhart NO
2015 - Connor McDavid NO and Jack Eichel NO
2016 - Auston Matthews NO and Patrik Laine NO
2017 - Nico Hischier NO and Nolan Patrick NO


10 Cup winners out of 44 players, of which 7 were elite members of the team

As for the other Top-5 spots
3rd overall - 1 out of 22 so far
4th overall - 2 out of 22 so far
5th overall - 0 out of 22 so far

Thanks, Forgot about Seguin and E. Stall.
 

Saundies

Fly On The Wall
Jun 8, 2012
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I've been wondering about this for a while after I saw a tweet about how many 1st round picks Tampa has kept around the last couple of years or so (hint: it's not many) and it brought up this question in my head. Is it better to put your money on select prospects and trade the ones that you're not completely sure about, or is it better to hold onto all of these prospects and assets and hope that they will eventually pan out to their potential?

Hindsight is obviously 20/20, but if we had traded, say, McCarron and Scherbak at the height of their value, we might be in a better position today than we once were. It's rumored that BUF wanted Poehling in a trade for O'reilly this summer and MB didn't do it. Aren't we kind of hoping that RP becomes as good as ROR one day? Or is their merit on keeping and developing a guy over taking that chance?
 
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