Author Archives: Kyle Roussel

About Kyle Roussel

Born and raised in Montreal, I have unhealthy obsessions with sports, Star Wars (the originals, of course) and my wife's cooking. Follow me at twitter.com/kyleroussel

A Note About Scott Gomez

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As I’ve said in the recent past, I like Scott Gomez, the guy, so don’t accuse me of piling on the guy. I don’t resort to attacking him on twitter, I don’t make jokes about his injuries, and I don’t make it a point to groan when he comes back to the lineup. But I am taking the time to write my thoughts and concerns, and I don’t want that to be misconstrued as Gomez bashing. Are we clear? Good, then read on!

After a disastrous 2010-11 season (by his own admission), Gomez vowed to every breathing human on this planet that he would bounce back. Nobody was expecting 20 goals or 70 points, but more than 7 goals and 38 points was expected. Prior to his nightmare season he was a .81 point-per-game player. Going in to this season, Habs fans would have settled for a .63 point-per-game pace. That would represent 8-12 goals and 51 points. It would have still been below his career average, but he would have at least partially cleared his name for playing on a team that can’t score to save its life.

He’s been hurt for the most part this season, so the website that aims to make fun of his year-long scoring drought is a misleading and cruel gag. The truth is Gomez’ performance doesn’t need to be made fun of – the numbers speak for themselves – loudly.

As he sits at 0 goals in 20 games this season (and upwards of 60 dating back to last season), we hear some fans looking to excuse his performance him by saying “he’s never been a goal scorer!!“. This is accurate. But 0 goals is not acceptable, nor is it normal. Throughout NHL history, guys who were not goal scorers found the back of the net far more often than that.  As for his sub-par assist rate? The exonerators say that “it isn’t his fault if his wingers don’t finish his plays“.

Okay, then.

So what we’re left with is a player – who is paid to produce – who carries a massive cap hit of almost 7.4 million dollars – being willfully absolved of all accountability!

Does this make sense to you? Because it doesn’t make sense to me. Accountability is key, and if there is none then what you see is what you get (and deserve) with this team.

You can throw out any statistic you like about how the Canadiens are better with him in the lineup than without him. YAY! They’re 9-11 with him in the lineup this year – still not close to a playoff spot. Do you prefer 10th place or 14th? You can tell me that he wins faceoffs and that he gains the offensive zone reeeeally well (yeah, but what does he do with it once he gets there?). You can revert to excuse-making and say that the injuries have prevented him from getting in to a groove. Or you can blame his revolving door of linemates. At the end of the day if that’s all you’ve got, then that is a really thin and flimsy defense of a player with his mega cap hit who is paid to produce way more than he has.

The cottage industry of advanced stats (which is a murky, slippery world in a sport like hockey as opposed to baseball) can paint the picture that he does more than we think and is thus underrated. If that were the case, then surely other General Managers would recognize this, and the Canadiens would not be having as much trouble trading him as they have. It’s pretty easy to explain why: other teams won’t take on that cap hit if there’s nothing tangible to justify it. Cherry-picking selective stats and portraying them as being complimentary to a player is pretty easy to do, but the stats that matter most are the ones that the player is being personally held accountable for…or not held accountable for, depending on who you talk to.

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Opportunity Cost

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When an underachieving team has its back to the wall, and faces a huge uphill climb, it’s only natural to rally around that team when they rattle off some impressive wins. This is the case with the recent performance of the Habs.

Since trading a disgruntled Michael Cammalleri to Calgary, the team is a mediocre 3-2-2. Not nearly good enough to put them back in the playoff hunt, but optimism has been renewed since those 3 wins have come against the Conference-leading Rangers, the hated Leafs (in Toronto), and the mighty Red Wings. When the most recent victory sees the downtrodden Habs hanging a converted touchdown around the league’s best team’s neck, it’s easy – and sometimes fun – to get carried away that the turnaround is in fact upon us and that the Forum Ghosts are ready to lend a hand.

As the Canadiens blew off the preseason, most shrugged with indifference. In most years, I would have agreed – after all, didn’t Carey Price tell us to “chill”?. This year, however, I didn’t see a team building toward an identity, or establishing chemistry – I saw a team running out players that had no business being a part of a training camp for so long. It felt like the Habs were focused on squeezing as many dollars as they could from whatever time was allotted for preseason games. Once the regular season began, nothing changed. How could it given the lackadaisical approach given to the preseason schedule?  The team that sputtered through the exhibition season fell flat in October, so much so that they became ensnared in the dreaded numbers game bear trap.

The “coveted” 8th place slot drifted further and further out of reach as the season reached the quarter pole, all the way to the point where the Habs were a distant and dismal 11 points out of 8th at mid-season. In other words – they’d need a miracle to claw back and grab that 8th playoff position.

The more pragmatic Habs fans were reading the writing on the wall as they were taking the Halloween decorations down and dusting off the Christmas season regalia. Yes, the regular season is 82 games, and 6 1/2 long months, but the reality is that you can scuttle your playoff hopes in the first month of action.

Thus was born the #failfornail campaign, a euphemism for tanking the season and grabbing the top draft pick at the 2012 entry draft. This slogan sticks in the craw of many fans, who want the Habs in the post-season dance, no matter what. After all, you can’t win the Cup if you don’t make the playoffs, n’est pas? Never mind that no 5th-8th seed teams have won the Cup since 1995 when Braveheart was the reigning Best Picture winner and Gangta’s Paradise was dominating the radio waves. The Devils won the Cup that year, and it was during a shortened 48-game season, meaning that without having to endure the full 82-game grind, conditions were ripe for a team to win the Cup without starting on home ice. Even at that, the Devils were on the cusp of becoming a dominant league power, not a bubble team. The ’93 Habs were the last team to win the Cup without home ice to start the playoffs in a full season, but again, it should be noted that the Canadiens were a 102-point team that year and were in a stacked division, and were not a bubble team.

In short, bubble teams don’t win anything. In a town with a history like Montreal’s, an 8th place finish is nothing short of a platitude.

As a believer in history and trends, I’m tired of the Habs going in to the playoffs with the “plucky underdog” label. The dire reality is that if you want to win the Cup in the modern era, you need home ice advantage, at least to start the playoffs. The 2006 Oilers are a nice story, but that’s all they are – a nice story. If they had a healthy Dwayne Roloson for game 7, things may have been different, but he was hurt, and they lost. There are no moral victories to be found in game 7 of the Cup Finals, and the Oilers have been rebuilding ever since.

This season has 3 possible outcomes for the Habs:

1- They buck history to “rise together” to grab the 8th playoff spot, despite overwhelming odds. Pragmatists will weep at the loss of a potential lottery pick, while optimists and die-hard homers will trumpet this as an accomplishment worthy of recognition in the annals of Habs lore.

2- They make a brave charge for 8th, but fall short. Pragmatists will weep at the loss of a potential lottery pick, while optimists and die-hard homers will trumpet this as an accomplishment worthy of recognition in the annals of Habs lore.

3- They trade their available assets before the deadline, restock the draft pick and prospect cupboard by moving guys like Hal Gill, Travis Moen, Chris Campoli, Tomas Kaberle, in an attempt to do the one thing they haven’t done since the fluke of the 2005 draft (and previously the 1984 draft): draft in the top 5 and secure a franchise centerman.

When you weigh the team’s needs vs the daunting mountain of history that lies in in their path, the “smart” thing to do for the team’s future success would be to cut bait, let nature take its course and rebound hard next year.

Options 1 and 2, in my mind (and I know I’m not alone) represent a waste of time that although would be exciting for a couple months, would ultimately be a step back for the team. As Division and Conference rivals continue to improve, this is the year to make a huge leap forward in narrowing that gap, if not closing it altogether. Smart teams in today’s cap era build upon a foundation of young, cheap talent that can only come from good drafting. They do not build with pricey free agents. In terms of personnel in the organization, the Canadiens have one of the best evaluators of amateur talent in Trevor Timmins. Give him one year where, in a deep draft, he can lay claim to several high-end prospects and Habs fans will reap the rewards for many years to come.

I’m not naive enough to believe that a team of professional athletes are going to roll over and die. They just aren’t wired that way. With the amount of skill on this Habs team, their current position in the standings defies logic, and in that vein it’s not inconceivable that they could at least turn things around just enough to make everything look respectable. Like the thrilling run to the Eastern Conference Finals a couple years ago, I still believe snatching 8th place and missing out on the opportunity to solidify the future is nothing but a smokescreen that while exciting for a time, really sets the team back. It sparks false hope and conjures up delusions of grandeur.

Now, if only the shareholders would agree to forgo playoff revenue *just once*, the path would be so much easier for Geoff Molson and Pierre Gauthier.

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So Tim Thomas Did Something Dumb…

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Stop me if you’ve heard that before.

Except this time, it feels more like character assassination because of the “B” on his chest rather than the act itself.

As the only American on the Bruins 2011 Cup winning roster, many feel like Thomas should have gone to the White House in solidarity with his teammates, to show respect to the President (even though he doesn’t agree with his politics) and generally to not rock the boat. Many say that if he wanted to make a political statement, he could have done it in another way (yeah right, if it were to come to that, the same people would laugh and say “who the hell is Tim Thomas? Shut up and play hockey, fatty”). Let’s recall that both Nick Boynton and Kris Versteeg (yes, both Canadians) decided not to visit the White House as members of the Cup winning 2010 Blackhawks. Granted, they had both moved on to other teams, but so did Tomas Kaberle, and he was there. I don’t recall the outrage when they skipped the ceremony, do you? You can tell me that as an American, Thomas had the duty to go and represent. But most people say it was about team unity. So which is it? Team unity, or Patriotic duty? Where does free will come in to play?

We’re all entitled to our opinion, and we can go back and forth all day over whether what he did was right or wrong, selfish, or bold. Personally, I could care less either way, so there’s my stance for the record. It doesn’t affect me in any way. What does bother me is this: Canada could barely muster a 60% voter turnout for its most recent Federal Election. That means nearly 10 million Canadians who were eligible to vote chose not to. South of the border, the situation is even worse. When President Obama became “The Man”, only 56.8% of voters showed up to have their say, meaning that nearly 100 million eligible Americans opted to not vote. In the 2010 mid-term elections, nearly 145 million eligible Americans stayed home (37.8% showed up).

I don’t know who did and who didn’t vote in their country’s elections. Based on the massive twitter outrage yesterday, the sheer volume of angry voices says that there were plenty of lazy donkeys among them who gleefully took up arms in the “bash Tim Thomas party”. They chided Thomas’ lack of respect for the President while they themselves didn’t have enough respect to get off their rear end to have their say.

To you people, kindly STFU.

To anyone who thinks that Thomas disrespected his teammates, if they are truly upset with him, they’ll stop defending him as well as they have in the past couple seasons. They won’t play as hard or with as much heart for a guy they’re that angry with.

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So Long, Sniper

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After Cammalleri’s comments the other day, it was quite apparent to me that he wanted out of town, and that if he wasn’t already unpopular in the Habs dressing room, he would be. He may have said the opposite, that he has a love affair with the city and that he’s building a house. To paraphrase Seinfeld: “yadda yadda yadda, now he’s in Calgary”.

The adage is that the team that gets the better player wins the trade. I find that an overly simplistic way of looking at things. Under this prism, it would be a knee-jerk judgement to say that the Flames won the trade, after all, Cammalleri is a star while Rene Bourque is, well not Ray Bourque. If we take their entire careers in to account, there’s no doubt that Cammalleri has been the better player. But over the course of the last 2+ seasons, Bourque has actually outscored Cammalleri. Viewed in that light, the trade is already much more even. Given that Bourque is much bigger and tougher than Cammalleri, he brings another important component that the Habs have been sorely lacking.

When news of the trade broke last night, I didn’t know what to think. I thought Cammalleri deserved to be traded, and I believe he wanted to be traded. I don’t trust Pierre Gauthier, as most Habs fans don’t. When somebody is as univerally disliked as Gauthier is, it’s easy to pan his each and every move. He’s blamed for moves that Gainey ultimately signed off on, as if he forced Gainey to trade for the Gomez’ of the world. Twitter makes for a great sounding board, but it’s prone to make people look like they have some kind of manic disorder. Such was the case with my timeline once the trade was announced. I vacillated between hating and liking the move; If Cammalleri had to go, at least make it a salary dump…make it a move about the future of the team. That wasn’t the case, and the Habs held true to their traditional modus operandi. They’re not holding a firesale, and they will not tank the season in search of a lottery pick. That was a fantasy. After marinating in the trade overnight, I woke up this morning liking it more than when I went to bed. There are reasons to NOT like it, if that’s your choosing, and I wouldn’t hold that against you if are a Cammalleri fan, but I’m opting to look at the positive aspects and run with them:

  • Bourque has actually been a better scorer in recent years than Cammalleri.
  • Bourque is much cheaper (although his contract runs much longer). Nevertheless, he represents good value.
  • Bourque is much bigger, and that is something the Habs need very much need, especially in the dog days of the season when small guys show signs of fatigue.
  • The Habs got a 2nd round pick in return, as well as a depth prospect who may turn out to be a little more than a throw-in.
  • Team unity may improve with the removal of a guy who apparently was not very well liked in the room, and you can’t put a price on that.

If there’s a reason to not like the trade, it’s that Cammalleri was an elite playoff performer while in Montreal. Halak is hero #1, but Cammalleri is right there with him. Trouble is, his elite playoff production is useless if he can’t help the Canadiens get to the playoffs. Any way you slice it, 9 goals is unacceptable from Cammalleri. There’s no excuse for it. He’s been a giant bust this year, sulking around the ice and not doing what he was paid to do: score goals. Guys who come in on the heels of scoring 39 goals and who are given 30 million dollars are not paid to do anything other than score.

If there’s another reason to not like the trade, it’s the manner in how Gauthier goes about his business. He operates in a cone of silence and seems to not have a concrete idea of how to construct and maintain a team. It’s fair to say that the vast majority of Habs fans want him replaced, and perhaps some of the anger of this trade stems from the fact that we now see that he is likely not going anywhere any time soon. It appears that Molson has continued trust in Gauthier, and that makes us mad, and that casts a pall over any move that Gauthier will make. The Canadiens have long stood as an organization that carried itself with class, from top to bottom. Gauthier is sullying that reputation with his panic moves. Firing Assistant Coaches 90 minutes before a game, and other ‘save my job’ type moves are tarnishing the Canadiens, and the results are trickling down to the ice. They used to get it right nearly everywhere. Now they rarely do. There are no more ceremonies to honour the past, to show off how the Canadiens show class and reverence. The focus is on the present, and the focus is blurry.

In the end, there’s no choice but to get on board with the trade. To pray that Gauthier’s 180° turn from a mantra that asked small, skilled players to win it on the powerplay to a team that is getting bigger & grittier will eventually bring badly needed wins in a division that is quickly improving. We can also hope that it show semblance of a team that can tough it out with sandpaper in the playoffs. They won’t get there this year, but they weren’t getting there with Cammalleri, either. If team unity improves as result of a disliked player being moved, then that’s another huge, intangible plus.

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The Conundrum

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If it was a secret, it’s not anymore. Actually, it was never a secret; the signs were there from the very beginning, but most chose to ignore them.

For those still unaware, the Canadiens season has been, and remains in jeopardy. Truthfully, it’s been on life support since Halloween. No, that’s not a typo. On the morning of November 1st, the Canadiens were in 11th place in the Eastern Conference, a mere 2 points out of a playoff spot, and very few fans were concerned with the situation (I was). If that isn’t grounds for “life support”, then let’s call it a gestating illness. There was a lot of nonchalance among the fanbase, despite what historical precedent showed to be the harsh reality. That reality said that being outside of the top 8 on November 1st meant a tough climb to get back in. Yes, November 1st is awfully early to pronounce any conclusions for how the season will end, but history was already against the Habs.

Fast forward to January 2012, and the Canadiens have dug themselves down to 12th place in the East, 7 big, fat, bloated points out of the playoff picture. In short: they went in the wrong direction. If things were unsettling back on Halloween, they must be bleak now. Or are they?

Unbeaten in 2012 (nyuk nyuk nyuk), the Habs appear to be a new team. As Will pointed out in his piece yesterday: “early returns suggest this two-game winning streak is more than just a fluke“. Two games is certainly a short sample, but the attitude and tempo appears to be contagious. They no longer sit on leads, they no longer have poor body language, and they no longer look like the stifled, frustrated, crippled group they were under former Coach Jacques Martin. And not to be overlooked: they are no longer boring to watch. We all reserve to right to reevaluate our opinions after more games against tougher teams are in the books, but we are starting to see the team that we thought we had when it was assembled back in 2009 (and tinkered with ever since).

The big question today is whether or not this modest turnaround is “too little, too late”. The Canadiens need to rack up 53 points in their remaining 41 games to end the regular season with 92 points, which represents the average threshold needed to make the playoffs since the lockout ended. Not to be misplaced is the fact that the 8th place team is currently on pace for 94 points, making things yet again harder. The aforementioned 53pts in 41 games is a win percentage of .646 over the second half of the season. If that imposing number wasn’t enough, they have to do their damndest to earn those points in regulation and not allow Eastern opponents to grab “loser points”. That would only make the Canadiens’ task tougher still. Simply put, the Canadiens need to go at least 27-14 from here until the final siren blares on game 82. That would represent quite the reversal of fortunes, and would still only likely reap them the 8th slot in the East – if that. Making things even harder is that the Canadiens need to leapfrog 3 teams, or hope that other teams completely fall apart. The Panthers, Leafs, Sens, and now massively depleted Penguins are all common targets to have the trap door open under their feet. As of yet, none have officially fallen out of the playoff picture, and even if they do, there’s no guarantee that the Canadiens will play well enough to surpass them. Interesting to note that in the past 3 days, the Leafs beat the Wings, Senators took 3 of 4 points from the Flyers, and the Panthers beat the Canucks. If those teams are going to give up the ghost, they aren’t going to do so quietly.

Here’s where The Conundrum rears its ugly head. Is it worth it for the Canadiens to play each of their remaining games like it’s the 7th game of the Cup finals? How much would they have left in the tank for the playoffs? Sure they’d be battle-tested, but they’d also be incredibly weary. Is it worth it for Pierre Gauthier to be a buyer at the trade deadline? Is it worth it to dump assets in a potentially futile quest to grab the 8th in the East? And given that only one Cup winning team since 1994 entered the playoffs without the benefit of home ice advantage, is all of the back-breaking effort really worth it? I would say no, it is not worth it. I would hate to go through a Habs-less spring, but this hamster wheel of mediocrity has to stop. Stakeholders in the team might disagree, as would those fans who say that “you can’t win the Cup if you don’t make the playoffs“. Personally, I would allow nature to take its course, and I would trade away pending UFAs (unless Kostitsyn can be signed at the right price) for future prospects and draft choices. In the cap era, having good, young talent at a cheap price is the only way to have a perennial contender.

But what do April tee times mean for “interim” Head Coach Randy Cunneyworth? Quite simply, it would likely mean his termination, but is that not already inevitable? He’s already been thrown to the wolves by his Owner and by his General Manager. Short of long playoff run, I’m not sure that anything can secure his future as Coach of the Habs. As much as I like Cunneyworth, and as much as I believe he deserves every single opportunity to be this team’s long-term Head Coach, there’s every reason to believe that the Canadiens brass will bow to pressure from narrow minded media types and extremist fringe elements and opt yet again to take the path of appeasement rather than institute a meritocracy. That means that Cunneyworth’s future as a Coach is elsewhere, and for that reason I see no reason to sacrifice key parts of the future for what is already a virtual mission impossible.

What’s your take? Go for broke, or look to a brighter future, albeit one minus Randy Cunneyworth?

Bonus question: What if the players, as a group, tell Molson that they adore Randy Cunneyworth and want him to stick around permanently? What then? Appease the nose-out-of-joint lunatics, or keep the team happy?

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Habs Don’t Need A Rebuild

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Let’s all take a deep breath, or twenty.

Do the the Habs stink? You bet they do. Tough to admit, especially when they are “only 3 points out of a playoff spot” but you are what your record says you are, so yes – right now, the Habs stink. How did they get to this damp and sullen place so quickly? In this blogger’s view, two solid years of poor strategic coaching, coupled with non-existent tactical coaching, questionable development of youth and inept managerial moves have crippled this team. Ownership has a good amount of stink on it as well for placing blind faith in a team that was hired to keep corrupted and brainwashed masses content.

The team was never retooled properly following the collapse and subsequent mass exodus of 2009. Jacques Martin was brought in to breathe new life in to the team, as well as to bring a level of professionalism behind the bench that had been missing for years. Surely he had a hand in selecting the players that they eventually traded for, and signed during that summer’s free agency period. Why on God’s green earth they opted for small, offensive-minded players, we will never know. Sure, they’re loveable, respectable, classy guys, which makes trying to be objective about them much more difficult, but their contributions – or lack thereof speak for themselves. The style of play that was promised by Jacques Martin was never delivered – not even close. Instead, he enforced the exact opposite style of play that would have maxed out the players’ talents.  What’s the French translation for ‘appeasement’? The ruse worked for a while…or did it? I think we can all agree that goaltending saved not just the team’s bacon, but the entire barn. Whether Carey Price since the start of last year, or Halak two seasons ago, the trip to the Conference Finals was enchanting, but it was a fairy tale. An anomaly. The road taken was unsustainable. When a game plan calls for a goaltender to stop 40-50 shots per night, and asks defensemen to block almost as many, with the desired end result being a 2-1 victory, it’s only a matter of time before the trap door that you voluntarily stood on top of opens wide. Sidney Crosby’s bewilderment at the conclusion of game 7 spoke for nearly everyone, much of Habsland included.

Last year the team had its ups and downs, eventually bowing out in the first round to the Bruins in seven games. Many saw that as some sort of accomplishment, considering the “injuries”. Yawn. News flash! there are no moral victories in the playoffs. None. There never were, and there never will be. Talk of “tomorrow’s another day” is for the regular season. The playoffs, on the other hand are merciless and not for the faint of heart. Any talk otherwise stems from apologists, exonerators and excuse makers. Pass me the barf bag. The cracks in the foundation were deep and visible, but covered up with Carey Price’s excellence. That Carey Price is even in a Habs sweater is a stroke of luck.

Fast forward to this season, and the slow slide to oblivion accelerated to avalanche speed, and not even Price’s continued fine play could stop it. Jacques Martin quickly lost the pulse of his team, which is not surprising given how he stamped out any semblance of energy and passion – what was left to measure when you don’t communicate with your players? He soon ran out of places to hide, kids to throw under the bus and people to blame other than himself by the time the axe fell. Last Saturday ended what was an infernally long tenure that really wasn’t that long at all; it just felt that way, which is a damning testament to the type of stodgy, stale, flaccid hockey that Jacques Martin had installed. It was, and still is boring, which speaks to the damage that he has done, and that Randy Cunneyworth has been tasked with fixing. Nothing is worse than failing, sleep-inducing hockey, especially when you’re one of the priciest tickets in the league. Nothing. Near the end, Jacques Martin said that it was less about entertaining the fans. Way to keep up with the times, Coach.

Now, as Randy Cunneyworth struggles to pump out the water, he seems as powerless as a nine volt battery trying to power a nuclear submarine. It isn’t his fault; he’s been set up for failure by ownership and management, and the jackals in the French media have already begun gnawing at the carcass before it has even flatlined. Dead man walking.

The result is a team in disarray, or at least the semblance of disarray. There are still some good players on this team: Cole, Pacioretty, Gionta, Plekanec, Cammalleri and Kostitsyn are all eminently capable of 25 goals each, but only one or two of those guys will hit that number…three would be stretching it. As the team spirals to 12th place and poised to sink even lower, fans are predictably calling for a tank & rebuild in the same vein as Pittsburgh, Chicago, Washington, and other teams that reaped all-star talent at the draft table by being appallingly bad for many years.

As tempting as it may be to dream of a lottery draft pick, it’s not needed for this iteration of the team. Serious tweaking? Absolutely. Blowing it up? Stop it. While this season is on the verge of being lost, (if it wasn’t lost in October) there is plenty of hope for 2012-13, provided Geoff Molson gets his priorities straight and stares down those that insist that they have a say in running the team.

Re-signing Price, Subban and Gorges are no-brainer decisions. Bringing back Andrei Kostitsyn isn’t quite a no-brainer, but it’s damn close. Unless he can fetch a king’s ransom in return, he should be retained, and quite frankly, I wouldn’t trust Gauthier to fetch that kingly ransom. Thanks to Gauthier’s panic moves designed to save his, and Jacques Martin’s job (bonjour to those who said that a healthy Campoli and Kaberle would fix all that ails the team), he has saddled the team with some contracts that are suffocating the Habs, and will continue to do so until they’re off the books. That being the case, whoever has the title of General Manager in the summer – because it won’t be Pierre Gauthier – should focus on moving Scott Gomez, Mike Cammalleri and Tomas Kaberle at all costs. Freeing up that kind of scratch and replacing it with the right pieces and coupled with the proper Coaching, will set it back on course in a hurry.

There’s no need to flush out everyone over the age of 27. No need to be voluntary doormats for years to come. No need to waste some of Carey Price’s best years. As long as pillars like Price, Subban, Pacioretty, Plekanec, Cole, Eller, Gorges and Gionta are around, there is plenty to play for, and it’s all the more reason to get things right without waving the white flag of failure.The only capitulations that should be made, if the team can’t pull out of this tailspin absolutely and immediately (meaning tonight vs Winnipeg, and no more consolation loser points), is to trade pending UFAs (except Gorges and Kostitsyn) for assets. That’s it.

The recipe, as challenging as it may be to implement, is really quite simple:

1- Get the organizational priorities straight. Winning? Or pandering & political appeasement?
2- Hire the best General Manager money can buy, language be damned.
3- Let him get the best Coach, and ask him to pretty please with a cherry on top become competent in French as quickly as possible.
4- Sign or trade for players that match the new Coach’s style and fill the team’s gaps.
5- Enjoy hockey again.

Now, if only Geoff Molson can summon the courage to stomp out the filthy agenda-driven rats in the Francophone media and political arena who have infested and warped the views of Habs fans all over Quebec, things might get moving in the right direction. These clowns have once again made the Canadiens a laughing stock, not only in hockey circles, but in global news. It’s not because “outsiders don’t understand”. It’s because it’s farcical that a segment of Quebecers carry the sense of entitlement that allows them to believe that they control the team. The legacy of the Canadiens hangs from the rafters of the Bell Center, and it was built by French AND English. The legacy doesn’t exist anywhere else. It’s a sport. You want to make a statement about your culture and language? Do it through other channels and stay out of the hockey rink. People and organizations trying to shape the Canadiens to reflect their narrow-minded, pig-headed views have no place in the business of sport.

The ball is in your court, Mr. Molson.

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Open Letter to French Media

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Dear French Media,

I know many of you are lining up your next column, decrying the fact that the Habs have hired an interim anglo head coach.

In the interests of letting you get on with pushing your infantile agenda, I’ll be brief.

The Canadiens can provide their fans with “the minimum of respect” by putting a winning product on the ice.

The convenience and access provided to you by a French coach has nothing to do with wins, points and Stanley Cups. Your sense of entitlement has made you arrogant. You’ll tell us that the vast majority of the province is French, and you are right. But that same majority also wants wins over an easier-to-understand press conference. That’s to say nothing of the global community of Canadiens fans who want, and deserve the best chance at cheering for an elite team.

Your constant agenda pushing that would see the Canadiens continuing to fish where there are no trophy fish is an outdated and ignorant view that serves nobody but yourselves. Now, not all of you share this view. I urge you to speak up in favour of a meritocracy.

If a French, or bilingual candidate should arise, and he happens to be the best man for the job, by all means hire him. And by “best man for the job” I mean the man that can get the most out of the players on the ice. But to settle for less than the best so that your job easier is a disservice to everyone that you so badly want the Canadiens to “respect”.

Like the departed Coach, your reasoning and logic is flimsy, outdated, tired and reeks of entitlement. You don’t own the Canadiens. You do not deserve to have a say in who gets hired. Your job is to report on the daily happenings of the team. No more, no less.

Get over yourselves.

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Like Poison

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Jacques Martin’s mere presence behind the bench has become deathly poisonous to the Habs. From a terrible strategy game-in, game-out to throwing his young players under the bus, this Coach is about as positive and nurturing a presence as Palpatine is leading the republic. Hell, he even had the audacity to hint that Price, his only hope at his $500,000 playoff bonus was a reason for losing.

They couldn’t beat the best at home, and they couldn’t beat the worst at home. What’s left?

He MUST go.

Fire Jacques Martin.

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Limbo Champs

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As the Habs continue to fight against the current, one thing is becoming more and more clear: this team is not living up to anyone’s expectations. Not the fans’, not the media’s, who, although they didn’t peg the Habs as elite, didn’t have them as being this bad, either. Most importantly, they aren’t living up to their own expectations. We hear it repeated over and over in post game scrums and press conferences about how they we not prepared, not focused, not playing as a team. Now they’re griping about seeing the standings every day in their own locker room and not being pleased with what they see. As the writing on the wall starts to take shape, the mood in the room sounds decidedly flat and negative. A once jovial and tight locker room seems to be fraying at the edges. It’s hard to believe that they’ve turned on one another, given that their good character guys, but it’s not hard to believe that they no longer believe in the game plan that is being forced upon them.

It’s clear that the Canadiens are currently not living up to their own expectations. After all, they were the ones who came up with the “Rise Together” marketing campaign. What, exactly were they implying by that? Rise to where, exactly? To 8th place? 6th place? After a 2010-2011 year in which the Canadiens showed great promise, fueled by Price, Subban and Pacioretty, the team’s Marketing department may have made their first misstep in actually trying to RAISE the bar for once. They finished 6th last year, and, as the refrain goes, if they had Markov, Gorges and Pacioretty all year, they could have done better. So I assume they had higher targets this year.

Oops!

You might tell me that injuries have derailed the best laid plans, but I think that’s nothing but a lazy, old and tired excuse. Markov has been out for so long that he should no longer be factored in to the team’s plans or fortunes until he’s back in the lineup. Same goes for Campoli, a wildcard player left on the free agent scrap heap until late September. Surely, such saviours don’t rot on the scrap heap do they? The only thing we can say is that we don’t know how he would have fit in to this roster. Maybe he would have helped, maybe not. Scott Gomez, another big name and cap hit on the shelf wasn’t producing and was a drag on the team, so don’t tell me about him. You can spin the injury argument all you like, but the Penguins hummed along without Crosby, Malkin and Staal for long stretches so save the injury excuse for the apologist round table discussions. Mismanagement of resources, weak bench management, puzzling choices, lack of coach-to-player communication, motivation, outdated and ill-fitting systems, unprepared (and yes, underachieving) players are the real problems of the team. Many of these can be fixed by putting a Coach in place that puts talent in position to succeed, armed with a game plan that matches their skill sets. That hasn’t happened for much of the last 2+ seasons.

Ask yourself this: What other organization can steeply raise prices across the board and deliver such an average product? Even worse than losing is that they’ve become BORING. From the General Manager, to the Coach and now finally tricked down to the ice, the team is void of flair, personality and FUN. That’s perhaps the biggest knock against the brand of hockey that the Jacques Martin era will be known for. Montreal is a city teeming with flair, fun and personality, and given how tightly woven the Habs are in the fabric of the city, their current state is a loose thread on the tapestry. Yet legions of people are willing to accept it? I understand “accepting it because you’re virtually powerless to change it” (you’re not, by the way), but I cannot comprehend anybody “accepting it because you think it’s good enough”. By the way, the Canadiens have played many poor games this year, and currently have the worst home record in the league. Some reward for those people who scramble to find ways, despite the rapidly escalating prices, to go to the Bell Center and buy up all things Canadiens.

Rise Together? I guess if you’re at the bottom, then there’s nowhere to go but up, right? Maybe this has been the plan all along.

Yet as team owner Geoff Molson stands pat, offering his support for the General Manager, Head Coach, and Gomez alike, it seems all too clear that profits are a higher priority for the powers that be than winning is. This should come as no surprise. All outward appearances seem to indicate that making the playoffs and reaping pure profit from a couple home games is the goal. They tell us that the Cup is the goal, but as we all know, actions speak louder than words. In my last post, I’ve clearly showed that winning the Cup is a matter of home ice advantage. Without it, chances of glory are slim, yet that doesn’t stop pie-eyed optimists from believing that “anything is possible”. I don’t hold that belief against anybody, because anything is possible if you want to get in to semantics, but with just one of the last 34 Cup finalists winning it all (that’s 3%) without entering the playoffs with home ice advantage, I tend to put my stock in the overwhelming stat that has been proven over a long period of time.

And so we’ve become very good at limbo, because we happily bend over backwards to make time for this team, spend money on it and invest our hopes in it. What a pity.

Sadly, the Canadiens, through spin, media mouthpieces, marketing and PR have successfully lowered the bar to the point where making the playoffs is seen as some great accomplishment, and as a result, fans now believe that an upset or two (and even near-upsets) are highwater benchmarks of success.

Many of us know better. Unfortunately, it seems that not enough do.That, my friends, is the magic of good marketing.

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A Puncher’s Chance?

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“Just get in to the playoffs, and you never know what can happen!”

That’s the message we are fed by the media, and by bubble teams when it comes to the playoffs and Cup contention. They’re partially right, because you have a 0% chance of winning the Stanley Cup if you don’t make the post season.

Since fans of any given team will dismiss damning statistics and tell themselves whatever they need to in order to continue to believe that their team has a good shot at glory, I expect that most fans of bubble teams (hello Habs fans!) that happen to be reading this will completely ignore or dismiss what they’re about to read.

The below table of Cup winners since ’94 will show you that since the Habs last won the Cup in ’93, that if you don’t start the playoffs with home ice advantage, your chances of winning the Cup aren’t much higher than zero. If the following breakdown doesn’t sober you up, or pop the lenses out of your bleu-blanc-rouge coloured goggles, then I’m afraid nothing will. In that case, may I suggest heading to the online Canadian Pharmacy (why get off the couch?) and buying the the most potent drugs you can afford in order to clear the cobwebs?

Cup Winner Started Playoffs With Home Ice? Cup Finalist Started Playoffs With Home Ice?
93-94 Rangers Yes Canucks No
94-95 Devils No Red Wings Yes
95-96 Avalanche Yes Panthers Yes
96-97 Red Wings Yes Flyers Yes
97-98 Red Wings Yes Capitals Yes
98-99 Stars (D,C,L) Yes Sabres No
99-00 Devils Yes Stars (D) Yes
00-01 Avalanche (D,C,L) Yes Devils (D,C) Yes
01-02 Red Wings (D,C,L) Yes Hurricanes (D) Yes
02-03 Devils (D) Yes Ducks No
03-04 Lightning (D,C) Yes Flames No
04-05
Lockout
05-06 Hurricanes (D) Yes Oilers No
06-07 Ducks (D) Yes Senators Yes
07-08 Red Wings (D,C,L) Yes Penguins (D) Yes
08-09 Penguins Yes Red Wings (D) Yes
09-10 Blackhawks (D) Yes Flyers No
10-11 Bruins (D) Yes Canucks (D,C,L) Yes

Legend
(D) = Division winner
(C) = Conference winner
(L) = League champ

It’s pretty resounding, isn’t it? Of the last 34 teams to play for the Cup, only 7 teams (21%) didn’t start the playoffs with home ice. That doesn’t sound too bad, and it sounds almost like a team has a puncher’s chance of winning it all if they could just get to the finals. Not so much. Of those 7 teams, only the Devils in 1995 actually did win it all without the benefit of the home ice (and really, given the sleep inducing hockey they won with, would it have mattered if they did?). That’s 1 team in 34, or 3%. What’s more? The last FIFTEEN consecutive Cup winners all had home ice advantage to start the playoffs. I’d call that more than a trend. Indeed, 16 of the last 17 Cup winners (94%) entered the playoffs with home ice advantage, and 11 of the last 17 runners-up (64%) did the same. Uh-oh.

I won’t blame you if you bury your head now.

On the bright side, we Habs fans could always aspire to be like the 2006 Oilers, who pushed the Hurricanes to the absolute brink of game 7 in the Cup Finals, and maybe they would have won it if they hadn’t lost Dwayne Roloson for the deciding game.

Looking back at the NHL since it’s major realignment in 98-99, 10 out of 12 Cup winners (83%) won their division (and thus had home ice). Even 6 of the 12 losers had won their division. Indeed, it appears as though the path to winning the Cup goes through winning your division. Perhaps this is why I’m so disappointed in the Canadiens. My simplistic brain told me that a team that finished the 2010-11 season with 96 points would improve upon that total with a full season of Max Pacioretty, the addition of Erik Cole and a healthy Josh Gorges (with Markov yet to show up). Silly me!

So if you see me on twitter, or read this blog and find that I’m too critical, or “glass half empty”, you now see the reason why. While I love the players on the team, and want them to succeed, I believe in precedent, in historical records and in trends. We make all kinds of excuses why the Canadiens didn’t beat the Islanders last week, why they get stymied time after time by a “hot goalie”, and why it’s ok for them to be where they are (“just wait until everyone is back!” – don’t talk to me about injuries. Habs fans have done a terrific job of pretending that they’re the only team with guys out of the lineup). The hard truth is that the mantra of “you never know” is pretty much rubbish, and the above facts prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t root for the Habs with everything I’ve got, because I do and I always will. But I’m also not blind to reality. When it comes to sneaking in to the playoffs, all you’ve done is given yourself a tiny chance to win the Cup. Is that enough for you? For me, it’s not.

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