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Random Friday Musings – May 4th

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Another work week is just about in the books, and as is usually the case, the sports world has given us plenty to talk about. Here’s some brief thoughts on what’s gone on, starting with…

Marc Bergevin as Habs GM. Without knowing the guy, or much about his body of work, I really like the hire. He comes from a winning organization and was an integral part of transforming it from a laughing stock to a recent Cup winner. Here’s hoping that he brought a lot of knowledge with him so that he can do the same in Montreal. He has oh so much work to do, and not a lot of time to do it in. Read more on what I think he has on his task list here. Did the Habs get the best man for the job, regardless of politics? Hard to say, but given the realities (self-imposed realities or not) of the Montreal market, you’d be hard-pressed to find anybody who doesn’t like the hiring. He made a terrific first impression at his press conference, and seems to be the opposite of the life-sucking Pierre Gauthier, which already is an improvement.

L.A. Kings roll. Raise your hand if you thought the Kings would not only beat the President’s Trophy winning Canucks, but be on the verge of sweeping the third overall St. Louis Blues, the league’s best defensive team. What the Kings are doing is nothing short of remarkable. Of course, any team with Mike Richards, Anze Kopitar, Jeff Carter, Drew Doughty, Jonathan Quick, and Dustin Brown should never be written off, but it’s the lesser known role players who are chipping in at key times, which is critical in the playoffs. Are they a team of destiny? They are poised to dump the Kings, and whoever advances between Nashville and Phoenix is going to have their hands full. Let’s look ahead to a future that sees the Kings knocking off the Rangers in the Cup finals. It would be the most remarkable Cup win in history (or one of the most remarkable). Who else could boast knocking off the top 3 teams in the league during the regular season? That said, the last 15 consecutive Cup winners started the playoffs with home ice advantage, so the smart money is still on any of the remaining 1-4 seeds.

Shame on Radulov, Kostitsyn. No, I’m not going to play the “they’re Russian / Belarussian, what did you expect?” card. That’s nonsense and if you subscribe to that theory, kindly take the down the Don Cherry poster that is hanging from the ceiling above your bed. Still, these two offensive talents were brought in to add scoring punch to a lineup that has everything else. That they decided to break curfew in order to stay out drinking – on the eve of a playoff game – is a supremely arrogant and selfish act. It shows disrespect to the team and organization that put their faith in them at the most critical time, and it’s a slap in the face to teammates who would probably also to prefer to be out having a good time, but put the team first by adhering to the team curfew. The Predators are equipped to go all the way, and now these two selfish turds have put their coach and GM in a really tough spot. They won game 3 handily without Radulov and Kostitsyn, and the popular refrain is that you do not alter a winning lineup in the playoffs. Another loss will push the Preds to the brink and at that point you’ll see both back in action. But it would likely be too late. Depending on your point of view, Coach Barry Trotz has an easy call in front of him – let them sit in the press box. Should the Preds lose tonight, however, there will be no shortage of people who say the punishment extended beyond it’s original definition, and that Trotz hurt the team. In the end, the blame falls squarely on two players (one of whom I defended quite vehemently) who put their Coach in a position he should never have to be in come playoff time. Here’s hoping they both land in the KHL next season, which is where their selfish actions will likely land them anyway.

Unfitting end of a great career? I’m no Yankees fan, but when I heard that Mariano Rivera, hands-down the greatest closer to ever play the game blew out his knee, I was really sad. I can’t think of a more unfitting and unfair end to a stellar career than shagging fly balls in Kansas City. Yet another reason to loathe the perpetual machine of failure called the Royals. Could he not have done it falling awkwardly off the mound instead? At 42 years old, it’s hard to imagine Rivera will want to put in the hard work required to rehab a shredded knee, just to play another season. He was already contemplating retirement after this year and this injury may have forced his hand. It’s a pity. He deserved to go out to a chorus of cheers at Yankee Stadium, in the post-season after striking out some hapless, knee-buckled chap with his devastating cutter pitch. That likely won’t happen now, and baseball is the biggest loser for it.

Powerless Pujols. The last time Albert Pujols went this long without hitting a home run, he was in his mother’s womb. I don’t think I’d be concerned if I was an Angels fan – yet. He’s still this era’s most feared hitter and it’s just a matter of time before he finds his stroke. He’s only hitting .204, which is way, way, way below his standard of excellence but again, this guy is a beast and will get it back. He’s patient, poised, has a great eye, a terrific swing and has been as consistent as it gets. If he doesn’t get it back, the Angels will have another 9 years to figure out what to do with him, and it would be an even more mysterious drop in an elite level athlete than Tiger Woods’ own collapse. With the Angels scuffling at the bottom of the AL West, the pressure will continue to mount on Pujols as his power outage drags on. But if there’s one guy who can weather this and then carry a team on his back, it’s Pujols. Hey, at least he hasn’t made an error yet, right?

Junior Seau’s suicide. Not much is sadder in sports than learning about the death of one of the greats. Usually we hear about them passing away at a ripe old age after living a full life, but in recent years it seems that players from hockey and especially football are dropping like flies – by their own hand. That’s even more tragic. The connection between head trauma caused by contact, punches, collisions leading to eventual depression and finally suicide is going to be mentioned again and again, and while leagues try to cover their butts, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that they are facing a serious issue that they need to get to the bottom of. Because if they don’t do it by voluntarily, there’s a little thing called the government that will make them do it, and then we’ll be really unhappy. The NFL already has a boatload of lawsuits against them to deal with. There will be more. Many more. They can’t avoid this forever, and the NHL would be wise to get out in front of this issue instead of trying to preserve what seems to be rotten.

It’s Your Fault

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If there’s one topic and player that has been flogged harder than Scott Gomez in the past 2 seasons, it has to be Andrei Kostitsyn.

Since being drafted 10th overall at the 2003 draft, he has consistently done one thing: fail to live up to expectations.

Guess what? It’s your fault.

He’s been assigned labels like “heartless”, “lazy”, “inconsistent”, “soft” and “replaceable”. Seriously, guys?

I guess you’ve been duped in to thinking that 20 goal / 100 hit guys grow on trees, or that Kostitsyn is somehow overpaid for what he brings. “Heartless” and “lazy” are off-base monikers that are totally subjective, and I suspect more often than not are derogatory adjectives given to Eastern European players by “lazy” fans and media who can’t be bothered to actually “do the research” before passing judgement on him.

Inconsistent
Let’s tackle this one: Since 2007-08, Kostitsyn’s points-per-game average has been: .68ppg (07-08), .55ppg (08-09), .56ppg (09-10), .55ppg (10-11), .51ppg (11-12). While this year represents a low, we should also note that he is no longer getting prime ice time, and rarely gets power play time (1:48 of powerplay time per game, 8th on the team). If Kostitsyn plays 70 games, he scores 20 goals and will throw 100 hits on a team that has been forever labeled small and weak. Talk about shouldering the burden.

Soft
Another misnomer for AK46. Over the course of the past 5 seasons, Kostitsyn has ranked no lower than 5th among forwards in terms of hits thrown, and anyone watching knows that Andrei Kostitsyn can throw his weight around as well as anyone. In fact, Kostitsyn led the team in hits last season with 140, and was 3rd in 09-10 despite missing 20+ games. This season, AK46 is second in hits behind Erik Cole with 75 hits in 47 games. Kostitsyn has played 10 fewer games than Cole, who will not keep up this year’s pace as he ages.

Replaceable
Habs fans have been clamoring for Kostitsyn’s ouster from Montreal for years now, mostly because he hasn’t pleased those who think he’s a 35 goal man with a 20 goal man’s drive. With the NHL average salary about to creep closer to 3 million dollars, I’d hate to think that there are people out there dumb enough to think that his 3.25 million dollar salary is some kind of overpayment for his services. I defy you to find another player on the open market that is a lock for 20 goals, 40pts and 100 hits for what will be slightly more than the league average next season. If the Habs look to replace his production and presence on the free agent market, they’ll have to badly overpay in terms of annual salary and term. The Habs would be smart to re-sign Kostitsyn while he’s still willing…if he’s still willing. And don’t talk to me about in-house replacements. The Canadiens have nobody – N-O-B-O-D-Y in the organization that is close to being able to produce the way Kostitsyn does. Not Louis Leblanc, not Mike Blunden, not Aaron Palushaj, not Brendan Gallagher.

While Kostitsyn was drafted behind all-stars like Perry, Getzlaf, Richards, Kesler, Parise and Carter, fans simply need to stop being so unbelievably and absolutely thick-skulled about Kostitsyn. Adjust your expectations already! Andrei Kostitsyn brings stability, skill and a sorely needed physical presence to the Canadiens lineup. If he was given steady linemates and given a role that suits his best skill (that of a sniper), maybe he’d be closer to the guy everyone thinks he ought to be. But until then, the Canadiens have a reliable, home-grown player that comes at excellent value. Apparently that isn’t enough, though. That damn 10th overall tag just won stop dogging him. Stubborn fans and media won’t let it go away. Apparently fans want to see assets mismanaged to the point where the next guy that is brought in to replace him is paid 30% more, while he inevitably eventually becomes somebody fans want traded for a bag of used mouth guards.

Andrei Kostitsyn as a failure? Hardly. It’s your fault for letting your imagination continually run wild. Is he a perfect player, and a perfect little boy scout? No, he isn’t, and he has hit slumps, sometimes for long stretches. Which player hasn’t? Stop comparing him to others in his draft class. We can play this game all day, and you’re sounding like a broken record. To boot, we can sing the Habs praises for drafting Pacioretty and Subban before other teams snatched them up, unless you would have preferred Riley Nash, Angelo Esposito, Logan MacMillan, Jakub Voracek, or Zach Hamill. If you’re going to remain in the camp that insists Kostitsyn is a drag on the team, at least be armed with a good reason other than “I watch the games and he’s poopy and he was drafted before Corey Perry and I hate him and he’s a bum”.

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.

He’s Lying to You – Part 2

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If you hit up an online sportsbook like http://topbet.com/sportsbook/, you’d have found good odds on whether or not I’d follow up my last post with a sequel. With so much material to write about, you could have taken it to the bank!

During the post-game press conference following the Habs 3-2 shootout loss to the Sabres on Monday night, Head Coach Jacques Martin added to his ever-growing pile of perplexing, curious and false statements carefully designed to deflect pointed questions, avoid damning himself and erect trickster smokescreens. I’m not sure when he’s going to stop insulting the intelligence of the fans and media with his ridiculous answers, but it’s clear from the audacity of some of his replies that he’s running out of tricks.

In a game where the Canadiens dictated the pace and tone through 40 minutes, something changed during the second intermission. In easing back on the accelerator, the Canadiens let the upstart Sabres back in the game. Whether the players were instructed to play it safe or if the players did it themselves out of instinct, lack of confidence or fear of winning, when asked for the reasons behind the Canadiens collapse, Martin offered up the following:

“…a lot of youth on the backend, and they took advantage”.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before. With P.K. Subban, Yannick Weber, Alexei Emelin and Raphael Diaz patrolling the blue line, there certainly were many young kids trying to hold the fort. But is it right to blame them for the loss? A team that has ZERO shots on goal in the third period through 14 minutes sounds like a team that isn’t intent on doing the same things that made them successful through the first 40 minutes – and that includes much more than a handful of young defencemen who played their hearts out. Since taking over as Coach in 2009, Jacques Martin has proven nothing if not that he strongly favours his veterans and only leans on young players if he has no other choice. How else do you explain his overuse of Mathieu Darche on the powerplay? Or Travis Moen on top scoring lines? Or bypassing Lars Eller at nearly every turn despite his rapid improvement? Or benching a slumping Andrei Kostitsyn? Last season, P.K. Subban didn’t rise to prominence until both Markov and Gorges were lost, leaving Martin with no other choice but to play the high-risk/high-reward Subban for 20+ minutes per night.

So are the young defencemen truly to blame, as the Coach would have us believe, or is Martin taking the easy, predictable path of least resistance? After all, if he starts shining the light of blame on his veterans, he can kiss his locker room support – and eventually his job – goodbye. It’s the last bastion of a Coach who can’t adapt, adjust to an evolving game, or make the best use of available resources. Whether it’s strategy or tactics, he simply marinates in old school game plans, then wraps himself in the kevlar vest that is the happiness of veterans while cursing the youth at every turn.

As I listened to Martin drive over his young rearguards and then back over them again, I  thought back to the past two seasons. Oddly, I don’t remember him ever publicly smacking his veterans for their questionable-at-times play. So I took a look at the numbers, and admittedly it’s difficult to try and quantify poor defence. But if we look at turnovers/giveaways under the Jacques Martin reign, we’ll see some eye-popping numbers. No, turnovers aren’t the be-all-end-all metric, but they’re a good starting point. If we can agree that turnovers are a barometer of a player without an idea of what to do with the puck, a player in a panic, a player without poise and without the benefit of experience, then surely veterans must be the opposite, and the numbers will reflect that, right?

Let’s start with this current 2011-12 season. The Canadiens are currently 4th overall in the league in giveaways – that’s 4th most, not 4th least. At first glance you’ll say “AHA! You see, with some many young defencemen, it’s no wonder they’re 4th overall!” Ok, but keep reading. Among the defencemen, it should shock nobody that Subban leads the pack. He’s committed the 6th most turnovers in the entire league, with 17. It’s no surprise that Subban has struggled this year, mightily at times and was guilty of the turnover that led to the Sabres tying goal on Monday night. We’ll concede this to Coach Martin. Right on Subban’s heels is Hal Gill, coming in at 11th place with 16 turnovers, followed by Yannick Weber (31st with14), Josh Gorges (50th with 12) and Raphael Diaz (115th with 9). For their parts, Emelin and Spacek were way down the list, so we’ll let them off the hook. But overall it’s a pretty fair mix of vets and young players, wouldn’t you say? But no, in Martin’s mind it’s easier to only single out the under-25 set. You’ll tell me that Gill didn’t play, and Spacek left Monday’s Buffalo game early. True, but take a look – Gill is still near the top of the leaderboard even if he hasn’t played every game. Hal Gill of 1000+ games played! (Disclaimer: I really like Hal Gill; he can play on my team as long as he wants; his good outweighs the bad).

In Martin’s first season as Habs Coach, the Canadiens committed 910 turnovers, good for 2nd most in the entire league. Leading the group? Roman Hamrlik (3rd in the NHL with 86), Jaroslav Spacek (4th in the NHL with 81), and Hal Gill (8th in the NHL with 76). Well that’s weird. Weren’t those players all in their mid-thirties at the time, with the benefit of experience that thousands of games under their collective belts provides? 2 of the top 5 in the league? 3 of the top 10? Funny, I don’t recall Coach Martin ever blaming his veterans for the team’s defensive woes back then, do you?

Last season in 2010-2011, the Canadiens had a marked improvement. They finished the year with 738 turnovers, still good for a lousy 7th in the NHL. It’s pretty sad when a 7th place finish is seen as a big improvement. Leading the pack? James Wisniewski (23rd with 67, with Isles and Habs), Hal Gill (30th with 62 giveaways),  Subban (49th with 56 and who was a rookie playing the role of a #1 defenceman), Jaroslav Spacek (54th with 55) and Roman Hamrlik (62nd with 53). So while there was a significant improvement, and nobody was even in the top 20, as a team the Canadiens were still guilty of far too many turnovers, and it was largely the veterans who were at fault. Still, we never heard Martin come down on them.

I’ve intentionally left the forwards out of the mix, but rest assured that veterans like Plekanec, Cammalleri and Gomez have all been guilty of many, many turnovers in the past 2+ seasons. Seasoned veterans, all three of them, and they all are among the team leaders in coughing up the puck.

If you’re still with me, I thank you for sticking around. It can be challenging to slog through so many stats and it can be even harder to make sense of them. If you leave this page with any sort of takeaway, it’s this:

  • Experienced defencemen are vitally important, but it’s lazy to always blame young rearguards simply because the Coach says so, or because they make the easiest, most convenient target. The numbers show, at least in part, that in the Jacques Martin era, veterans are just as likely as young defencemen to make egregious turnovers. Regardless of who’s in the lineup (old or young) this team coughs the puck up with regularity.

Instead of pointing the finger of blame at the young blue line, perhaps Martin should be made to explain why his team constantly eases off in third periods? If they maintained an aggressive forecheck, and truly were a puck possession team as he claims they are, then the puck would spend more time in the offensive zone and the “culpable kids” would have less burden on their shoulders, no? We know he said that it’s not the plan to back off, but as I pointed out in part 1, he’s either full of it, or he has incompetent players, and I’m certain it’s not the latter.

With a litany of preposterous answers on the record, Jacques Martin is steadily painting himself in to a corner. The answers all dovetail nicely with his most preposterous claim of all – that the Canadiens are in fact a puck-possession team. How can that possibly be true when his team:

  • Gives away the puck more often than the average team?
  • Is perennially close to the bottom of the league in goals for?
  • Has been in the bottom third of the league in minor penalties for the past 2+ seasons?

Is there something that the Wizard of Oz is keeping secret from us lowly, uneducated fans and bloggers? If it hasn’t become obvious already, this team is often an unfocused, confused group under the watch of Jacques Martin. Getting by with miraculous goaltending is not a sustainable plan for winning.

I’m not saying that the Habs’ young defencemen are perfect or that any of them are going to earn a Norris nomination any time soon. But it’s not asking too much for Martin to show a little even-handedness when doling out accountability through the media. If, as some suggest, falling back to protect a lead is a sign of a team without confidence or experience, then it would behoove the coach to stop throwing the kids to the wolves. The last time I looked, young players not only comprise the majority of his defensive corps right now, but more than anything they need encouragement and mentoring. Not the goat horns.

He’s Lying to You

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I really feel like I could spin the title of this post – “He’s Lying to You” in to a series of posts, and I may just do that. But for now, let’s kick this one around.

“The plan was not to sit back at all. The best defense is offense.” — Jacques Martin

Martin has tried to sell us many good yarns this year, but this one is really a shocker coming from the King of Passive hockey. But if we are to believe what the Coach said in the aftermath of a game blown to the Buffalo Sabres last night, then certainly he must have recent memories and statistical evidence track record that speaks to that belief, right?

Let’s take a look and see what the Coach may be talking about.

In 2009-10, his first season in Montreal, the Canadiens scored 217 goals. That was good for 10th overall in the Eastern Conference, 23rd overall in the NHL and the 2nd lowest of any Eastern playoff team. I know, I know. The Canadiens went to the Eastern Conference Finals, so stuff it, right? Blah blah blah. Spare me your circular logic. As I’ve said before, we know how the Canadiens got to the Eastern Conference Finals and it had little to do with a spectacular offense.

In 2010-11, his second season in Montreal, the Canadiens actually slipped to 216 goals, good for 12th in the Eastern Conference, 24th overall in the NHL and the LOWEST of any Eastern Conference playoff team. I can hear the homers already: “But they took the eventual champs to overtime in game 7…and the injuries…..THE INJURIES! ARGH!!!!”. Where’s the snooze button, because I’m going to push it. Hard. There are no moral victories in the playoffs, and there were plenty of other teams that had more injuries than the Habs last season. In fact, the Canadiens were pretty much right in the middle of the pack in terms of man games lost to injury.

This season, the Canadiens have scored 42 goals through 17 games. That’s 2.47 goals per game on average, and projects out to 203 goals for the season. So if the Coach think that a best defense is a good offense, his team is going in the wrong direction, and has been going in the wrong direction for what is now a 3rd consecutive season. The addition of Erik Cole, a full season of Max Pacioretty and a bounce back season for some vets were supposed to set the stage of a more potent offense, was it not? Aside from Markov, who has been a gigantic question mark for many months now, the team has been relatively healthy. Cammalleri and Kostitsyn have missed a few games apiece, but certainly not enough to be the sole reason for the Habs’ continued inability to score goals.

Going back to what the Coach said: “The plan was not to sit back at all. The best defense is offense.”…how exactly does the Coach practice what he preaches? As the moribund powerplay continues to circle the drain, the Coach still affords Mathieu Darche precious minutes while other more talented, more deserving players sit and watch from the bench. Does having Tomas Plekanec on the point help or hurt? Does the Coach get his team to continually push the pace? Does he encourage and motivate them to play the same way that put them in a position to have a 2-goal lead to begin with? Or rather does he stand pat while his passive 1-2-2 system kills any offensive momentum his team may have had? If he in fact does not preach sitting back to protect a lead, then why does he continue to let it happen? It’s his job to change his players’ habits, is it not? If the players come out and talk about how they sat back, yet the Coach says that wasn’t the plan, then where’s the disconnect from the Coach to the players? Are the players stubborn? Incompetent? Is the Coach’s message not getting through? Is it not properly delivered? No matter, getting the best from his team and ensuring that his message is getting through is HIS job.

We’ve taken a look at some of the things we can see with our own eyes, but now let’s delve a little deeper in to some stats to try and help paint a clearer picture.
The Canadiens have 14 third period goals this season, which puts them in a logjam with the likes of Phoenix, Columbus, Nashville, Winnipeg and Detroit for 21st in the NHL. Red Wings aside, those aren’t the teams I think of when I think of “offense” and pushing the pace. Until last night, the Canadiens were actually 5-0 when leading after two periods, so a 5-0-1 record this morning should not be the end of the world, and truly it isn’t. The record and team are not on trial here. But that 5-0-1 record still only places them 18th overall in the league when leading after two periods. Since a near-perfect record ranks them a mediocre 18th, it can only mean that more than half of the teams in the league have had more leads to protect after two periods than the Habs, which speaks to the Habs overall inability to score at any point in the game. But the Habs ranking of 21st in the NHL in 3rd period goals means two thirds of the league still manages to score more goals in the final frame. When you put these seemingly disparate pieces of information together, it tells me that the Canadiens don’t push the pace in the third period, whether they are leading or trailing (Habs remain winless when trailing after two periods with an 0-6-2 record) and do in fact sit on leads going in to the third period when they have a lead to protect.

The final analysis says that if Jacques Martin believes that the best defense is a good offense, he does almost nothing to prove it. Is the Coach simply stating what he believes, but is unable to implement? Or is he trying to make us believe (similar to him telling us that young defensemen are to blame, or that his team plays puck possession hockey) what he wants us to believe? Given his track record, we know he’ll probably throw his friend and boss, General Manager Pierre Gauthier to the wolves for failing to provide enough talent. Hmm, that is curious, isn’t it? Tomas Plekanec, Michael Cammalleri, Brian Gionta, Max Pacioretty, Lars Eller, David Desharnais, Erik Cole, Andrei Kostitsyn, PK Subban, Yannick Weber, Raphael Diaz…does that sound like a talentless roster to you? Is that a list of names that evokes “can’t score goals” to you? It’s not to me.

2011-12 Habs Milestone Tracker

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As we bake in the hot summer sun, incubating our collective yearning for the return of the hockey season (note: I’m just fine with summer sticking around a good while longer), there is once again no shortage of milestones within reach for most of the players who will don the bleu, blanc et rouge this season. Some will be absolute lay-ups, some will depend on performance, and most will depend on the ultimate of bugaboos: health.

Let’s get the young players out of the way first, since by simply showing up they’ll reach certain low-hanging fruits:

Carey Price: he who just celebrated his 24th birthday will undoubtedly pick up his 100th win of his young career, as he’s only 2 wins shy of that mark today. He may even have that milestone locked up by the end of the first weekend of action. If Price has a season similar to last year, he’ll also have a decent shot at his 20th career shutout. That puts him about 100 behind Martin Brodeur, who hasn’t retired yet, but who’s counting?

Andrei Kostitsyn: If fans want to continue to talk about “potential” with this lad, I’m going to continue putting him in the younguns group. When you take a look at the milestones that are within AK46′s reach this year (in a Habs jersey or not), you can kinda see where fans are feeling impatient with him. He’ll play his 400th career game as the playoff push reaches its peak, but he’ll almost certainly hit 100 career goals, and 100 career assists (and thus 200 career points) well before that. Doesn’t it feel like he has – or should have – scored 100 career goals already?

P.K. Subban: He’ll play his 100th game as the season creeps past the 1/4 pole, and if he avoids the dreaded “Sophomore Jinx” and turns in a Norris candidate season (yes, I know that’s a bit of a reach), he’ll threaten to break 100 career points. If that happens, General Manager Gauthier better grow some long arms because he’ll have to reach deep in to his pockets to keep Subban happy.

Max Pacioretty: Following near decapitation, it will be interesting to see if the Habs young scorer can pick up where he left off last season. An exceptionally healthy and productive 2011-2012 campaign will see Pacioretty breach 200 career games, while threatening the 50 career goals mark as well as the 100 career points plateau.

David Desharnais, Lars Eller, Ryan White and Yannick Weber will all break the “100 career games” barrier. Significant statistical milestones are still way down the road for these four. Establishing themselves as full-time NHLers remains job #1 for them, and they’ll all undoubtedly reach that status this season.

Alexei Emelin, Raphael Diaz and other assorted young hopefuls and farmhands will crack an NHL roster for the first time this year. Hey, you gotta start somewhere.

As for the veterans on the team, the milestones are as beefy as their paychecks.

Perhaps the most significant of all of reachable milestones for this Habs bunch will take place (barring injury of course) on October 20th in Pittsburgh, where he won a Stanley Cup ring. Hal Gill will play his 1000th career game. Not bad for a guy who has been the butt of many, many “slow as molasses” jokes for his entire career. He must be doing something right to have stuck around this long, and 1000 games is a LONG time.

Not far behind is Jaroslav Spacek, his 66th match will be the 900th of his successful career.

If his past two seasons are any indication, then these upcoming milestones may have to wait a while longer. But let’s be positive and believe that the worst is behind for
Andrei Markov, who will have to be remarkably healthy if he wants to play his 700th career game. If he hasn’t lost any of his tremendous skill, then he may also flirt with (but probably not reach) his 100th career goal (he sits at 81). He will, however, probably notch his 300th career assist and 400th career point; he only needs 15 and 34 respectively to reach those benchmarks.

Is this season the last in a Habs uniform for Josh Gorges? I sure as hell hope not. He  just celebrated a birthday (his 27th) and will be entering the prime of his career. For a kid who was signed as an undrafted free agent, Gorges has since gone on to play in 364 NHL games. His 36th game of the upcoming season will be his 400th. Not to shabby at all. If you want to consider 10 career goals for a typical stay-at-home defenseman in the middle of his career as as a milestone, then more power to you, as that’s what Gorges is looking at this season. 10 career goals? Eat your heart out, P.J. Stock.

Mike Cammalleri: the proud new father may have other things on his mind right now, but he has a handful of meaningful milestones on the horizon: His 4th game of the year will be  number 500 for his career. His 23rd goal will be his 200th, while his 16th point will be his 400th.

Brian Gionta: even if the Captain plays in every regular season game, he will fall just shy of playing his 700th career game. Gionta will never be confused with Adam Oates, Craig Janney, and other skilled set up men, but his 5th assist of the season will be the 200th of his career, to go along with his 209 career goals.

Scott Gomez: Spacek won’t be the only member of the team to hit 900 career games played. In what everyone, Gomez especially, hopes is a big bounce-back year, he’s also in line to rack up his 700th career point. He only needs to post 25 points to get there, but let’s hope he can get there sooner than later.

Tomas Plekanec: Mr. Everything for the Habs is quietly racking up some impressive longevity numbers. His 30th game of the year will be his 500th career game played, and his 14th assist will be the 200th of his career. Fun game: will Plekanec pick up 14 assists for 200 before Gionta picks up 5 for 200 on his career?

Erik Cole: the Habs prized off-season acquisition will have to prove that he can be durable for more than one full season if he wants to play in his 700th career game. He currently sits at 620 and will have to play in all but 2 regular season games to reach this milestone. Also within reach for Cole is his 200th career goal (16 goals shy), and his 400th point (10 points shy).

Travis Moen: The ultimate plumber has shown he has staying power, as evidenced by his 522 career games; each one of them played in a punishing, rugged style that takes a toll not only on opponents, but on the player himself. He’s been remarkably healthy during the course of his hard-fought career and if he plays in 78 games, that’ll be good enough to put him up to 600 for his career. His 7th goal of the year, should he get there, will represent his 50th career goal, while his 2nd assist will also put him up to 50 for his career. All told, his 9th point will put him in to triple digits for his career.

Mathieu Darche: The man is all guts and courage, and he’s fought hard to play in each one of his 189 career games spanning 11 years and 5 NHL teams. His 11th game of the year will put him at the 200 games played level; not so impressive for players with “pedigree”, but for this blogger, I can’t think of a sweeter milestone reached for any member of the team this year. He’s well deserving of his new contract, and should have the admiration of all hockey fans.

Peter Budaj: Let’s hope he’s a patient guy. There’s really not a lot for Price’s new backup to look forward to. His 100th loss (currently at 91) and 10th career shutout (currently at 9) are within reach. Let’s just say that if he does hit 100 career losses, his season will be a spectacular failure, or it means that Price gets hurt and Budaj is pressed in to more action than any of us bargained or hoped for.

While the season is still over a month away, and while changes to the roster may still take place, it always helps to stoke the fires of enthusiasm by looking ahead to what the year may hold in store for us and for the Habs. Needless to say, if the majority of the above listed milestones can be hit, the Habs can look forward to a very strong season.

Which milestone do you see as the most important? I look at the potential milestones within reach for Markov, Pacioretty and Cole as important beacons. If those 3 players can remain on the ice, the numbers should follow, and that’s a great omen for fans.

Habs Roster Update – June 22

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With the draft just a couple days away, and with free agency just over a week away, I thought now would be a good time to take a good look at the Habs roster and see where there may be space left for General Manager Gauthier to tinker a little more.

I’ll include each player’s cap hit, and make a couple assumptions, namely that Markov will sign for a 5.75M cap hit, that Gorges will also be back, at an undetermined cap hit, and that Mathieu Darche will occupy a full-time 4th line role, as opposed to being a part-timer.

From there, we’ll have a solid idea of where Gauthier will be able to spend – assuming there’s place left on the roster.

Forwards

1st line: Tomas Plekanec (5M cap hit), Mike Cammalleri (6M cap hit), winger to be named later. 1st line cap hit today: 11M

2nd line: Scott Gomez (7.357 cap hit), Brian Gionta (5M cap hit), Max Pacioretty (1.625 cap hit). 2nd line cap hit today: 13.982M

3rd line: Lars Eller (1.27M cap hit), Travis Moen (1.5M cap hit), Andrei Kostitsyn (3.25M cap hit). 3rd line cap hit today: 6.021M

4th line: David Desharnais (.75M cap hit), Mathieu Darche (.7M cap hit), winger to be named later (likely Ryan White- cap hit TBD). 4th line cap hit today: 1.45M

Total for 10 forwards: 32.453M

Defensemen

1st pair: Andrei Markov (5.75 cap hit), Josh Gorges (cap hit TBD). 1st pair cap hit today: 5.75M

2nd pair: Hal Gill (2.25M cap hit), P.K. Subban (.875 cap hit). 2nd pair cap hit today: 3.125M

3rd pair: Alexei Emelin (.984M cap hit), Jaroslav Spacek (3.83M cap hit). 3rd pair cap hit today: 4.814M

Total for 5 defensemen: 13.689M

Goaltending:

Carey Price (2.75M cap hit) Backup TBD.

Total for 1 goaltender: 2.75M.

Buyouts: .5M (Laraque)

Final Tally:

The Canadiens have currently spent, to the best of my knowledge $49.392 million on 10 forwards, 5 defensemen, and 1 goaltender. This leaves 14.608M for a top line winger, a 4th line winger (White), and 2 press box attendees. On defense, they have to account for Gorges, and Weber (or another 7th defenseman). Finally, a backup goalie would be required to fill out the 23 man roster.

While 14 million sounds like a lot, consider that Gorges will take at least 3.5 million of that. White will eat up .75M. 7th defensemen and press box forwards also come cheap; let’s account 3 million for those 3 guys on the generous end. That’s another 7.25 eaten up, leaving 7.36M for a top line winger, as well as some buffer space for injury call ups and perhaps an addition or two at the trade deadline.

We’ll see how things play out, but it’s clear that Gauthier has a bit of cash to play with, provided the Habs are going to be a cap team again this year.

What are your thoughts on the current roster and the remaining cap space?

Jagr to Habs? Just say NO.

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There’s never a dull moment in Montreal when it comes to the Habs, even when the 2010-2011 edition is firmly entrenched in a summer dirt nap. We have a constant stream of stories to dissect and flog to death, and this off-season is no exception.

Pierre Gauthier has presented with an opportunity that would make John Ferguson, Jr. drool with envy: the chance to sign an over-the-hill mercenary. Given the credentials of this particular mercenary, I’d consider it if he wanted to come for REAL cheap, for one year, and as a third liner/power play specialist but I don’t think this mercenary is down with any of that. In any scenario, Jaromir Jagr probably wants a multi-year deal, and clearly would only sign after being promised significant ice time with a given team’s top offensive talent.

We can concoct any number of reasons as to why it would or wouldn’t work in Montreal, but one fact that I personally can’t ignore is the sincerity of a guy who’s doing his negotiating and leveraging through the media. Giving a potential short list of NHL teams he’d be willing to play for (NYR, PIT, MTL) just smacks of putting a bunch of male betta fish together in the same bowl and seeing who comes out on top. And by on top, I of course mean reaching deeper in to his pockets. Jagr is trying to play teams against one another, if not leagues against one another. Frankly I don’t think he wants to play in the NHL at all where he will surely get less money and less playing time than he would get in the KHL. The idea of a one last romp for the future hall of famer is cute and will have many fans dreaming of the flowing mullets of days gone by. Leave it in the past where it belongs; we can always look fondly back on pictures like this and romanticize about the phenomenal skills that Jagr brought to the rink.

As far as the player himself, circa 2011, I don’t think he has the legs, stamina or desire to compete as a 2-way forward in a Jacques Martin system. For the same reasons I don’t think Kovalev and Martin would have worked, I don’t think Jagr would work, either. It’s just that cut & dry for me.

But I’m willing to look at the other side with an open mind and see how and where Jagr would fit. Assuming for a second that Habs GM Pierre Gauthier pulled the trigger on the former NHL superstar, how would this affect the roster? Well for starters, it would likely mean that given their chemistry, Jagr would be paired with Plekanec at center, and Cammalleri on the opposite wing. This bounces Max Pacioretty or Andrei Kostitsyn down to the line featuring Scott Gomez and Brian Gionta. Would YOU want either of those guys playing on the black hole that is Scott Gomez’ wing? Would you even want to take the chance that Gomez just had a bad year and will bounce back? Think long and hard about that one. The other option is to put Jagr with Gomez…but there isn’t enough bleach in the world to dissolve that horrifying vision from my head. The only scenario in which this could work is to pair Jagr with Lars Eller on the 3rd line. But then we come full circle to the argument that Jagr likely wouldn’t want third line ice time & duty. If Gomez struggles again in the first half of the season, Eller could very well supplant him as the team’s full time second line center, but then we arrive back in the situation where Jagr is back where he can no longer play – among the top 6 forwards.

You may have also noticed a missing name from that list: Andrei Kostitsyn. Now, I’m fairly certain that the majority of Habs fans would cut Kostitsyn loose at the drop of a hat. They would not lose a wink of sleep if he ended up elsewhere next season as many have had enough of his see-saw performances. But I believe that as a cost-controlled RFA, he’s in the Habs plans for 2011-12, and he will once again figure in to the top-6. His final 20 regular season games salvaged an otherwise subpar season, and his physical presence cannot be dismissed. In other words: something would have to give if Jagr were brought in…but what? Jacques Martin is not the most creative coach in the world, and I can’t see him meshing with a wild card like Jagr.

I believe that the Habs are closer to Cup contention than most people think. It’s not that outlandish a thought when you get right down to it. They have the goaltending. With Markov and Gorges back in the picture, they have the main ingredients on the blue line. Up front, they’ve got to add some grit and size with skill, but beyond that, this is a fairly complete team with as good a shot as anyone. With some health next year, a key trade deadline acquisition or two may be the final pieces…maybe at that point Jagr would work to shore up the power play, but then again, he’s such a big name you’ve got to wonder what his presence does to a locker room at that point of the season?

But to me the Habs biggest and most glaring problem is even strength scoring, and I really, really can’t see Jagr as the answer to that problem. The Habs were ranked 15th out of 16 among playoff teams this year. They ranked near the bottom of the 30-team NHL in terms of even-strength scoring. Jaromir Jagr still has hands and he still has some ability to produce offense. But in a defense-first Jacques Martin system, how would a guy who has never adhered to a “system” fit in?

In the end, bringing in Jagr is too much of a gamble. He’s another ill-fitting piece to a puzzle that doesn’t need what Jagr has. Jaromir Jagr is like a denver boot to the Habs lineup. Just say no.

Expectations

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It’s a word that we use often. Pierre McGuire constantly reminds us to “manage” them, but we often let them get away from us just the same. When we talk about individual players, coaches, teams and outcomes, we all have our own expectations for what the final analysis should read. Sometimes their fair, sometimes they’re more fantasy than reality-based.

I can’t recall a playoff series that has such a wide gamut of expectations on either side of the fence as this 33rd matchup between Montreal and Boston. Both sides expect (demand?) victory, and both sides have compelling cases as to why their side will come out on top.

No doubt Bruins fans, and indeed Bruins management expect their team to employ the ‘Big, Bad Bruins’ philosophy. It’s been their identity for decades, and it’s how they play the game. They’ll expect the belief of superior size, and skill, propelled by their two most recent home wins over Montreal, to grind the Habs in to a gooey tri-coloured paste. They’ll expect to break the Canadiens’ will through intimidation. The Bruins almost certainly expect to prove that their Northeast Division win wasn’t all for naught, and they want to do it with authority. Their Head Coach, Claude Julien expects that his team will carry their strong regular season in to the playoffs with their rough-and-tumble style, and escape the first round unscathed (no doubt he has to expect that, otherwise he can expect to be shown the door). General Manager Peter Chiarelli clearly expects big things, as he was the one pulling the trigger on significant trade deadline upgrades. He will have answering to do if the Bruins don’t go very deep in the playoffs.

The Bruins see this postseason as a prime chance to win it all for the first time since 1972. They’ve added Tomas Kaberle, Rich Peverley, and Chris Kelly for their playoff run…you don’t make those types of additions if you don’t think your window is wide open. These moves signaled the Bruins intentions and expectations, and they desperately want to capitalize before that window slams shut. The pressure is squarely and intensely on the Bruins to squash their pesky little foes and take another step in leveling the scales – which currently tip heavily in Montreal’s favour: 24 playoff series victories to the Bruins’ 8. Should the Bruins again fall to their bitter rivals (the Habs represent the ultimate bear trap) you can expect a lot of questions. You can expect a lot of anger. You can probably also expect some big changes.

The Bruins have elite goaltending, but I’m not sure what to expect of Tim Thomas, and I bet I’m not the only one. He’s a virtual lock for the Vézina trophy as the league’s best regular season goaltender, as he should be, but his numbers against the Habs are anything but impressive. Who will we see? The former and probable once-again Vézina winner, or the guy with bambi legs when facing the Habs?

Goaltending aside, there’s a lot of very good talent up front wearing black and gold. Bergeron, Horton, Krejci, Peverley, Ryder, Recchi, Marchand and Lucic are all terrific players in their own right. They’re a solid mix of power, skill, speed, and sharpshooting. Overall they lack playoff experience, but Dr. Recchi’s long career probably carries enough experience for everyone to share in. Defensively, however is where the Bruins are vulnerable. Outside of Chara, their defense is nothing to write home about. They’re not horrendous, but the quicker Habs forwards should be able to exploit that weakness – provided the Canadiens can get possession of the puck.

As for the Habs and their fans, last year’s improbable run deep in to the playoffs broke ground that nobody with the CH tatooed on their heart had seen since 1993 - a lifetime for fans spoiled by annual Cup parades. That run to the Eastern Conference Finals – for better or worse – sent the explicit message that simply making the playoffs is no longer enough. The happy news – if you can call it that – is that both the team and fanbase seem to be in lock-step with this belief. The team knows the bar has been raised, and the fans are all too happy to go along with that.

Recall that just one year ago, it was a pretty much a brand new Habs roster, with new coaching, new management and new ownership…how could they have done what they did considering all of the upheaval? It was mind-boggling to be sure, but fast forward to the present day, and the new car smell has worn off this Habs team. The Canadiens are now expected to replicate their results from last year – or at the very least not bow out in round one – not to the hated Bruins – and especially not after what Chara did to Max Pacioretty. It’s simply unacceptable to Montreal fans – no matter their conference rankings – that the Canadiens be eliminated by the Bruins. It’s the bitterest of pills. Fans of the Bruins will undoubtedly be upset should the Bruins fail, but most of them will quickly get behind the Celtics and Red Sox to soothe their pain (though the Sox may not be the ideal place to find solace right now). In Montreal, fans will gnash their teeth over a loss to the Bruins all summer long.

Getting a little more granular, Habs fans expect greatness from Carey Price, despite his less-than-stellar career playoff numbers. His playoff experience certainly is a mixed bag, but think back to Price’s rookie season and his performances in the first round against the Bruins – most notably his game seven performance. His 5-11 playoff record is underwhelming, but it overshadows some brilliant performances, and is skewed by the complete no-show the Habs put forth during the centennial collpase. After a terrific regular season, and with a solid record against Boston over the past 2 years there’s little reason to expect anything different from the Habs netminder. He will almost certainly be good, but he needs to be better than Tim Thomas if the Canadiens are to win this series. There will be defensive lapses all around him and he will have to continue to bail out his mates, as has done since October.

With the aforementioned centennial sweep at the hands of the Bruins a long faded (repressed?) memory, it should not factor in to anybody’s psyche in this series; the Habs roster reset of last season took care of that, even if the Bruins choose to use that sweep as a source of confidence. So what else do Habs fans expect? Certainly they expect the best players to perform like the best players, as they should. That means Plekanec, Gomez, Cammalleri and Gionta need to produce on the scoreboard, with no exceptions. If Plekanec can’t produce points on the road, if Gomez can’t salvage his disastrous season in the playoffs (where he usually excels), if Cammallieri goes stone cold again, and if Gionta is neutralized, the Habs are done like dinner. There cannot be any “yes, but X was good defensively” or “yeah but X played hurt” type of excuses if they fire blanks. Guys in their paygrade don’t earn several million dollars just to be defensively reliable; Jeff Halpern is. Mathieu Darche is. Tom Pyatt is. Also, at this stage, everyone has a nagging injury, so that excuse carries little water except for with apologists. This is the time of year when good players really earn the paychecks and make their names, so these four key cogs need to deliver on the scoreboard, end of story. It would be grossly unfair to the likes of Lars Eller, David Desharnais, Andrei Kostitsyn and Benoit Pouliot to expect them to carry the load offensively, and any production from Moen, Darche, Pyatt, Halpern, and White while certainly welcome, should be seen as found money. It can be argued that the Canadiens’ under-25 group is a prime reason why the Habs are in the playoffs, but it will have to be the highly paid veterans who lead the charge. Defensively, the group “is what it is”. They’re slow, old, not very tough and don’t move the puck particularly well. As they did in virtually each of the 82 games, the Canadiens will be caught running around their own zone in a frantic, disorganized mess from time to time. This is expected, and habitual with this team. Anyone surprised at that may need to be handed the smelling salts. While it’s unlikely for the defense to clean up its act now when they have even more miles on the tires, their veteran savvy may reveal a trick or two up their sleeve. Shot blocking is one thing; physicality, and quickly moving the puck with purpose are other animals entirely. By now you know which ones the Canadiens do well, and which ones they don’t. The questions is which of the things that they don’t do well can they mitigate the most?

We can expect Jacques Martin and his staff to be steady in their demeanor, even if it isn’t always deemed the ideal approach. Don’t expect any surprises. Don’t expect much emotion, or much reaction to anything. There will be canned coach-speak, and the common clichés. In this respect, the Habs coaching staff is as easy to set expectations for as it gets. If there’s one unfortunate expectation it’s that the coaching staff has been unable to stop the Canadiens from taking minor penalties through 82 games, and there’s not much reason to think they’ll find a way to stop it now…but any more bench minors for Too Many Men should be viewed as unacceptable. The Canadiens already spend too much time on the penalty kill and in their own end at even strength. There’s no need to make that problem worse by taking entirely preventable penalties. While the Habs usually do a good job of killing penalties, any time spent on the penalty kill is time wasted in the Bruins zone, and precious energy spent by the likes of Tomas Plekanec and Roman Hamrlik. On the flip side of the special teams battle, the Habs do a terrible job of drawing penalties. They’re not big enough to force opponents to take interference penalties, and they don’t play a style that allows their speed to force opponents to hook, hold, grab and trip with much frequency. In order for the Habs to get on the power play, they need to be antagonistic thorns in the Bruins’ side, and they need to avoid retaliating when they do raise the Bruins ire. They need to be that team that the Bruins constantly whine about. Getting under the Bruins’ skin and getting them off their game is paramount.

If the Canadiens are planning on applying pieces of last year’s playoff game plan to this year’s, it would be at best a risky gambit. While the Canadiens allowed offensive-minded players like Ovechkin, Semin, Crosby and Malkin to fire at will, once they faced the Flyers, who are a deeper, more evenly distributed team they were stopped dead in their tracks. This Bruins team more closely mirrors that fatal Flyers bunch in that there isn’t one or two players to shut down in order to win. Stop Ovechkin and Backstrom – you win. Stop Crosby and Malkin – you win. Stop Richards and Carter? Oops - what about Brière and Giroux? It’s tough to identify just a couple of Bruins to stop, because others are eminently capable of seamlessly filling the void; they’re like the Hydra that way. No doubt they’re a formidable group, and they’ll seek to overwhelm the slow-moving Habs defense. The Canadiens would love to block as many shots as they did last year, but it would be dangerous indeed to allow the Bruins free passage in the Habs zone as they did with the Capitals and Penguins.

At the end of this long-winded post, I’m expecting a simlarly long series that will go at least 6 games. I believe that whoever takes the first game will eventually win in 6 games…and I think Carey Price will steal game 1 in Boston.

Found: A Home for Two Wingers

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Prior to the start of the season, the Canadiens had several challenges in front of them. Among them:

  • Would Carey Price be able to handle the pressures of not only carrying a team on his shoulders, but force fans forget about playoff hero Jaroslav Halak?
  • Would the smallish Canadiens forwards be able to grind out another season and remain productive?
  • Would Andrei Markov be able to return to the lineup and give his team a badly needed shot of adrenaline?
  • How would an aging, eroding defense hold up?

Most of those questions have been answered by now, but there’s another question that everyone had on their mind: Would Andrei Kostitsyn and Benoit Pouliot be able to deliver the goods? With little cap flexibility and not many assets to wheel & deal, Pierre Gauthier knew, as did everyone else, that if the Canadiens scoring prayers were to be answered it would be because his two big, skilled wingers answered those prayers.

Through 65 games, their numbers aren’t all that impressive on the surface:

  • Andrei Kostitsyn – 16 goals, 20 assists in 64 games, with a +3 rating.
  • Benoit Pouliot – 13 goals, 13 assists in 62 games, with a +7 rating.

There’s a litany of excuses and exonerations for both, though both have earned their fair share of criticism. In the case of AK46, some of criticism snowballs to a big ball of hate while Pouliot’s criticism leans more towards resigned ambivalence. I’m not sure which is worse; at least the hate shows that people care and expect more.

As Jacques Martin shuffles lines, he seems to have stumbled on something that finally works. Kostitsyn is now riding shotgun with Lars Eller and Travis Moen, forming what is far and away the Canadiens biggest line. Kostitsyn and Eller seem to have chemistry together and have been feasting on favourable matchups as teams throw their top defenses out against the likes of Plekanec and Gomez (though why would anyone bother these days with Gomez?). Pouliot, for his part has been quietly effective with mini-mite David Desharnais. He’s still prone to moments of stupidity and still finds ways to disappear for prolonged periods, but he’s not the bambi-legged, fragile kid that he was when faced with superior opposition near the start of the season. Right now, Kostitsyn and to a lesser degree, Pouliot are finding their all-important comfort zones. Perhaps they won’t put up the numbers expected of players selected in the top-10 of an NHL draft; in fact, under a stifling Jacques Martin ‘defense-first’ system, it’s unlikely that their numbers will ever cause eyeballs to pop. But they do have the talent to totally overwhelm the bottom lines of opposing teams and provide the Canadiens the secondary scoring that they desperately need.

Taking a closer look, Kostitsyn had 10 points in 11 October games. Recently he’s posted 7 points in his past 5 games. Combining those 16 games, AK46 has 17 points. Pretty impressive I’d say. The other 48 games, sadly, aren’t as pretty, as he totaled just 7 goals and 12 assists. Interestingly, Habs scribe Arpon Basu revealed what I think is a telling stat. While Kostitsyn can be maddening from game to game, and week to week, as evidenced in the break down of this season, his overall numbers are astoundingly consistent from season to season: in each of the past 3 seasons, AK46 has posted remarkably similar numbers: 0.55, 0.56; 0.56 points per game.

Perhaps its time for us to recognize the pattern and see him for what he is and stop harping on him to become what we think he ought to be. Afterall, if we recall Einstein’s definition of insanity:

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

The temptation for Jacques Martin will be to put Kostitsyn back on the top line with Plekanec and Cammalleri, and that may eventually be the right move – especially come mid-April. But for now, Kostitsyn is back on the scoresheet with the consistency that Habs Nation has been longing for, and he deserves credit for riding out the very choppy waters to this point. He’s found solid footing with Eller and perhaps he’s found a good home on whichever line you consider it to be. The happy byproduct is that Lars Eller is thriving in an increased offensive role. It’s a huge win-win for the Habs. It would be a mistake in this blogger’s opinion to jerk Kostitsyn back to the “top” line now while he’s in the midst of his best hockey since October.

I would be remiss not to point out that something will eventually have to give, because Jeff Halpern, like Travis Moen, Mathieu Darche, Tom Pyatt and Ryan White before him- are not legit first line wingers. They can plug a hole, as Glen Metropolit did last season, but they aren’t permanent solutions. But while Kostitsyn is surging, don’t pull the rug out from under him. He’s proven to be a guy that doesn’t respond to the whip in a good way. He needs to gain confidence by putting the puck in the net, and its becoming clear that the best way for him to accomplish that is to lessen the pressures on him and let him beat up on weaker opposition.

Martin goofed at the start of November when he separated Kostitsyn from Plekanec in an attempt to spark the sea of despair that is Gomez’ wing. Coach Martin has received a huge amount of criticism for not adapting or learning from his mistakes. He’d be as insane as some fans if he repeated it again.

It’s fixed for now, Jacques, don’t break it.


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