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Benoît Pouliot: The Legacy of a Mistake

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Let’s go back to late summer 2006. A 19 year old local wonderkind had just lit up the NHL’s preseason by scoring nearly a goal per game. Finally! The hero that the home town crowd had been praying for had arrived to save the team from obscurity and be the franchise’s cornerstone for at least a decade. Even if an inflated preseason goal-per-game pace is reduced by half, or even a quarter over the course of a regular season, surely you’ve got a useful, if not marquee player, right?

Clearly rookie head coach Guy Carbonneau and General Manager Bob Gainey thought so, and awarded Guillaume Latendresse a 3-year contract worth $850,000 per season, which was the maximum allowable for a rookie. Immediately the skeptics voiced their concern that the Canadiens simply bowed to public and media pressure to keep the young francophone in Montreal. The cheerleader in this camp was Habs legend Patrick Roy, who stated that if Latendresse’s name was Smith, he would have been relegated to the minors.

The other popular refrain was that while Latendresse was the big body that the Canadiens badly needed on their top two lines, he should have served time in Hamilton under coach Don Lever…this camp was led by TSN analyst Pierre McGuire. After all, players don’t arrive in Montreal to learn; they arrive in Montreal to perform, where the pressure to win is the highest. The AHL and other “minor” leagues are where players go to learn to be well rounded. At least that’s the way it works in Montreal. While the skeptics were derided as being a bunch of scrooges, it wouldn’t take long for them to be proven right. While Latendresse scored 16, 16 and 14 goals in Montreal before his 22nd birthday, it was more than clear that he was an unpolished, unrefined hockey player that more often than not was lost on the ice. Those that demanded that he be given a permanent home in Montreal in the fall of 2006 blamed rotating linemates and a lack of ice time for his underwhelming presence on the ice. The truth is that Latendresse was a confused hockey player; yes part of the blame rests with Habs management for rushing him along, but much of it rests with Latendresse himself, who squandered each and every opportunity to better himself (i.e. skipping a preseason camp for young players in the summer of 2009).

Finally, on November 23, 2009, he was traded to the Minnesota Wild for Benoît Pouliot, another chronic underachiever. This trade was a classic ‘my problem for your problem’ scenario. Almost immediately, Latendresse showed a scorer’s touch, scoring 10 goals in his first 20 games with Minnesota, and going on to score 25 goals in 55 games over the remainder of 2009-10 season. Surely, those pumping Latendresse’s tires during his stay in Montreal felt vindicated in their belief in the young player, even as they continued to wipe the tears from their eyes over the trade. Meanwhile, Benoît Pouliot was busy mending a bum wrist, awaiting his debut with the tricolore. For his part, once he did return from a wrist injury Pouliot went on to score 15 goals in 39 games; 6 more than he had scored in 65 career games with the Wild. On the surface, it looked like a win-win trade. Except that the majority of Pouliot’s goals were scored during one hot streak which then quickly subsided. What we all know now is that when Pouliot isn’t scoring, he isn’t doing anything. At all. Except taking dumb penalties.

So, after scoring 24 points in 39 in his first half-season with Montreal (a statistic that flattered Pouliot’s overall quality of play), Pouliot showed his true colours by posting a flaccid 2 assists in 18 playoff games. Talk about being a passenger!

Here’s where rushing a player to the big show, then trading that player in an attempt to wash your hands of the problem that he had become morphs in to an even bigger problem. Not only did the Canadiens decide to keep Benoît Pouliot for the 2010-2011 season, they inexplicably gave him a $500,000 raise to $1.35M. There’s an argument to be made that the Habs had faith in his untapped abilities, and that he’d represent good value for the money. You could also say that you simply don’t give up on a kid who was drafted 4th overall (one place ahead of Carey Price). Fine, but the more plausible explanation is that the Canadiens were practicing “asset management”. Letting Pouliot walk after the 2009-2010 season would have meant trading Guillaume Latendresse for half a season (plus playoffs) of Benoît Pouliot. That would have caused a tremendous uproar and been a perceived stain on Gauthier’s resume. Quite simply, the Habs had to save face after trading away the media’s golden boy.

What this all boils down to is a single mistake made in 2006 – bowing to fan and media pressure in keeping an unprepared youngster in the highest pressure market in hockey. Because of that mistake, the Habs were forced to trade Latendresse away for another underachiever and then compounded the error by keeping Pouliot around for another year. By the time the 2011 draft had rolled around, Pouliot’s stock had fallen so far that General Manager Gauthier could not even secure a low-level draft choice for Pouliot’s negotiating rights. With Pouliot’s tenure with the Habs on life support, Gauthier let the clock expire. He did not tender Pouliot a qualifying offer, meaning that he will be an unrestricted free agent on July 1st. The lesson learned here should be player development. Unless you’re dealing with a known quantity, a sure-fire superstar like Sidney Crosby, like Steven Stamkos, like Matt Duchene, like Taylor Hall, all players should be mandated to spend at least one full season in the AHL or an equivalent training ground.

Guillaume Latendresse sprang from the ether to have a tremendous preseason. That’s all it took for the external pressure to build to the point where the Habs made a catastrophic decision with Latendresse. Who knows what may have become of Latendresse if he had been made to learn the professional game in Hamilton. He could have arrived in Montreal a smarter, better, stronger, more rounded player, playing his rookie season at 20 or 21 years old. Instead, he was a teenager who was granted the keys to the city for scoring a handful of meaningless goals.

There’s no doubt that a single mistake can have far reaching effects many years later and that it is not always simple or easy to recover from those mistakes. While the Habs saved faced and hoped for Pouliot to fulfill his potential, a roster spot was taken away from somebody else who could have had a more meaningful contribution to the Canadiens.

2010-2011 Habs: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

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It’s always a difficult task to try and segment a 7-month long season in to 3 distinct buckets, as the memories all tend to fade and fall victim to what romanticism and to what feels most comfortable. The Habs have been a veritable roller coaster for two full seasons now…and what a roller coaster it is. Dizzying heights and stomach-churning drops galore. As strange as it is, would the highs feel as good as they do if not for the abyssmal depths that this team sunk to at times? Probably not.

Let’s start from the bottom of the barrel and finish on a high, shall we?

The Ugly

The Pacioretty/Chara incident. This will certainly be one of the infamous moments in Habs history, for all the wrong reasons. Everyone has their own personal opinion on whether or not Chara intended to severely injure Pacioretty, but the fact will always be that Pacioretty came within fractions of an inch from losing his career, his ability to walk, or perhaps even worse. That he luckily escaped severe handicap is a blessing, but it also fuels the knuckle-draggers who think the whole thing was overblown. Pacioretty was out cold on the ice – that by definition is a severe concussion. That he seemed to avoid post-concussion symptoms is what has Dr. Recchi, Boston media, and Bruins fans in such a confused tizzy. Any way you slice it, this was a horrific incident that touched off a frenzy in Montreal unseen in decades. Predictably, the rest of the hockey world points and laughs. Thankfully Pacioretty will be back next year and looking to pick up where he left off.

Injuries to Markov and Gorges. Why, oh why can’t the Habs stay in one piece for one year? If you spend any time reading here, you know me as somebody that doesn’t buy the injuries as an excuse for underachieving, or failure. Everyone suffers from injuries, and the Habs were somewhere in the middle of the pack in terms of man-games lost to injury. Yeah, yeah, the whole quality vs quantity argument. Given the importance of Markov and Gorges to the team, it seems grossly unfair that both would be shelved for many months. Will either be back next season? Time will tell, but I would like to see them both return, for the right price of course.

Scott Gomez. No breakdown of the Habs season would be complete without looking at Gomez’ horrific season. After his putrid start, his supporters said that he’s a second half player. When he didn’t get going after the all star break, his supporters entrenched themselves deeper and said he was a playoff performer and we should be patient. When all is said and done, he never really got going at all. 38 points, -15. Underwhelming playoff performance aside from a strong first game. His last goal would come in early February, while all other facets of his game tumbled to appaling levels. The Canadiens can’t afford another season like that from a guy who eats such a large chunk of cap space. It will be tough to move him in any scenario, but its safe to say that his nightmarish season could have single-handedly cost the Habs a playoff spot if not for Carey Price’s brilliance.

Booing Carey Price. What’s the matter with the people who booed Carey Price – in the preseason no less? The real work hadn’t yet begun and those who sleep in Halak jammies were already out with their pitchforks. Needless to say, within weeks they no longer had any credibility, as Price forcibly duct taped every single one of the haters mouths shut. Booing the home team is never smart. Singling out a young player who needed support more than scorn was borderline criminal. In the end, all Price needed was confidence and he’d take care of the rest. On many nights, he was left on his own and snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. It’s what the greats do, and Carey Price is already great. When it’s all said and done, his name will not look out of place with the likes of Plante, Vezina, Roy, and Dryden.

The rivalry with Boston. For the better part of a century, the Habs and Bruins built one of the greatest rivalries in sports. In 2011, however, it went from an on-ice rivalry, to outright vitriolic hate in all directions. The players don’t like one another, but the fans and media have helped propel this rivalry to very nasty, unfriendly places. There’s no need to rehash it all, as it all cuts so close to the bone but it’s safe to say that this rivalry, which had cooled slightly in recent years, even with several playoff matchups has been renewed. We hope that it stays on the ice and produces exciting hockey, but I somehow doubt that. Winning with grace has eluded certain fanbases and the teams they follow.

The Bad

Opening round loss to the Bruins. After the tumultuous season that the Habs suffered at the hands of the Bruins (despite winning 4 of 6 games), roaring out to a 2-0 series lead had everyone thinking about the 2010 playoffs and another Cinderella run. Surely, with a 0-26 record when falling behind by two games, the Bruins were toast, right? Sadly for Habs fans, the Bruins fought back, broke through the barrier that was so successful last year for Montreal and eventually won the series. In seven games. In overtime. It doesn’t get worse than that for Habs fans who were around when the Canadiens hadn’t lost to the Bruins in the playoffs for 40 years. Yes, 40 years.

Inability to score at even strength – ‘The System’. Listening to the season ending post-mortem press conference, Jacques Martin would have you believe that his puck possession system in fully in place, and that the Habs do not struggle to score goals. Those paying attention know that he is simply deflecting, avoiding and outright lying about the type of hockey he has his team playing. It was tough to argue with him as the Habs hobbled through the season and still hung on to 6th place in the East. But again, when looking at all of the stats and evidence, the real system is Carey Price. Without 70+ games of terrific hockey from the Habs netminder, it would have been lights out after the regular season. It’s dangerous to rely solely on special teams and goaltending, and hopefully everyone now realizes that.

Underachieving forwards. All 6 of the top forwards had sub-par years. Starting with the aforementioned Gomez, but filtering down to each and every one of Plekanec, Gionta, Kostitsyn, Cammalleri and whoever the 6th forward was on any given day. None had what I’d call a strong year. Aside from Gomez’ putrid performance, the others all had decent, but underwhelming performances. We’ll never know how Pacioretty would have affected things if not for his head-first dive in to a stanchion, but it’s clear – the system prevents the Habs best offensive talents from reaching their potential. We’ve long forgotten what it’s like to have a forward finish among the league leaders in terms of production, and as long as the defense-first system lives, the Habs will struggle to score – regardless of the PR spin the coach and management decides to sell us, and regardless of what talent may be lured to town.

Moving Ryan O’Byrne, then trading to acquire more defense. This is a sticky one. The coach didn’t trust O’Byrne, which is his prerogative. I have to admit that I didn’t have much faith in O’Byrne, either, but I did want him in the lineup on a more consistent basis so that he could develop the confidence that fans would then absorb by osmosis. The organization didn’t see it that way, and shipped him to Colorado – where he played quite well – for another small prospect forward in Michael Bournival. We can only ponder how management reacted once O’Byrne was no longer available once their defensemen started to drop like flies. Would O’Byrne have drawn back in to the lineup, or would coach Martin continue to select others like Alexandre Picard over him? We’ll never know, but what is certain is that there was no rush to move him as quickly as they did.

Scattered, disorganized, immobile defense. Valiant warriors one and all: Hal Gill, Roman Hamrlik, Jaroslav Spacek, Brent Sopel, Paul Mara. All are guys with guts, and all performed as well as they could. In the end, it was clear that they were asked to do more than they were capable of – whether through lack of skill, or the slow erosion of age, these guys simply couldn’t do the things necessary to win for long enough. Opponents know that if they press on their older, slower bodies, they’ll end up with the puck in the Canadiens zone, and they’ll force these older players to take penalties. And take penalties they did; the Habs were near the summit of the league in terms of minor penalties taken; another blight on ’the system’. It’s tough to score goals when the puck is always in your own end. Individually they all seem like terrific teammates, but in order to get better, some changes will need to be made, and hard decisions taken. It’s hard to do, but teams don’t get better by “being nice”.

Picking on PK. I would have put this in the “ugly” section if PK showed any signs of caring what other think of him outside of his locker room. Instead, Pernell Karl turned the corner at midseason and, given the ice time he received because of injuries to Markov and Gorges, he opened eyes across the league. However, not all eyes are as tolerant as we would like them to be in 2011. Racial slurs became common, and the league feigned horror at the “disrespect” the Habs young rearguard displayed on the ice. What a load of trash. Brad Marchand and Cam Fowler pulled similar stunts to what Subban did this year, and yet received no criticism. Racial undertones aside, PK gets a lot of flack simply because he’s GREAT and still a long way from his full potential. This scares other teams and their fans. Almost all non-Habs fans would admit to wanting him on their team, and this is a testament to PK’s resolve, evolving maturity, and lastly, to Trevor Timmins, who has hit a grand slam by drafting this kid in the second round. For once, it’s awfully nice having a player that everyone else says “how did we miss this guy” about.

The Failure of Pouliot. Benny, Benny, Benny. Last year I referred to you as Jimmy Olsen on a team of superheroes. You did nothing to change that this year, even though I thought you may be turning a corner at a few points. Have a nice career in some other jersey. I can’t devote any more space to you and your underachieving ways.

The Heritage Classic. Everyone loves an outdoor game, right? The mystique, the roots of the game, the fresh air. Yeah, sure they do. On this cold February evening, the Habs, decided that being in front of a gigantic, captive North-American audience was the right time to play one of the worst games of the season, being blanked 4-0 to the Calgary Flames at McMahon Stadium. It was a flaccid performance, coming off the heels of an equally putrid loss to the bottom-feeding Oilers.

Departures we hate to see. It hasn’t happened yet, but it certainly appears that Kirk Muller is on his way out of Montreal. What a shame that the Canadiens organization should lose two young coaching talents in Guy Boucher and Kirk Muller in consecutive years. If there’s one argument for Habs brass in keeping Jacques Martin around it’s that if they cut him loose any time soon after losing Boucher and Muller, they’ll be roasted. Other players potentially on their way out include Andrei Markov, Hal Gill, Roman Hamrlik and a few others. Some are near and dear to Habs fans, and we’d hate to see them go. In some cases, it’s necessary, but in the case of Kirk Muller you’d hope the Canadiens would do whatever it takes to keep a guy that the players reportedly adore. The fans seem to like him, too.

The Good

A new captain for a new era. After going through an entire season with no captain, the Canadiens decided it was time to name a new one to replace Saku Koivu. Raise your hand if you don’t like Brian Gionta as Captain. Nobody? I thought so. Stoic, heart of a lion, non-stop motor…what’s not to like about Brian Gionta? Nothing, that’s what.

Price’s rebirth. Carey Price had been, until this season started, a very controversial figure. How refreshing it is then, that under more pressure than ANY player in the league, Price responds with the type of season he had. There’s a case to be made that he should have been nominated for the Hart Trophy as the league’s MVP. Certainly there is no post-season in Montreal without his consistently solid play. Each and every single Habs fan should be in awe of how he played and conducted himself this year. And General Manager Gauthier should lock him up for a very, very long time as soon as possible. Don’t wait until Price increases his value even higher.

Subban’s emergence. He’s already been mentioned, but how amazing was PK Subban this season? He’s clearly the best rookie defenseman the Habs have had since the mid-80′s, and there are whispers that he’s gone and made Andrei Markov expendable. I don’t necessarily believe that, as the sophomore jinx has bitten the best of them, including Tyler Myers and Drew Doughty. Subban could easily have a setback next year, but what is clear is that at 21 years old, Subban is going to be the Canadiens top defenseman in a couple years from now, and will be for a long, long time. As with Price, Gauthier should lock up Subban immediately, before his price tag is elevated with Norris credentials.

Weber shines. Below the radar, and in Subban’s immense shadow lies the solid, versatile Yannick Weber. He may never be a top pairing defenseman, but he can be an effective power play specialist, while not embarassing himself on defense. He also proved that he could play a fourth line role, bringing back images of another Swiss-born, under-the-radar, jack-of-all-trades former Hab in Mark Streit. I believe he’s been underrated all season long and has earned a permanent spot on the blueline.

Pacioretty’s promise. Where’s our power forward? How many times had you heard that over the past decade? Safe to say that if you had a dime for every time you heard that from a fan, or member of the media, you’d be living the sweet life out in California’s beatiful San Fernando Valley (hat tip to Dr. Venkman for that beauty). Before being savagely injured, Pacioretty was just entering his own. He was the Habs best forward at the time of his injury, and seemed to be the answer to the gaping hole among the top 6 forwards. When Pacioretty revealed that he would have been ready to face the Capitals should the Habs have beaten Boston, fans sighed in disappointment. So close. On the other hand, he gets a full off-season to stregthen his neck and be absolutely certain that he wasn’t rushing back. Then again, it took a wicked slap shot to the ribs and a trip to the hospital before Pacioretty really heated up in the first place, so who knows, maybe he would have been even better after recovering from his neck problems.

Discovery of Desharnais. Talk about found money! Everyone knew about his skill, and his pal Pacioretty said he was the best center he had ever played with. It didn’t take long for Habs fans to see what he was talking about. Though he’s another small forward on a team of small forwards, I think Claude Julien got it right on when he said that Desharnais looks like he could be another Martin St-Louis. Let’s hope the Canadiens are able to find a permanent and fitting role for this pint-sized dynamo. It will be tough, as the Habs have Gomez, Plekanec and Eller at center already. Eller is ill-suited to play wing, and it would be a shame for Desharnais to toil on the fourth line with all that skill being devoted to a checking role. The answer, as hard as it may be to accomplish, is to somehow move Gomez. As much as I’d like to give him the chance to redeem himself (and this likely will be the path we go down), I’d spit nails if young talent was sacrificed for overpaid underachievers. Young homegrown talent is raring to go, and shouldn’t be stifled or discarded. If Habs management is intent on letting fresh coaching talent walk away, as well as prime prospects in low salary brackets in favour of bloated, stale contracts in Jacques Martin and Scott Gomez, then they should be immediately fired.

BAMF Ryan White. Finally, a player with wheels, and a willingness to get his nose dirty. Every team needs players like Ryan White. When members of the team come out and publicly state that White should have been on the team since the start of the season, that’s a criticism on the coaches and management, who were either asleep at the switch, or ignorant of their team’s needs. Either way, it’s a huge compliment to Ryan White, who, despite not being a heavy weight, finally brings accountability for other teams who feel like they can take liberties on the Habs without having to answer for it.

Koivu 2.0: Enter Lars Eller. Somebody said it on Twitter, and I think it’s totally appropriate (if you know who said it, please let me know). Eller is Koivu in a bigger body. What a dream come true for Habs fans! For a decade we wished that Saku could have been a little bigger and a little more durable. As big as his heart was and still is, he always wore down as the seasons took their inevitable toll. Lars Eller may not have had the numbers to prove it, but he has playmaking skills, skating ability, defensive awareness and size down the middle – one of the Habs missing key ingredients. We would love to see him develop his finish around the net in coming years, but it’s clear to me that the Habs have won the Halak trade hands-down. With Eller in the fold, and a reborn Carey Price, it’s in fact a steal and Gauthier deserves credit, despite what Pierre McGuire’s bitterness will tell you.

Mike Cammalleri - playoff wizard. Two seasons. 26 playoff games. 16 goals. 13 assists. 29 points. Any questions? Many thought that they could throw Cammalleri under the same bus that Gomez found himself under all season. While Gomez apologists tried to tell us that he would produce in the playoffs, and that Cammalleri hadn’t proven anything, we now know better. Cammalleri is a gamer, and brings his best to the post season. While he’s merely average defensively, he’s the Habs go-to guy on offense in the playoffs. He simply gets it done unlike any Hab player in recent years in the post season.

Small package, huge heart. The small forwards may get beaten up, but they simply don’t go away. Time and time again they fought back this season, led by guys who punch much higher than their weight. Captain Gionta certainly leads the way with his fearlessness, and never say die work ethic, but others like Plekanec, Cammalleri and Desharnais showed no fear when it comes to facing adversity. Young players like Eller, Desharnais, Subban, Weber, Pacioretty are soaking in some extremely vital lessons. They see smaller guys working their tails off, and the attitude is infectious. This bodes very well for chemistry and identity of the Habs’ future.

Departures we like to see. Pierre Boivin. Thanks for making the Habs more relevant than they’ve ever been, during their longest Stanley Cup drought in history. Your business acumen and marketing prowess (along with Ray Lalonde) is to be commended. You guys made the Habs a glossy, flashy, only-show-in-town behemoth. Your work has enlivened the Habs for a new generation and has somehow made the Canadiens even more of a religion than they already were. However, your sociological policies have held the Canadiens back where it counts most – on the ice. You honoured the past glory of the franchise to the point of distracting fans to the mediocrity of recent teams. We’re all grateful for what you did in honouring greats like Geoffrion, Robinson, Cournoyer, Savard, Gainey, Roy and others, and we thank you for that. Really, we do. The ceremonies were touching, classy and the gold standard by which all sports teams should aspire to. Good luck in your future endeavors, but I can’t say that I’m sad to see you go.

Mathieu Darche. What more can be said about this guy? Bemoaned by nearly all Habs fans for signing a one-way deal, I was in the minority who thought this was a wise, value-packed signing, and I’m glad that I was proven right. He filled in admirably on the second line when Pacioretty went down, scoring several big goals in areas on the ice where Habs have feared to tread for years. He has to be a tremendous influence on young players who have more skill and upside than Darche, but may lack the work ethic required at the NHL level. Darche spent time all over the lineup, and even spent time in the press box. Without having access to the locker room, I’d bet my last penny that he did everything with a smile on his face.

Triple low-fives. How much fun is the post-victory ritual between Subban and Price?

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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.

Pacioretty Slams Own Head in Glass

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Crazy headline? Yep.

But if you believe Bruins captain Zdeno Chara, that’s pretty much what happened. He didn’t push him or anything. He didn’t take a convenient opportunity to rub out a kid he has a bone to pick with. Instead, Chara decided to blame the victim. Said Chara:

…very unfortunate when I pushed him that he leaned & jumped a little bit & just hit the glass extension

Take the red pill, Zee.

Let’s look at some “circumstantial” evidence.

Back on January 8th, Max Pacioretty capped off a comeback victory with an overtime goal. After scoring, he gave Chara what can only be described as a light shove. Should he have done it? No, of course not. You don’t need to poke the bear when it’s wounded. Was it a big deal? It shouldn’t have been, but apparently was. 

If you can find it, NESN play-by-play blowhard Jack Edwards seemed to love what was going on. He sounds almost prophetic when he said that “Someone is going to have his head taken off!”, clearly referring to Pacioretty in this instance. Really, Jack…close to the mark aren’t you?

Case closed? Point made? Of course not! It’s the Bruins! Frustration mounts as Boston drops to 0-3 vs the Habs, and 1-8 in the past 2 seasons (do Bruins fans even want to know how badly they’re being owned by the Habs since the lockout, including the B’s sweep 2 years ago?).

Fast forward to February 9th, to what is now known as the “Boston Massacre” or the “Beantown Beatdown”. The Habs weren’t blameless in the entire affair, but after Pouliot and Price showed some leniency on their opponents you’d think that Thornton or Boychuk or Campbell would ease up on less-than-worthy opponents, right? Sadly, no again.

After another month passes, we get to tonight’s game at the Bell Center. This game was talked about since the fiasco last month, and the Canadiens stuck to their credo the entire time. They did not heed to the cries to get bigger and tougher. They did not enlist the services of a goon. They said they would beat the Bruins with speed and skill, and after building a 4-0 lead, it appeared as though they were well on their way.

As has become custom with the Bruins, when they get down, they get dirty. And so Chara rides Pacioretty out and tries to see if he can make him eat a wall of glass at the same time. Or, if you’re of the delusional persuasion, Pacioretty jumped and stuck his face in the way of immovable glass. Is that the way it went Zdeno?

So let’s recap:

  • Prior history between the two players? Check.
  • Game out of reach for the visitors? Check.
  • Prime opportunity to “get even”? Check.
  • Organization that loves the rough stuff? Check
  • Officials deem it dirty? Major penalty and game misconduct says “Check”.

It’s pretty clear to me that this is premeditated. But, this being a league that dishes out justice from the office of Colin Campbell (who’s son, Gregory plays on the Bruins), it’s possible that nothing will be done. But wait, it gets better. After Pacioretty was taken off on a stretcher, you’d think that both teams would just let the 3rd period melt away without incident.

Nope.

Class act Milan Lucic decided that he wanted to get a piece of noted tough guy Benoit Pouliot in the 3rd period. He goaded, hooked, and hacked but was ultimately rejected. Throw another log on the fire, genius. What kind of philosophy does a team roll with when they need to continue acting like petulant bullies in the face of defeat? Send a message? What message is that, exactly?

Whatever suspension Chara gets (in my mind 1 to 3 games because Campbell and Murphy are spineless) isn’t enough. The culture of the game continues to allow this type of nonsense to continue, and it somehow continues to blame the victim. For a team that has had its share of bad luck with concussions, you’d think their captain would be first among them to try and curb this type of stuff. Fat chance.

March 24th is the final matchup between the Habs and Bruins (barring a playoff series) this season. I don’t even know if I want to watch, and that’s a shame, for the Bruins have in one night taken a great rivalry, and turned it in to something very nasty and ugly.

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.

Does Talent Buy Immunity?

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Following the Canadiens can be an exhilarating, yet sometimes exhausting experience. Over the past several seasons, the Canadiens have been up and down like a elevator. Players, coaches and management come and go on a yearly basis, yet the runaway roller coaster continues unabated. Throughout the change, we as fans always find things we like about the team, and players to latch on to.
 
Last spring, this group of players took fans on a dizzying run to the conference finals, deepening the bond between fan and player. When times get tough, however, the spotlight focuses on certain players with scorn. Usually the talented guys bear the brunt of criticism, and that’s the way it should be since they earn the majority of praise during the good times, and consume the majority of the salary cap at all times. But once the criticism is levied, some fans resort to defending their favorite players as if they were a part of their immediate family. Mama and Papa bear gnash their teeth.
 
No two players embody this phenomena more than Carey Price and Andrei Kostitsyn. Talented? Check. Important to the team’s success? Check. Contributors to the Habs early season success? Check. Nobody would argue that not only has Carey Price been the Canadiens best player, he’s been one of the best goalies in the league until recently. As the Canadiens player of the month for 3 consecutive months, it goes to show how terrific Price was during October and November, and how he was the best of the worst in December. For his part, Andrei Kostitsyn has had an up and down year, but I don’t know if we’ve ever seen him play as well as he did for the first 10 games of the year. 10 points in 11 games during the month of October, and he too had begun to quiet his naysayers.
 
But over the past month, Price has had weak goals slip past him, bringing on shades of last season when he was at times unfocused, and couldn’t catch a break. Is it fair to feel a bit of concern that his play has not been as sharp as we’ve been accustomed to? Questionable wraparounds and shots through the legs are not what the doctor ordered. Similarly, Kostitsyn has had his share of struggles. A modest 8 points in 13 games in November was largely swept under the rug, because he was bounced around from line to line. December saw his slumber worsen, with only 1 goal and 4 assists in 14 games, with his lone goal coming after he had been made a healthy scratch. He also only had 27 shots on goal in those 14 games, for an average of about 2 per night. For a sniper with a lethal shot, that’s not good enough. Excuses? Don’t want to hear them.
 
Newsflash: Instead of trying to blame somebody else for a blown assignment or inability to handle somebody bigger & stronger than them EVERY SINGLE TIME, if Price gives up a soft goal, it’s OK to say so. If he plays a poor game, it’s FINE to say so. If he has a bad month, quit trying to pin it on the team and coach if you were one of the people that tossed laurels at his feet when he singlehandedly won games! If he gets the glory when he’s the hero, he deserves criticism when he’s less than what the Canadiens need. Similarly, if Kostitsyn is soft on the puck, or laisser-faire, it doesn’t make you less of a fan to say so, and it won’t help you to become pals with the player to try and defend them at each and every turn. Unless the criticism is mean spirited, cruel or bigoted (which unfortunately still exists), thicker skin is needed and lording over these guys as if they were our children needs to stop. They’re adults with a job to do. While young, talented players are crucial to any organization, talent alone doesn’t score goals and make saves. Work ethic and execution do. Anyone who follows me know how critical I am of the coach and his tactics and strategies. He’s not blameless in this, but he’s not entirely to blame, either. At the end of the day, every player is solely responsible for the quality and consistency of his own performance.
 
Look, I cheer for anyone who wears the bleu, blanc, rouge, even if they’re not my favorite player (hello there, Benoit!). I want them to produce, and I want them to share in the accolades. What I can’t stand is when we constantly drum up excuses to cover up mistakes, exonerate poor decisions and pretend that there aren’t any issues with consistency. It’s a lot easier to completely blame the coach’s decisions and his strategy rather than the players…which would make sense if the player hadn’t had any previous success. On the eve of the season, I posted a blog entitled “Prove It“. In this second year of the major overhaul, there are no more excuses for this team or the players. Everybody has a role and everybody has experience save for Eller and Subban. Max Lapierre paid the price for his poor play and his inconsistency. His ice time was reduced, and he was eventually sent packing to Anaheim. Players are to be held responsible for their performances, and cheered for their achievements. Kostitsyn and Price got off to sizzling starts and got the hero worship that goes along with those kinds of performances. Price sustained his great start for a couple months, while Kostitsyn tapered off. Fair criticism is deserved, and both have earned their fair share lately. There’s nothing wrong with that.
 
I suppose some of you will see where I’m coming from, but I suspect that there are others who will insist that I’m just another hater and not a real fan for questioning results. The sad truth is that what was accomplished months ago means very little if the results don’t continue coming. The real question at the heart of this blog is ‘how long do you make excuses for questionable play before the crosshairs zero in on the player himself?’ It has somehow become taboo to voice concern over the play of Price and Kostitsyn. Some fans are shell-shocked because there’s been a lot of unfair criticism, but this doesn’t mean that fair criticism is suddenly unwarranted. Many will read this blog as a bashing, and interpret it as me being a hater. If you’re one of those people, congratulations, you’ve missed the point entirely, and helped prove my point.
For everyone else, what’s your take?

Habs Aren’t an Elite Team. Yet

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Is it possible for the Canadiens to go nearly wire-to-wire in first place in their division? They finished October in first. They finished November in first. We’re less than a week before Christmas and they’re still in first. Does winning your division really make you an elite team? I’ll bet many rabid Habs fans are ready to jump up  and say “YES!”, of course it does. The answer, in fact, is no, winning your division does automatically make you an elite team. One need only look at the NFL and MLB to see that teams that struggle to win more than they lose make the playoffs every year. Within the Canadiens relatively weak division, the Bruins are the only team that can overtake the Canadiens at this point, being only two points back with two games in hand. The Senators, Leafs and Sabres are all in various states of disrepair and pose little risk to the Northeast Division crown.

The Canadiens, at worst, are a good team. On some nights they’re a very good team. But we’d be getting ahead of ourselves to call them an elite team today. Yes, they may be in that conversation when it comes to points earned, but realistically the Canadiens can’t be held in the same regard as the Detroits, and Philadelphias of the league. Not just yet, anyway. Despite their relatively similar records, teams like the Wings and Flyers have competence, experience and moxy that the Canadiens do not.

The Habs have yet to come from behind this season when trailing after the first or second period. That was ok, since they hadn’t lost when scoring first, either, until recently when they’ve lost a handful a games wherein they did score that all-important first goal.

I know what many of you are going to say. The Canadiens have beaten Philly once already this year – shut them out even, as well as beaten the Penguins, Sharks, Bruins (twice) and shut out the Canucks. Verifiable facts, all of them. But I also submit that they’ve lost games to the Leafs (twice), Devils (by shutout), Nashville (at home, also by shutout), and Blue Jackets (surprise – by shutout!). Elite teams don’t make such blunders as often as the Canadiens do. I’m not suggesting that those teams are all doormats, but you can’t tell me that dropping decisions in the manner that the Canadiens did is normal for an elite team. The Canadiens have also lost games in which they looked utterly unprepared and disinterested: a 3-0 loss in Atlanta tops that list, followed closely by a lacklustre 3-1 loss at home to Florida. Sure, every team goofs now and then during an 82-game schedule, but our Habs seem to relish in making lives harder than they need to.

To be sure, the Canadiens ought to be thankful that they play in the softest division in the league. Taking a quick look around the NHL, we see that the Habs home – the Northeast division has 3 teams that are currently below .500, even with the charity point for failure in effect. The Atlantic division has 2 dismal teams, and the Southeast has one team below the .500, and even they (the Panthers) were able to march in to the Bell Center and walk out with a 3-1 win. In stark contrast, the entire Western conference has just two teams below .500, and both reside in Alberta (and, perhaps not shockingly, the Oilers also waltzed out of Montreal with an overtime victory).

But the news is positive: the Canadiens are still playing better hockey this season than they were at any point last season. Scoring has been balanced, even strength play is better, the power play is improving, even without Markov, the penalty kill remains strong and most of all, Carey Price is keeping himself in the conversation of the league’s best goalies to date. The components to being among the elite teams in the league are nearly in place. With the addition of Max “the Patch” Pacioretty to the second line, the Canadiens finally appear to have two dangerous scoring lines, albeit a long term injury to any of the forwards, especially Plekanec would be crippling, not only because of all the great things Plekanec does, but because losing him means losing Andrei Kostitsyn as well. (Sidebar: If you’ve spent any time at all on twitter during a Habs game, you’ve no doubt seen the dozens of tweets demanding that Andrei Kostitsyn NEVER be separated from Plekanec. If that’s the case, then no doubt the loss of Plekanec essentially destroys the Habs’ top scoring line because we’ve all but admitted that Kostitsyn becomes useless when not paired with Plekanec.)

There is depth among the bottom-six forwards along with a dash of talent. Jeff Halpern, Mathieu Darche, Benoit Pouliot, Tom Pyatt, Travis Moen, Max Lapierre and Lars Eller have brought some grit and offense to the lineup. Should one or two of them fall, there are replacements in Hamilton that can step in; Ryan White, Dustin Boyd, and Ben Maxwell come to mind and are all available for spot duty in Montreal if needed.

On the blue line is where the trouble lies, especially under Jacques Martin’s defensive system. With no hope of seeing Markov back any time soon, his workload has been dished out among those who can no longer offer those services for prolonged periods (Hamrlik & Spacek), those who never could offer it (Gill, Gorges & Picard) and those who are simply unprepared to shoulder the load, and overwhelmed by the spotlight (Subban). We should admire the work this group has done thus far, for we all know the Canadiens record sans Markov. That the team hasn’t bottomed out already should be seen as a small victory!

But this is where Pierre Gauthier needs to act. He now has cap room a plenty thanks to Markov’s injury, and it’s becoming more and more obvious where his team’s needs are. He needs another defenseman that can eat 20+ minutes per game and bring physicality to the rink. A stabilizing presence for Subban should also be among the criteria for a new defenseman.

Whatever acquisition Gauthier has his eyes on, it will cost him and he will need to be prudent not to give up too much. The better his team does, the better position they place him in to negotiate a trade because rival GMs will not view Gauthier as a desperate man in need of aid. He’s in the tenuous position of having to decide whether he thinks his team is one piece away from true Cup contention, or if he’s a couple of ingredients shy of the mark. This being Montreal, and expectations being what they always are, Gauthier will probably do something.

Though the Canadiens are close to being among the league’s best teams, they aren’t there yet. As Subban hopefully improves and plays more reliably over the next 50 games (note to Jacques Martin: please separate Picard and Subban!), and if Pacioretty can really be the missing ingredient that produces two stable scoring lines, then the guesswork is all but finished. The roadmap to success becomes clear for the team’s brass, and that’s surely a sign of an elite team.

What’s your take?

If the Habs Were Cars

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I figured it was time for another fun blog post. I’ve been waaaaaay off my game lately and wanted to throw something together based on nothing but total pointlessness. Oddly enough, it’s these types of posts that generate the most amount of discussion because it gives everyone the chance to also let down their hair and throw things at the wall. I decided to use a bit of discipline and restraint with this, because as Habs fans, we are notorious for over-valuing the players we have. So I’ve intentionally avoided exotic cars like Porsche, and Ferrari and supercars, like the Audi R8 and Lamborghini Gallardo. It would be too tempting, and ultimately too boring to assign everyone on the team we love such a distinguished ride.
So here goes nothing….your Habs, if they were your cars:
 
Tomas Plekanec – 2011 Hyundai Sonata 2.0T I know what you’re thinking, “You’re starting this thing off with a Hyunday? Eff this, I’m out!” Hang on, it gets better! The new Sonata rates up there with BMW 5-series and looks like a Mercedes, but it flies under the radar of recognition because it’s a Hyundai. That’s wrong, but for Habs fans, it’s so SO right!
 
Andrei Kostitsyn – Jeep Rubicon. Tough like a tank and elegant in its simple, boxy design, the Jeep Rubicon is unstoppable with a motivated driver behind the wheel. In other words, when AK46 is on, nothing can stop him.
 
Mike Cammalleri – Nissan 370Z. This car cooks! A top of the line roadster that’s speedy, sharp looking and everyone wants one.
 
Scott Gomez – Chrysler 300M. It’s a nice looking car, is really comfortable and cruises very nicely. But ultimately, this thing is overpriced.
 
Brian Gionta – Mini Clubman. It’s essentially a miniature BMW. What else do you want?
 
Lars Eller – Chevy Volt. This electric/hybrid’s best days are still ahead of it. Its role is not quite defined, just as Eller is victim to Martin’s confounding ways. It’s the future, Jacques – get used to it!
 
Benoit Pouliot – Base model Chevy Camaro. I’m speaking from experience on this one. Lots of blind spots, takes a ton of energy to get it up to speed, but it looks and feels great once it’s moving. Pouliot should have been an SS model by now, but it appears as though we’ll never see that upgrade. Still, this is a vast step up from the Jimmy Olsen ranking he got in my “If Habs Were Superheroes” post from May.
 
Mathieu Darche – Toyota Camry. Useful but unremarkable car. Those that have one love it, but always longing for another Cammalleri.
 
Jeff Halpern – Honda Ridgeline. Surprisingly versatile and underappreciated.
 
Maxim Lapierre – Honda Civic SI. One that’s been modified by a 20 year old that wears Ed Hardy clothes and wears his hat sideways.
 
Travis Moen – Ford F150 King Ranch Edition – solid, solid, solid.
 
Tom Pyatt – The newly relaunched Ford Fiesta. Terrific reviews, spunky, quick and peppy…but ultimately not the car you want when you need performance.
 
Andrei Markov - Cadillac CTS Coupe. This is a sweet, sweet ride that does everything well. Made by one of the classic automakers, it fits Markov’s prestigious role within the Habs organization well.
 
Josh Gorges – Jeep Grand Cherokee. A classy, yet tough as nails ride that suits this Habs iron man to a tee. He never misses a game and was probably on the short list for the captaincy. The only place left for him to go is to the SRT8 model. That’ll be tough though.
 
Hal Gill – 18 wheeler. Plods along in a straight line, takes an hour to make a turn and can block entire lanes of traffic. Ask the Capitals. Or the Penguins.
 
PK Subban – Chevy Corvette. Unbridled speed and power. This car just begs to be turned loose, but if you’re not careful, the rear wheel drive will throw you out of control. It’s a thrill to watch when it’s under control. Otherwise you’re just waiting for the inevitable crash. And nobody likes seeing a smashed up Corvette. Or a shackled one either.
 
Roman Hamrlik – A Buick Regal. But an old one, not a new one…because the new ones are actually pretty awesome. Everyone knows that a Buick is a poor man’s Cadillac, and we all remember the admirable job that Hamrlik did filling in for Markov…last year. Once upon a time this car was a luxurious ride with a beefy engine, but that was a long time ago. Age erodes everything.
 
Jaroslav Spacek – Milk truck - delivers the goods once a week for a brief minute or two. That’s it.
Ryan O’Byrne and Alex Picard – Dodge Journey. Strictly utilitarian vehicles despite the attempts to give them style. They’re probably not long for this world. It’s a vehicle that just won’t stand the test of time, likely due to lack of development and poor product positioning.
 
Carey Price – 2011 Ford Taurus SHO. The old Taurus model was tired, boring, underwhelming and had lost its way by the time it was “reinvented” using the same Ford Five Hundred that got nowhere. Reborn and reinvigorated, the new Taurus the is probably the coolest looking sedan on the road and has the guts to back up its new look.
Ok, that’s it. Fun’s over. Now it’s your turn. What car would you have assigned to the Habs players?

Dare We Dream?

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The first month of this young season is already in the books, and look! The Habs are tops in the Northeast Division (although the Bruins have 3 games in hand). Raise your hand if you had them there, because I sure didn’t. The Canadiens have been a very pleasant surprise, as they have looked solid from the goaltending, out through the 4th line…with some problem areas in between that have yet to cause too much pain.

It’s tough not to get excited over the performance the Canadiens put forth in October 2010. They’re playing a more sustainable, solid game than the mirage that had Habs fans reaching dizzying heights this past spring, led by refocused Carey Price, reloaded Tomas Plekanec and reborn Andrei Kostitsyn. In past years, the Canadiens depended on power play success in order to win games, but now it seems that even strength play has become their forté. I for one, will take a team that plays well at even strength and struggles on special teams, than the opposite. But now is the time to start to put it all together. When you look back, it’s actually pretty amazing that the Canadiens did as well as they did in October: the clear-cut #1 defenseman has only played one game, the power play has been putrid, the second line has been virtually non-existant.

The signs are very encouraging for a successful season, but it’s still about 10 games too soon to proclaim this team is “for real”. November will prove to be a much tougher month for the bleu-blanc-rouge with matchups against the Bruins, Flyers (twice), Kings and Canucks. Not to mention teams that they always have trouble with: Maple Leafs, Sabres, and Hurricanes. If the Canadiens can emerge from November still on top of the Northeastern Division, the cold winter months will be a lot more palatable, as a winning Habs bunch makes just about everything better in Montreal.

But if that’s going to happen, some rough spots have to be ironed out, and fast. The power play will need to be much better. Stumbling and bumbling along with a single-digit success percentage is not a recipe for long term success, even if the penalty killing unit is top-notch. Cammalleri, while leading the league in +/- has got to get on something resembling a tear, especially on the power play. Markov’s re-entry to the lineup will only help him find that timing once again. A team like the Canadiens, as we saw in last spring’s playoffs agains the Flyers, can be worn down by bigger, tougher, more intimidating opponents. The Canadiens have made their opponents pay in past years by killing them on the power play. This helped preserve the Canadiens smaller players from physical punishment that adds up over the course of 82 games. If the Canadiens aren’t going to be lethal on the power play, eventually opponents will take liberties with the smaller forwards and wear them out the good ship Habs come April.

It’s clear that the Canadiens got through the first month of the year on the backs of Plekanec, Kostitsyn and the aforementioned Cammalleri. Gionta and Gomez, who combine for nearly 13 million big ones against salary cap have only combined for 2 goals and 4 assists, aka, the same amount of points that Benoit Pouliot has been able to post for nearly 1/10th the cap hit, and 7 minutes less of ice time per game. Hey, I’m just saying. It seems that Habs fans can’t ever be totally happy, and thus somebody has to be designated as the whipping boy. So far, that person has been Pouliot. While he admittedly has not shown much in terms of sustained desire and intensity, he is on a pace for about 50 points this season, which would represent terrific value for his relatively paltry salary. Whether or not he keeps this up is a matter up for discussion. The real issue among the forwards lies with high-priced Gomez and Gionta. Call it snakebitten, or call it lost in a fog, what we can all agree on is that a combined 6 points in 22 games is unacceptable. They need to start putting the puck in the net – immediately. They’ll get it together because history says they will, but the clock is ticking.

On the back end, the defense needs to not only chip in more offensively – both goals from defensemen came on the same night – but they need to get better at hitting the net with their shots from the point. The only two shooters – Subban and Spacek either telegraph their every move, or fire 3 feet wide. The defensive pairings also need to clean up their act in their own zone. While the shots against have come down dramatically from last season, we still see shades of the team that looked more like the keystone cops than a legitimate group of defenders. With 3 defensemen over the age of 35, the headless chicken dance is quite easily invoked once the opposition establishes itself in the Canadiens zone. Carey Price has been forced to make many, many big saves while bailing out his mates. Certainly Price’s .913 save percentage isn’t opening a ton of eyeballs, but rest assured that his modest stat belies how much better he’s been this season. His focus and determination are back to where they need to be, and that’s a huge relief for the Canadiens, and Canadiens fans who thought that the loss of Halak meant the end was nigh.

It would also be nice to see Lars Eller get some prime ice. He’s only been able to muster 1 assist in 11 games, and that’s no good. Don’t get me wrong, he hasn’t played poorly; he’s been strong on the puck, in the corners, and on the body, but he needs to show a little more of a scorer’s touch. Perhaps Coach Martin can help this along by playing Eller with some linemates with hands, and giving him more ice time than Tom “teacher’s pet” Pyatt. Nobody will ever say a bad thing about Tom Pyatt’s honest, hard-working game, but he’s a role player, and always will be. Eller, projected to be a core member of the team’s forwards in the years to come needs more ice time if he’s going to find his game at the NHL level. Let’s just hope that Jacques Martin doesn’t mishandle him like he mishandles virtually every player under the age of 25.

So while things are pretty rosy in Habsland, despite the gag-inducing loss to the Panthers on Saturday night, there are still lots of things to be worked on. A 7-3-1 record is probably better than 95% of fans would have expected after one month, but we can’t overlook the blemishes that still hang around the team’s neck. These issues need to be addressed very quickly because a one-line team cannot continue to win consistently for very long.

What’s your take on the Habs first month of the season?

Jacques Martin is at it Again

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It certainly didn’t take Jacques Martin long to wake the grump in me up again. Despite posting a happy ‘puppy dogs and ice cream’ entry just the other day, I’m compelled to repeal that positivity and chime in on the Canadiens’ coach latest transgression.

Whether it’s letting the Tampa game slip away by insisting on his passive game, or head scratching line changes, he’s always there to tie one hand behind his team’s back and prevent the best of his charges from shining through.

What’s the problem this time? Besides the fact that he’s still behind the bench? I completely disagree with removing Pouliot from the 2nd line after 3 games.

Before I really get started, let me just preface this article by saying that I’m no fan of Benoit Pouliot. If you read my “If the Habs Were Superheroes” post, you’d know what I mean. I’m highlighting what a piss-poor manager of young talent the Habs head coach is.

So where was I? Right. Demoting a self-conscious, fragile young player after 3 games. What a ludicrous way of handling your team’s youth. Then again, Martin has never been recognized for his adeptness at fostering young talent, so what do I know?

Last season Martin had been accused of hampering Price’s development and confidence by quickly pulling the rug out from under him and inserting Halak with his “win and you’re in” mentality. Anyone subscribing to that line of thought would have no choice but to apply the same logic to what’s happening with Pouliot. Granted, Pouliot has been ineffective since March of last year, but nobody forced Pierre Gauthier to give the kid a new contract, let alone a raise. He could have let him go, and nobody would have blamed him except for those still crying in their pillows over the loss of Latendresse. Armed with a new 1.35M deal for this season, Pouliot’s slate should have been wiped clean by the coaching staff. A 3-game audition on the 2nd line proves nothing and is not a fair chance for him to do much of anything, especially considering that his linemates aren’t exactly burning up the scoring sheet, either. I won’t say that Pouliot has been good (despite the 2 assists and the occasional hit thrown), but he’s not been abyssmal. Some have theorized that the move allows Pouliot to play with less pressure and find his game on the 3rd and 4th lines. What???? The expectation for Pouliot has always been to produce. How’s he going to do that playing scant minutes with guys who wouldn’t know a goal celebration if they watched highlight reels for the next 3 years.

Besides, what’s the point of replacing Pouliot on the 2nd line if you’re not going to replace him with somebody that possesses a similar skill set? Any team’s second line is considered a scoring line, and when nearly 13 million in cap space is tied up in two other players, you better believe that the top priority is to put points on the board!

So what does Martin do? He tries Travis Moen on the line for a couple nights. We all love Moen for his honest, hardworking game, but for goodness sake, he’s not a late-blooming John LeClair! Nor is Tom Pyatt, for all his determination, a legit threat to consistently get points on the board. And guess what happened as a result of the tinkering? Nothing happened, that’s what. The only result is that Pouliot’s confidence sinks lower still, haunted by the fact that if he isn’t lighting the lamp, he’s toast. That’s no way to coax the best out of an already fragile youngster.

So if the end result is no offense, why not leave Pouliot there for an extended time? The worst that can happen is that no offense is produced, same as if Moen or Pyatt occupies the left wing slot on the second line. By leaving Pouliot there, and telling him that he’s going to stay there for a good while, he gets time to find the same groove that saw him score at a torrid pace before being hurt last year, or proves once and for all that he cannot deliver. And if it turns out to be the latter, then you do what you have to do. But 3 games in? All this does is build in another excuse as to why Pouliot couldn’t cut it. Remove the escape routes. Put him in a position to succeed and leave him there. This early season line juggling is utterly laughable from Jacques Martin. I know that the line between playoffs and 9th place is literally as thin as it can get. A line that isn’t producing now may cost the team in April, so it’s critical to optimize production through 82 games. All that said, the line juggling wouldn’t be so bad if he would just make the logical move and replace Pouliot with Lars Eller, who has shown some offensive flair that Moen and Pyatt will never have.

But I guess I should stop expecting decisions that make sense from the Habs’ head coach. On the other hand, he does keep this blog going, so I guess I can’t complain too much.


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