Tonight's win over the Leafs by the Canadiens should shush those bothersome 'Leafs rivalry' stories. The Leafs are rivals for the Canadiens in the same way that roadkill is a rival for a crow.
Another good thing about this listless Toronto outing is I didn't have to hear about what a great pickup Leo Komarov was, how he was going to allow the Leafs to have more balance, roll four lines, be a deeper lineup, blah blah blah...
I wasn't subjected to another Brandon Kozun lovefest like I was during the first matchup, how he was reminiscent of Martin St-Louis, another slight undrafted free agent, how the Flames may have Johnny Gaudreau, but for my money, the Leaf youngster had just as much skill, yadda yadda yadda...
And thankfully, they didn't try to reanimate the corpse of Korbinian Holzer, the way they were hyping him and Mike Kostka as diamonds in the rough, prescient finds by a shrewd Toronto front office, defencemen who would be an integral part of a resurgent Toronto blue line, barf retch barf...
Good on Manny for finally potting a goal, a nice wrister in on a feeble Jonathan Bernier, who may be playing like a guy who no longer wants to ride in this clown car no more nohow? Manny picked up a nice drop pass from Dale Weise, on a partial breakaway. This line, with Michaël Bournival, had good jump all night, and was noticed by the HNIC broadcast crew.
David Desharnais scored two goals, but these were unjustly amassed, due to icetime unfairly allotted to him. Realistically, Mon Oncle Arthur could have scored those goals, one standing by the side of the net and just potting a rebound, and the other deposited into a deserted net. If Michel Therrien wasn't so bent on ruining Mon Oncle Arthur, he'd have put him on the ice in the waning minutes of the game and he would have, rightfully, scored that empty net goal. Indubitably, that should have been Mon Oncle Arthur's tally.
Carey Price had a couple of adventures with his puck handling, but nothing Drydenesque, and picked up another shutout, to help pad his already stellar stats. Ho hum.
Max Pacioretty was a force, he played like he cared contrary to the Leafs, and he seemed too much for them to handle. Just ask Dirty Nazem down there on the ice on his keister. Max was fast, on the puck all night, protecting the puck, attacking the net, great stuff. I don't think Max has played this well since the season with Erik Cole.
P.K. had a strong but not flawless game. Again his decision making can be questioned, it's like he tries too hard sometimes, trying to do it all himself. Maybe he was trying to put on a show because he was facing the Leafs, but he snuffed out a few attacks, a couple of powerplays, all by himself.
It's like if you're doing a patrol against the German lines P.K. You go out and you probe and you find out that there are significant forces with machine guns and armor. So now you pull back and report to headquarters, you don't keep probing. You didn't find a weak spot, an opportunity, you know what you need to know, live to fight another day, go on another patrol somewhere else later on. You dump the puck behind the net and let your forward see if he can do something with it.
Or it's like you're at the pub and after a scan of the room, you and your wingman go and chat up the three cute girls standing by the pool table. But you find they're not very receptive, they listen patiently and give you one-word answers and forced smiles, and try to resume their conversation. So you tell them you'll catch them later, genially excuse yourself, and head back to your bros. The night is still young. You saw quite a few young ladies looking in your direction when you walked in, there's interest somewhere. You don't insist with the pool girls, offer them a drink, then another, drag them to the bar to show them your cool coaster trick, tell them about your wheels, your cool job,... You don't waste your time, there will be other, more sympathetic audiences. Save it for then.
P.K., pass the puck to a teammate, see if he has better luck. Maybe the pool girls like their beaus dancier, less behemothy.
The young defencemen had a light night, with Greg Pateryn playing 11 minutes, and Nathan Beaulieu playing 15, while Sergei Gonchar, Tom Gilbert, P.K. and Andrei Markov all played around 25 minutes. Nate had a doozy of a giveaway in his own zone early in the first, which elicited an audible groan from the New Forum crowd. Nate had the puck under control, had 'time and space', but made a blind backhand pass behind the net to the other corner where he thought his defence partner should be, but his assumption was unfounded. A Leaf gobbled up the free puck and this caused a few anxious moments.
Still, Nate played confidently the rest of the game, and Greg Pateryn tried to make an impact by hitting everything in white, so good night for both. They'll both get to play more games if they continue to play to their strengths.
At the end of the game, the Leafs' coaches pulled kind of a jerk move by pulling their goalie and throwing on an extra attacker, and I could only wonder to what end? What was the strategy? To harm their draft standing?
I could understand trying to win a game, throwing up a Hail Mary when in a playoff chase, but that's not the case. I could understand trying to come back from a one or even a two-goal deficit, but they were down 3-0. Were they trying to ruin Carey Price's shutout? Did Peter Horachek think he'd impress future employers with his daring strategery?
They got what they deserved, the Canadiens, after whiffing many times as is their custom when trying to seal a win, finally made it 4-0, and all that remained was the ceremonial Leaf jersey toss, the Toronto answer to Detroit's octopus.
Good win against a weak sister, they've given us a lot of problems lately, in the form of the Sabres, the Devils, the Coyotes, the Sabres again.
And good for us that we've got a steady diet of Sharks and Ducks and Kings and Lightning coming in March. If we play badly against poor teams, we should do great this month.
Saturday, 28 February 2015
Friday, 27 February 2015
Darren Dreger, putative 'Insider', is dumbfounded, crestfallen at Dave Clarkson trade.
Darren Dreger is so awful, I can’t believe he has a job. I’m watching a PVR’ed edition of “TSN Drive with Dave Naylor”, and at the 15 minute mark he does his “Leafs at 6″ segment, which he does every day. Except that today the Dave Clarkson trade news broke at the same time.
And he doesn’t understand it, visibly. On HockeyInsideOut, we right away understood the pros and cons, what each team would gain from the trade. The Blue Jackets get a player for their real dollars they’d have to spend on an injured Nathan Horton, and the Leafs get to place him on LTIR, and use the cap relief to spend another 5 mill in real dollars on other players, which for them isn’t a hurdle, but is a huge issue for cash-strapped Columbus. The Leafs get a mulligan, the five mill they were sinking on Dave Clarkson, they’re now sinking on Nathan Horton, with the bonus now that with him on LTIR they have the ability to spend another five mill past the cap if they so wish.
The Blue Jackets get a player, and the Leafs get an extra 5 mill in cap space, a contract mulligan in this trade. Easy peasy.
We had that worked out in five minutes on social media. But Darren Dreger is on camera, with a ‘deer in the headlights’ expression, almost despondently saying there was no scuttlebutt on this, and re-hashes that there is a lot though on Joffrey Lupul and Tyler Bozak, like Bob Cole nowadays when he backtracks and explains why he thought there was a penalty, but the stoppage in play was actually because of the end of the period, that’s why that siren was making all that racket, but it looked like a Leaf had tripped Henrik Sundin on that play, everything was happening, …
But Steve Simmons is obviously going through this mental calculus, and is aquiver, his headphones askew, in a positive lather, and he asks directly: “Can the Leafs put Horton on long-term injury, and not have the same cap ramifications?”
There it is. The setter has put up the ball perfectly, all the Insider has to do is spike it.
His response: “Uuuuuuhhhh, I would assume so…”
Simmons: “So this might be a great deal for the Leafs?” (Which it is.)
Dreger: “Uhhh-it’s a salary dump by the Toronto Maple Leafs. You have to assume that, you know, they’re… they’re going to place Nathan Horton on long term injury, and insurance kicks in. Right? If he never plays again, you know, Horton still gets paid, the money that is owed to him. Contractually.”
Brilliant analysis. Darren is pretty sure NHL contracts are guaranteed, almost certain.
Steve Simmons then references Pat Gillick, who once said that every GM makes mistakes, lots of them, but the good ones recognize them and fix them.
Simmons: “Today has to be a good day for Dave Nonis.”
Dreger: “I would think so and obviously we’re going to hear from Dave Nonis at some point in the foreseeable future…”
Still with that look, that expression of loss of control, that the world doesn’t make sense anymore. How could his own brother-in-law do that to him, not call him and give him the scoop? ‘I’m supposed to be an Insider, dammit’, he exudes with every beaten puppy look he casts about. You can tell he’s making a mental note to reduce the budgeted amount for Dave’s birthday gift coming up.
Dreger: “…This one was NOT on the radar.”
More Dreger, after repeating all the Leafs he was sure were more likely to move: “So… it’s a dump! It’s getting out from under a contract that was going to be problematic for the future.” Still not getting it, not understanding the quid pro quo, our Insider, who likes to tell us how “complex and complicated” the CBA is.
Naylor: “How much do we know about he likelihood that Nathan Horton may ever be able to play again in the NHL?”
Dreger: “Well not a lot of late. But it wasn’t that long ago that we on ‘Insider Trading’ were speculating that this probably wasn’t going to be a good thing for the long term future of Nathan Horton.” (?)
“But maybe something has changed, obviously we have to do some work here to figure out if that’s the case, or if the Toronto Maple Leafs are, as we already suggested, are simply taking on what can be minimized down to an insurance case. But we’ll have to wait and see. I mean, quite frankly, because of the information coming out as abruptly as it did, we’re kind of speculating here.” Still, still not getting it, Darren is.
As Dave Naylor and Steve Simmons carry the conversation, Darren Dreger stands up and walks away. The host explains that their Insider has to excuse himself to take some calls. I dearly hope it’s a manager calling him, telling him “Stop talking! Stop talking now, you nincompoop!”
Steve Simmons says “He (Dreger) may not want to be with us anymore.” And I’m not sure if he doesn’t realize what he’s saying, or if it’s a fully intentioned swipe at him, for not being any help, and not answering any questions, and not providing any insight.
When Dave Nonis gets fired, does Darren Dreger keep his job?
And he doesn’t understand it, visibly. On HockeyInsideOut, we right away understood the pros and cons, what each team would gain from the trade. The Blue Jackets get a player for their real dollars they’d have to spend on an injured Nathan Horton, and the Leafs get to place him on LTIR, and use the cap relief to spend another 5 mill in real dollars on other players, which for them isn’t a hurdle, but is a huge issue for cash-strapped Columbus. The Leafs get a mulligan, the five mill they were sinking on Dave Clarkson, they’re now sinking on Nathan Horton, with the bonus now that with him on LTIR they have the ability to spend another five mill past the cap if they so wish.
The Blue Jackets get a player, and the Leafs get an extra 5 mill in cap space, a contract mulligan in this trade. Easy peasy.
We had that worked out in five minutes on social media. But Darren Dreger is on camera, with a ‘deer in the headlights’ expression, almost despondently saying there was no scuttlebutt on this, and re-hashes that there is a lot though on Joffrey Lupul and Tyler Bozak, like Bob Cole nowadays when he backtracks and explains why he thought there was a penalty, but the stoppage in play was actually because of the end of the period, that’s why that siren was making all that racket, but it looked like a Leaf had tripped Henrik Sundin on that play, everything was happening, …
But Steve Simmons is obviously going through this mental calculus, and is aquiver, his headphones askew, in a positive lather, and he asks directly: “Can the Leafs put Horton on long-term injury, and not have the same cap ramifications?”
There it is. The setter has put up the ball perfectly, all the Insider has to do is spike it.
His response: “Uuuuuuhhhh, I would assume so…”
Simmons: “So this might be a great deal for the Leafs?” (Which it is.)
Dreger: “Uhhh-it’s a salary dump by the Toronto Maple Leafs. You have to assume that, you know, they’re… they’re going to place Nathan Horton on long term injury, and insurance kicks in. Right? If he never plays again, you know, Horton still gets paid, the money that is owed to him. Contractually.”
Brilliant analysis. Darren is pretty sure NHL contracts are guaranteed, almost certain.
Steve Simmons then references Pat Gillick, who once said that every GM makes mistakes, lots of them, but the good ones recognize them and fix them.
Simmons: “Today has to be a good day for Dave Nonis.”
Dreger: “I would think so and obviously we’re going to hear from Dave Nonis at some point in the foreseeable future…”
Still with that look, that expression of loss of control, that the world doesn’t make sense anymore. How could his own brother-in-law do that to him, not call him and give him the scoop? ‘I’m supposed to be an Insider, dammit’, he exudes with every beaten puppy look he casts about. You can tell he’s making a mental note to reduce the budgeted amount for Dave’s birthday gift coming up.
Dreger: “…This one was NOT on the radar.”
More Dreger, after repeating all the Leafs he was sure were more likely to move: “So… it’s a dump! It’s getting out from under a contract that was going to be problematic for the future.” Still not getting it, not understanding the quid pro quo, our Insider, who likes to tell us how “complex and complicated” the CBA is.
Naylor: “How much do we know about he likelihood that Nathan Horton may ever be able to play again in the NHL?”
Dreger: “Well not a lot of late. But it wasn’t that long ago that we on ‘Insider Trading’ were speculating that this probably wasn’t going to be a good thing for the long term future of Nathan Horton.” (?)
“But maybe something has changed, obviously we have to do some work here to figure out if that’s the case, or if the Toronto Maple Leafs are, as we already suggested, are simply taking on what can be minimized down to an insurance case. But we’ll have to wait and see. I mean, quite frankly, because of the information coming out as abruptly as it did, we’re kind of speculating here.” Still, still not getting it, Darren is.
As Dave Naylor and Steve Simmons carry the conversation, Darren Dreger stands up and walks away. The host explains that their Insider has to excuse himself to take some calls. I dearly hope it’s a manager calling him, telling him “Stop talking! Stop talking now, you nincompoop!”
Steve Simmons says “He (Dreger) may not want to be with us anymore.” And I’m not sure if he doesn’t realize what he’s saying, or if it’s a fully intentioned swipe at him, for not being any help, and not answering any questions, and not providing any insight.
When Dave Nonis gets fired, does Darren Dreger keep his job?
Jarred Tinordi sent down to Hamilton Bulldogs, again.
I’m not too worried about Jarred Tinordi, even after being sent down to Hamilton again on Thursday, after a rough outing against the Blue Jackets. Sure, it would be great if his learning curve had been steeper, instead of the gradual progress we’re seeing now. It would be great if something had clicked for him this season, like it did for Nathan, and he took a quantum leap.
But he is where he is, a big tall player the likes of which generally take a long time to mature. And as we’ve pointed out recently, it’s not like he’s the laggard and everyone else who was drafted at the same time is now killing it in the NHL. In fact, Jarred is doing as well as a ‘project’ 6’6 defenceman drafted 22nd overall in 2010 could be expected to.
So again, taking time to reflect on the slow development of physically-similar players like Victor Hedman, Hal Gill and Zdeno Chara among others, let’s take a deep breath and temper our expectations. He’ll come around, he hasn’t topped out.
Next season, he’ll be waiver-eligible, so we won’t be able to play him in Hamilton while he gets his game polished. This season is our last chance to do that. It makes sense that, with Alexei Emelin and Sergei Gonchar nearing a return to active duty that both those lefties will bump him down to Hamilton again.
And this isn’t optimal, it would be better if he was already a fixture on our roster, but it’s also not a bad thing. He’s going to get big minutes for another twenty games, and he’s going to be expected to lead his teammates to a playoff berth, and then have some playoff experience. This isn’t a bad situation, he needs to play.
Next season, it gets tricky, he’d have to pass through waivers to go to Hamilton, so that won’t happen, he’ll have to remain in Montréal. So unless he takes that big step over the summer, he’ll be the #7 defenceman, playing a few games, sitting out quite a few more, and expected to work hard in practice, as he matures some more. It won’t be the first time this happens, although it’s not ideal. Maybe we bend the rules a bit and send him down to the Bulldogs for a couple of conditioning assignments (which are waiver exempt) to keep him game-ready.
Scotty Bowman told the story of how disappointed he was when Bill Nyrop announced his retirement at a young age. He’d developed as a dependable #4-5 defencemen supporting the Big Three, and playing in front of enforcers like Pierre Bouchard and Gilles Lupien. As Scotty bellyached about losing Mr. Nyrop, I think he said it was Dick Irvin who was nearby and after listening patiently, asked him if having to play Rod Langway was so bad an option, that he’d looked really good when he’d had a chance to play lately. Rod Langway had been the routine healthy scratch, but working with Claude Ruel for the whole season, he’d slowly improved his game, almost imperceptibly, unbeknownst to the head coach, as it were.
So that’s what we can hope for, should be patient for, to let the big kid grow some more, get his game ready next season, and slowly ease him into the lineup. It won’t be ideal, you prefer not to have a spot on your 23-man roster eaten up by a developmental player, but it’s the situation that’s best for us right now.
But he is where he is, a big tall player the likes of which generally take a long time to mature. And as we’ve pointed out recently, it’s not like he’s the laggard and everyone else who was drafted at the same time is now killing it in the NHL. In fact, Jarred is doing as well as a ‘project’ 6’6 defenceman drafted 22nd overall in 2010 could be expected to.
So again, taking time to reflect on the slow development of physically-similar players like Victor Hedman, Hal Gill and Zdeno Chara among others, let’s take a deep breath and temper our expectations. He’ll come around, he hasn’t topped out.
Next season, he’ll be waiver-eligible, so we won’t be able to play him in Hamilton while he gets his game polished. This season is our last chance to do that. It makes sense that, with Alexei Emelin and Sergei Gonchar nearing a return to active duty that both those lefties will bump him down to Hamilton again.
And this isn’t optimal, it would be better if he was already a fixture on our roster, but it’s also not a bad thing. He’s going to get big minutes for another twenty games, and he’s going to be expected to lead his teammates to a playoff berth, and then have some playoff experience. This isn’t a bad situation, he needs to play.
Next season, it gets tricky, he’d have to pass through waivers to go to Hamilton, so that won’t happen, he’ll have to remain in Montréal. So unless he takes that big step over the summer, he’ll be the #7 defenceman, playing a few games, sitting out quite a few more, and expected to work hard in practice, as he matures some more. It won’t be the first time this happens, although it’s not ideal. Maybe we bend the rules a bit and send him down to the Bulldogs for a couple of conditioning assignments (which are waiver exempt) to keep him game-ready.
Scotty Bowman told the story of how disappointed he was when Bill Nyrop announced his retirement at a young age. He’d developed as a dependable #4-5 defencemen supporting the Big Three, and playing in front of enforcers like Pierre Bouchard and Gilles Lupien. As Scotty bellyached about losing Mr. Nyrop, I think he said it was Dick Irvin who was nearby and after listening patiently, asked him if having to play Rod Langway was so bad an option, that he’d looked really good when he’d had a chance to play lately. Rod Langway had been the routine healthy scratch, but working with Claude Ruel for the whole season, he’d slowly improved his game, almost imperceptibly, unbeknownst to the head coach, as it were.
So that’s what we can hope for, should be patient for, to let the big kid grow some more, get his game ready next season, and slowly ease him into the lineup. It won’t be ideal, you prefer not to have a spot on your 23-man roster eaten up by a developmental player, but it’s the situation that’s best for us right now.
Jarred Tinordi compared to his 2010 draft classmates.
HockeyInsideOut poster ‘Chris’ made a great point a few months ago about the slow and steady progress of Jarred Tinordi, comparing him to other defencemen drafted in the same cohort. I’d asked him to save a copy and re-post as needed, but here’s my book report on his post.
Only Cam Fowler, picked 12th overall, has played 320 games and has turned into a strong regular defenceman with the Ducks, and a proto-star.
Erik Gudbranson, the 3rd overall pick by the Panthers, has played 220 games, with the benefit of a weak roster and no playoff races to consider. He’s been getting games, but also had his icetime managed to protect him for a couple seasons at least.
Aside from those two, Jarred is comparable to anyone in the first round. Picked 22nd overall, he’s gotten 39 games.
Dylan McIlrath, picked 10th, has three games under his belt. Brandon Gormley at #13 has 20 for the Coyotes. Derek Forbort, #15, has yet to play a game with the Kings. Mark Pysyk, #22, has played 67 for the woeful, out of contention Sabres, but only four this season.
Early in the second, the Hurricanes did well drafting Justin Faulk, who has 234 games under his belt already, but aside from that, everyone else in the second round is in the same ballpark, slowly being eased into rosters, if at all.
So if we look at things in perspective, Jarred isn’t early, but is arriving on time. Next season, he’ll be eligible for waivers, so he’ll need to contribute then or we’ll have to make a decision, but for now there’s no reason to write him off.
We also need to remember that Jarred wasn’t drafted to be a ‘star’, to pick up lots of points, to be on the top pairing. If he did, great, but the reasonable trajectory for him was that he was a project, as all big defencemen tend to be, and that he’d be a defensively-oriented defenceman on the lower pairings who’d bring a lot of toughness and leadership. That assessment isn’t out of whack with how he’s shaping up in Hamilton.
Only Cam Fowler, picked 12th overall, has played 320 games and has turned into a strong regular defenceman with the Ducks, and a proto-star.
Erik Gudbranson, the 3rd overall pick by the Panthers, has played 220 games, with the benefit of a weak roster and no playoff races to consider. He’s been getting games, but also had his icetime managed to protect him for a couple seasons at least.
Aside from those two, Jarred is comparable to anyone in the first round. Picked 22nd overall, he’s gotten 39 games.
Dylan McIlrath, picked 10th, has three games under his belt. Brandon Gormley at #13 has 20 for the Coyotes. Derek Forbort, #15, has yet to play a game with the Kings. Mark Pysyk, #22, has played 67 for the woeful, out of contention Sabres, but only four this season.
Early in the second, the Hurricanes did well drafting Justin Faulk, who has 234 games under his belt already, but aside from that, everyone else in the second round is in the same ballpark, slowly being eased into rosters, if at all.
So if we look at things in perspective, Jarred isn’t early, but is arriving on time. Next season, he’ll be eligible for waivers, so he’ll need to contribute then or we’ll have to make a decision, but for now there’s no reason to write him off.
We also need to remember that Jarred wasn’t drafted to be a ‘star’, to pick up lots of points, to be on the top pairing. If he did, great, but the reasonable trajectory for him was that he was a project, as all big defencemen tend to be, and that he’d be a defensively-oriented defenceman on the lower pairings who’d bring a lot of toughness and leadership. That assessment isn’t out of whack with how he’s shaping up in Hamilton.
Thursday, 26 February 2015
Ducks defenceman François Beauchemin comments on the Sekac for Smith-Pelly trade.
François Beauchemin of the Anaheim Ducks on L’Antichambre, is asked for his thoughts on Devante Smith-Pelly:
Vincent Damphousse asks him about his greatest quality and his biggest area for improvement:
“Very good teammate, everyone got along with him, he has a very good attitude, he was ‘up and down’ this year, going to Norfolk of the AHL, lately had been in the NHL. He’s the kind of guy who can play on all four lines, depending on the situation. He has offensive talent, he played a few games with Getzlaf and Perry and it went well. Like every young player he isn’t consistent, he spent some time on the second, third and fourth lines. He’s able to score goals, play aggressively, deal out hits, and skates well.”
Vincent Damphousse asks him about his greatest quality and his biggest area for improvement:
“When he skates and involves himself physically, as I said he played on the top line, when does that, play physically, skate, shoot, go to the net, he’s a guy at his size, he’s hard to stop. What he needs to work on is his consistency. Young players like him sometimes struggle with their consistency and work ethic, they need a pat on the back and examples to follow, the way to work and be ready for every game. That’s what he needs to work on.”Denis Gauthier asks what awaits Jiri Sekac with the Ducks:
“I think they’ll try him with Perry and Getzlaf right away, since the start of the year we’ve been searching for a left winger for those two. Almost the whole team has had a shot at that spot and it hasn’t worked out for more than a couple of games, and then a change would be made. A tall LW like him with speed, able to score goals, I think he can complement them well.Gaston Therrien asks a meandering question about opinions and critiques on social media, and whether the Ducks are a better team with Devante Smith-Pelly (!):
“I think we have other players who can do the same job, so that’s why we could spare him, really we have a lack of speed, we have other players who have large size, play physical like him, what we needed was a leftie with speed to play with Perry and Getzlaf and I think we filled that need today.”
The Devante Smith-Pelly trade, Day 3
Offhand, the Jiri Sekac for Smith-Pelly trade reminds me of the Pierre Turgeon for Shayne Corson trade. In both cases, we gave up a player at a position in which we had a surplus, in order to get another we were short of.
Also in both cases, I was happy to receive the player we got, I always loved Shayne Corson, and have had a man-crush on Devante Smith-Pelly, but man is the cost of acquisition ever high. That smarts.
I really liked Jiri, wanted him to succeed, wasn’t worried about his slump, this was his first season, it’s not like everyone else around him was tearing it up. I figured he’d come around, it’s his first NHL season, he’s 22. I thought he’d be around for a while, he wasn’t going to be Andreas Engqvist.
I chuckled at the few mentions on social media that we ‘should have given them Pateryn and Hudon instead’, as if we set the price, as if the Ducks wouldn’t have had a say in this. As if Marc Bergevin opened the bidding with Max Pacioretty, and Bob Murray talked him down to Jiri Sekac, told him that’d be sufficient.
One point which was made yesterday is that the Ducks GM is Bob Murray, who was actually Marc Bergevin’s first roommate in their playing days. So they go way back, there’s some mutual respect.
They’ve already dealt with each other, scratched each other’s back with the Louis Leblanc trade, and the René Bourque for Bryan Allen deal. I have to think that the trade talks were done quickly, with no B.S., no initial demand of a Corey Perry or Alex Galchenyuk.
And I don’t think this was the climate when Pierre Gauthier was the GM.
All the reports out of Anaheim, from the ‘insiders’, talk about how Jiri was exactly what they were looking for, size with a little more speed and skill at forward, something they need for this playoff run, and that they don’t have in their system, full of Nick Ritchies, thumpers to compete against L.A. Sven Andrighetto, as intriguing a prospect as he is, wouldn’t have fit the bill.
So Jiri would be the guy they were targeting, not Charles Hudon or Christian Thomas. They wanted to speed up, but not necessarily size down.
The trade confirms what we’ve repeated to ourselves since June, that Jiri Sekac was much in demand. That the Ducks took him in return for a player they drafted high in the second round, who is well-regarded, a player who got some NHL action at 19, says a lot. If someone had floated this rumour two days ago, I would have laughed, and thought the Canadiens would have had to throw in sweeteners, and more than the trusty fifth-rounder.
And I’ll repeat that the Canucks, who have roughly the same profile we do, a smaller skilled team that can skate and which opponents often try to physically dominate or outright goon, and consequently has been trying to add size with the Zack Kassians and the Shawn Matthiases and Bo Horvats, were asking for Devante Smith-Pelly in the Ryan Kesler trade. They were rebuffed, apparently told he was an untouchable.
We got a good one. We got a big young player with skill, something we’ve been whining we needed, except we’d dream of Wayne Simmonds or Brian Bickell, usually.
Alain Chainey, an analyst on TVA Sports and a former scout on the Ducks’ staff who was closely involved in the decision to pick him, is quite clear that Devante Smith-Pelly isn’t just a thumper and a grinder. He says that when he hits someone, you notice it, but he’s much more skilled than a third or fourth-liner. He says they scouted him and loved his goals and his energy, and were unanimous that they’d pick him if he were available in the second round.
They did okay in that draft, they got Cam Fowler at 12th overall, and Emerson Etem at 29th.
He also made the point that Trevor Timmins and his staff scouted the kid heavily in junior, and the Canadiens pro-scouting staff did the same, and they know exactly who they’re getting in this trade, it’s not a shot at the dartboard.
It’s a perfect fit for now, and for the future. A big strong winger who can play in the corners, in front of the net, plays right wing, shoots right. He plugs the hole that we hoped would be addressed in two years with Michael McCarron/Nikita Scherbak. He’s a great puzzle piece. He won’t be a UFA for five years, so he’ll be affordable, we have him for his ‘prime’ years.
We now have, in no particular order, Brendan Gallagher, P.A. Parenteau, Devante Smith-Pelly and Dale Weise on right wing, and that’s really good. All are true-blue RW’s, they shoot right, none is a displaced leftie. It’s not crystal clear who plays first or second or third line, and Dale may seem destined for the fourth, except that the coaches love him and he’s shown this season that he can play on the first line in spurts. That will be healthy competition. Pierre-Alexandre loves playing with David and Max, he’ll have to put up points, put out 100% effort to do so.
The good thing is the right wingers will have to stay on their toes, no one’s role is assured.
So the roster has better fits on the right side, rather than last season with a Thomas Vanek who preferred left wing, except that he also wanted to play on the top line with David and Max, but not so much when the Bruins were angry and mean, and a Daniel Brière who took the money but never relished the RW assignment, instead wanting to play centre.
One caveat I’ll have is that growing up, we were forever searching for ‘un gros ailier gauche’, or ‘un gros joueur de centre’, and would look longingly at the Islanders with Clarke Gillies and John Tonelli and Bob Nystrom. So we’d keep trading for big wingers who had big rep, and would come here and disappoint or flop completely. Perry Turnbull, Lucien DeBlois, Ryan Walter, I’m probably forgetting a couple, we’d find that these big guys weren’t that great, a cure for what ailed us.
Devante Smith-Pelly is a little under the radar in Montréal, but he was one of the precocious kids in the 2010 draft. As a draft/hockeydb nerd, I noticed how he was one of the first ones out of that group to play in the NHL, aside from the guys at the very top. So I paid attention when he played against the Canucks, and he’d give them fits, they’d have no answer for his size and skating, you’d see some very skittish defencemen swiveling their heads and rushing the passes.
Maybe the Ducks lost patience a little, maybe the bloom is off the rose, and they’re looking over his shoulder at the next best thing in their system. Maybe he would have benefited from a Red Wings-style apprenticeship in the minors, rather than the shuttle he was on, back and forth between the AHL and NHL, and high expectations when he was in the Ducks lineup.
So while we’re categorizing him today on HIO as ‘less-skilled’, a grinder and thumper, I don’t think that’s accurate. He was always described as a scoring forward with size, and he’s played Top 6 regularly with the Ducks, played with Ryan Getzlaf.
Maybe he’s taken some time to develop, and lately been in a slump and been relegated to the minors/fourth line/pressbox, but that’s definitely not his ceiling. He can definitely take a few steps forward.
So yeah, Jiri Sekac is a steep price to pay, but we’re not getting the “Travis Moen who doesn’t fight” who was described earlier in this thread, Devante Smith-Pelly is much, much more than that.
I’ll take comfort in what Pierre LeBrun reported yesterday, how another GM told him you don’t get players like Devante Smith-Pelly at their peak. We got him in a trade for a significant piece, but still relatively cheap because the Ducks had a surplus and maybe thought the kid needed a change. Maybe he blossoms with us.
We’ve used Gally with Max and David Desharnais out of necessity, to work the corners and the front of the net, but groused about two small players on the same line, wished Gally was a little bigger. Devo can maybe be that bigger Gally. He does have the hands for it.
And we should all congratulate Marc Bergevin, for his patience and also for his guts, for his perseverance in trying to improve the team. He doesn’t always hit a homerun, but a baffling Christian Thomas for Danny Kristo trade aside, his moves always make sense, they have an internal logic. He sacrificed a leftie to tick off many needs on his list in one swoop, yet didn’t take on an expensive veteran to do so. He didn’t give up the younger better player, he swapped youth for youth.
Without the profusion of smoke signals that would have emanated from Toronto. We learned of this trade once Jiri was in the hotel underground waiting for his cab, not from Louis Jean or Davren Dregnoniser. Berg runs a tight, professional organization, he’s always moving forward, climbing one rung at a time.
Nice work.
Also in both cases, I was happy to receive the player we got, I always loved Shayne Corson, and have had a man-crush on Devante Smith-Pelly, but man is the cost of acquisition ever high. That smarts.
I really liked Jiri, wanted him to succeed, wasn’t worried about his slump, this was his first season, it’s not like everyone else around him was tearing it up. I figured he’d come around, it’s his first NHL season, he’s 22. I thought he’d be around for a while, he wasn’t going to be Andreas Engqvist.
I chuckled at the few mentions on social media that we ‘should have given them Pateryn and Hudon instead’, as if we set the price, as if the Ducks wouldn’t have had a say in this. As if Marc Bergevin opened the bidding with Max Pacioretty, and Bob Murray talked him down to Jiri Sekac, told him that’d be sufficient.
One point which was made yesterday is that the Ducks GM is Bob Murray, who was actually Marc Bergevin’s first roommate in their playing days. So they go way back, there’s some mutual respect.
They’ve already dealt with each other, scratched each other’s back with the Louis Leblanc trade, and the René Bourque for Bryan Allen deal. I have to think that the trade talks were done quickly, with no B.S., no initial demand of a Corey Perry or Alex Galchenyuk.
And I don’t think this was the climate when Pierre Gauthier was the GM.
So Jiri would be the guy they were targeting, not Charles Hudon or Christian Thomas. They wanted to speed up, but not necessarily size down.
The trade confirms what we’ve repeated to ourselves since June, that Jiri Sekac was much in demand. That the Ducks took him in return for a player they drafted high in the second round, who is well-regarded, a player who got some NHL action at 19, says a lot. If someone had floated this rumour two days ago, I would have laughed, and thought the Canadiens would have had to throw in sweeteners, and more than the trusty fifth-rounder.
And I’ll repeat that the Canucks, who have roughly the same profile we do, a smaller skilled team that can skate and which opponents often try to physically dominate or outright goon, and consequently has been trying to add size with the Zack Kassians and the Shawn Matthiases and Bo Horvats, were asking for Devante Smith-Pelly in the Ryan Kesler trade. They were rebuffed, apparently told he was an untouchable.
We got a good one. We got a big young player with skill, something we’ve been whining we needed, except we’d dream of Wayne Simmonds or Brian Bickell, usually.
Alain Chainey, an analyst on TVA Sports and a former scout on the Ducks’ staff who was closely involved in the decision to pick him, is quite clear that Devante Smith-Pelly isn’t just a thumper and a grinder. He says that when he hits someone, you notice it, but he’s much more skilled than a third or fourth-liner. He says they scouted him and loved his goals and his energy, and were unanimous that they’d pick him if he were available in the second round.
They did okay in that draft, they got Cam Fowler at 12th overall, and Emerson Etem at 29th.
He also made the point that Trevor Timmins and his staff scouted the kid heavily in junior, and the Canadiens pro-scouting staff did the same, and they know exactly who they’re getting in this trade, it’s not a shot at the dartboard.
It’s a perfect fit for now, and for the future. A big strong winger who can play in the corners, in front of the net, plays right wing, shoots right. He plugs the hole that we hoped would be addressed in two years with Michael McCarron/Nikita Scherbak. He’s a great puzzle piece. He won’t be a UFA for five years, so he’ll be affordable, we have him for his ‘prime’ years.
We now have, in no particular order, Brendan Gallagher, P.A. Parenteau, Devante Smith-Pelly and Dale Weise on right wing, and that’s really good. All are true-blue RW’s, they shoot right, none is a displaced leftie. It’s not crystal clear who plays first or second or third line, and Dale may seem destined for the fourth, except that the coaches love him and he’s shown this season that he can play on the first line in spurts. That will be healthy competition. Pierre-Alexandre loves playing with David and Max, he’ll have to put up points, put out 100% effort to do so.
The good thing is the right wingers will have to stay on their toes, no one’s role is assured.
So the roster has better fits on the right side, rather than last season with a Thomas Vanek who preferred left wing, except that he also wanted to play on the top line with David and Max, but not so much when the Bruins were angry and mean, and a Daniel Brière who took the money but never relished the RW assignment, instead wanting to play centre.
One caveat I’ll have is that growing up, we were forever searching for ‘un gros ailier gauche’, or ‘un gros joueur de centre’, and would look longingly at the Islanders with Clarke Gillies and John Tonelli and Bob Nystrom. So we’d keep trading for big wingers who had big rep, and would come here and disappoint or flop completely. Perry Turnbull, Lucien DeBlois, Ryan Walter, I’m probably forgetting a couple, we’d find that these big guys weren’t that great, a cure for what ailed us.
Devante Smith-Pelly is a little under the radar in Montréal, but he was one of the precocious kids in the 2010 draft. As a draft/hockeydb nerd, I noticed how he was one of the first ones out of that group to play in the NHL, aside from the guys at the very top. So I paid attention when he played against the Canucks, and he’d give them fits, they’d have no answer for his size and skating, you’d see some very skittish defencemen swiveling their heads and rushing the passes.
Maybe the Ducks lost patience a little, maybe the bloom is off the rose, and they’re looking over his shoulder at the next best thing in their system. Maybe he would have benefited from a Red Wings-style apprenticeship in the minors, rather than the shuttle he was on, back and forth between the AHL and NHL, and high expectations when he was in the Ducks lineup.
So while we’re categorizing him today on HIO as ‘less-skilled’, a grinder and thumper, I don’t think that’s accurate. He was always described as a scoring forward with size, and he’s played Top 6 regularly with the Ducks, played with Ryan Getzlaf.
Maybe he’s taken some time to develop, and lately been in a slump and been relegated to the minors/fourth line/pressbox, but that’s definitely not his ceiling. He can definitely take a few steps forward.
So yeah, Jiri Sekac is a steep price to pay, but we’re not getting the “Travis Moen who doesn’t fight” who was described earlier in this thread, Devante Smith-Pelly is much, much more than that.
I’ll take comfort in what Pierre LeBrun reported yesterday, how another GM told him you don’t get players like Devante Smith-Pelly at their peak. We got him in a trade for a significant piece, but still relatively cheap because the Ducks had a surplus and maybe thought the kid needed a change. Maybe he blossoms with us.
We’ve used Gally with Max and David Desharnais out of necessity, to work the corners and the front of the net, but groused about two small players on the same line, wished Gally was a little bigger. Devo can maybe be that bigger Gally. He does have the hands for it.
And we should all congratulate Marc Bergevin, for his patience and also for his guts, for his perseverance in trying to improve the team. He doesn’t always hit a homerun, but a baffling Christian Thomas for Danny Kristo trade aside, his moves always make sense, they have an internal logic. He sacrificed a leftie to tick off many needs on his list in one swoop, yet didn’t take on an expensive veteran to do so. He didn’t give up the younger better player, he swapped youth for youth.
Without the profusion of smoke signals that would have emanated from Toronto. We learned of this trade once Jiri was in the hotel underground waiting for his cab, not from Louis Jean or Davren Dregnoniser. Berg runs a tight, professional organization, he’s always moving forward, climbing one rung at a time.
Nice work.
Canadiens using hockey numbers again. Finally.
I’ll reiterate: I really like that the Canadiens are now making use of the lower uniform numbers, instead of doggedly handing out sweaters with numbers in the sixties and seventies.
Good on us that Devante Smith-Pelly will wear #21. Not a great historical fit, I reflexively think ‘Doug Jarvis’, and sure, Guy Carbonneau. Maybe #17 would have fit a little better, a winger like Murray Wilson makes more sense in my mind. But 21 is much better than 41 or 91, I’ll take it.
Jarred is #24, Nate is thegreat28, Jacob de la Rose looks awesome in #25. Love that Gally got #11 after the #73 purgatory, and Chucky sports a very rakish #27, I have visions of Frank Mahovlich.
17 and 26 will be available next season, along with 20 probably. Greg Pateryn could lay claim to the #6, I don’t think Bryan Allen will be in a position to object.
Step right up, kids, step right up!…
Claim your hockey number now, before they’re gone!
Good on us that Devante Smith-Pelly will wear #21. Not a great historical fit, I reflexively think ‘Doug Jarvis’, and sure, Guy Carbonneau. Maybe #17 would have fit a little better, a winger like Murray Wilson makes more sense in my mind. But 21 is much better than 41 or 91, I’ll take it.
Jarred is #24, Nate is thegreat28, Jacob de la Rose looks awesome in #25. Love that Gally got #11 after the #73 purgatory, and Chucky sports a very rakish #27, I have visions of Frank Mahovlich.
17 and 26 will be available next season, along with 20 probably. Greg Pateryn could lay claim to the #6, I don’t think Bryan Allen will be in a position to object.
Step right up, kids, step right up!…
Claim your hockey number now, before they’re gone!
Wednesday, 25 February 2015
Jiri Sekac for Devante Smith-Pelly, a day later.
Offhand, the Jiri Sekac for Smith-Pelly trade reminds me of the Pierre Turgeon for Shayne Corson trade. In both cases, we gave up a player at a position in which we had a surplus, in order to get another we were short of.
Also in both cases, I was happy to receive the player we got, I always loved Shayne Corson, and have had a man-crush on Devante Smith-Pelly, but man is the cost of acquisition ever high. That smarts.
I really liked Jiri, wanted him to succeed, wasn’t worried about his slump, this was his first season, it’s not like everyone else around him was tearing it up. I figured he’d come around, it’s his first NHL season, he’s 22. I thought he’d be around for a while, he wasn’t going to be Andreas Engqvist.
I chuckled at the few mentions that we ‘should have given them Pateryn and Hudon instead’, as if we set the price, as if the Ducks wouldn’t have had a say in this. As if Marc Bergevin opened the bidding with Max Pacioretty, and Bob Murray talked him down to Jiri Sekac, told him that’d be sufficient.
All the reports out of Anaheim, from the ‘insiders’, talk about how Jiri was exactly what they were looking for, size with a little more speed and skill at forward, something they need for this playoff run, and that they don’t have in their system, full of Nick Ritchies, thumpers to compete against L.A. Sven Andrighetto, as intriguing a prospect as he is, wouldn’t have fit the bill.
The trade confirms what we’ve repeated to ourselves since June, that Jiri Sekac was much in demand. That the Ducks took him in return for a high second-round pick who is well-regarded, a player who got some NHL action at 19, says a lot. If someone had floated this rumour two days ago, I would have laughed, and thought the Canadiens would have had to throw in sweeteners, and more than the trusty fifth.
And I’ll repeat that the Canucks, who have roughly the same profile we do, a smaller skilled team that can skate and which opponents often try to physically dominate or outright goon, and consequently has been trying to add size with the Zack Kassians and the Shawn Matthiases and Bo Horvats, were asking for Devante Smith-Pelly in the Ryan Kesler trade. They were rebuffed, apparently told he was an untouchable.
We got a good one. We got a big young player with skill, something we’ve been whining we needed, except we’d dream of Wayne Simmonds or Brian Bickell, usually.
It’s a perfect fit for now, and for the future. A big strong winger who can play in the corners, in front of the net, plays right wing, shoots right. He plugs the hole that we hoped would be addressed in two years with Michael McCarron/Nikita Scherbak. He’s a great puzzle piece. He won’t be a UFA for five years, so he’ll be affordable, we have him for his ‘prime’ years.
We now have, in no particular order, Brendan Gallagher, P.A. Parenteau, Devante Smith-Pelly and Dale Weise on right wing, and that’s really good. All are true-blue RW’s, they shoot right, none is a displaced leftie. It’s not crystal clear who plays first or second or third line, and Dale may seem destined for the fourth, except that the coaches love him and he’s shown this season that he can play on the first line in spurts. That will be healthy competition. Pierre-Alexandre loves playing with David and Max, he’ll have to put up points, put out 100% effort to do so.
So the roster has better fits on the right side, rather than last season with a Thomas Vanek who preferred left wing, except that he also wanted to play on the top line with David and Max, but not so much when the Bruins were angry and mean, and a Daniel Brière who took the money but never relished the RW assignment, instead wanting to play centre.
One caveat I’ll have is that growing up, we were forever searching for ‘un gros ailier gauche’, or ‘un gros joueur de centre’, and would look longingly at the Islanders with Clarke Gillies and John Tonelli and Bob Nystrom. So we’d keep trading for big wingers who had big rep, and would come here and disappoint or flop completely. Perry Turnbull, Lucien DeBlois, Ryan Walter, I’m probably forgetting a couple, we’d find that these big guys weren’t that great, a cure for what ailed us.
I’ll take comfort in what Pierre LeBrun reported yesterday, how another GM told him you don’t get players like Devante Smith-Pelly at their peak. We got him in a trade for a significant piece, but still relatively cheap because the Ducks had a surplus and maybe thought the kid needed a change. Maybe he blossoms with us.
And we should all congratulate Marc Bergevin, for his patience and also for his guts, for his perseverance in trying to improve the team. He doesn’t always hit a homerun, but a baffling Christian Thomas for Danny Kristo trade aside, his moves always make sense, they have an internal logic. He sacrificed a leftie to tick off many needs on his list in one swoop, yet didn’t take on an expensive veteran to do so. He didn’t give up the younger better player, he swapped youth for youth.
Without the profusion of smoke signals that would have emanated from Toronto. We learned of this trade once Jiri was in the hotel underground waiting for his cab, not from Louis Jean or Davren Dregnoniser. Berg runs a tight, professional organization, he’s always moving forward, climbing one rung at a time.
Nice work.
Also in both cases, I was happy to receive the player we got, I always loved Shayne Corson, and have had a man-crush on Devante Smith-Pelly, but man is the cost of acquisition ever high. That smarts.
I really liked Jiri, wanted him to succeed, wasn’t worried about his slump, this was his first season, it’s not like everyone else around him was tearing it up. I figured he’d come around, it’s his first NHL season, he’s 22. I thought he’d be around for a while, he wasn’t going to be Andreas Engqvist.
I chuckled at the few mentions that we ‘should have given them Pateryn and Hudon instead’, as if we set the price, as if the Ducks wouldn’t have had a say in this. As if Marc Bergevin opened the bidding with Max Pacioretty, and Bob Murray talked him down to Jiri Sekac, told him that’d be sufficient.
All the reports out of Anaheim, from the ‘insiders’, talk about how Jiri was exactly what they were looking for, size with a little more speed and skill at forward, something they need for this playoff run, and that they don’t have in their system, full of Nick Ritchies, thumpers to compete against L.A. Sven Andrighetto, as intriguing a prospect as he is, wouldn’t have fit the bill.
The trade confirms what we’ve repeated to ourselves since June, that Jiri Sekac was much in demand. That the Ducks took him in return for a high second-round pick who is well-regarded, a player who got some NHL action at 19, says a lot. If someone had floated this rumour two days ago, I would have laughed, and thought the Canadiens would have had to throw in sweeteners, and more than the trusty fifth.
And I’ll repeat that the Canucks, who have roughly the same profile we do, a smaller skilled team that can skate and which opponents often try to physically dominate or outright goon, and consequently has been trying to add size with the Zack Kassians and the Shawn Matthiases and Bo Horvats, were asking for Devante Smith-Pelly in the Ryan Kesler trade. They were rebuffed, apparently told he was an untouchable.
We got a good one. We got a big young player with skill, something we’ve been whining we needed, except we’d dream of Wayne Simmonds or Brian Bickell, usually.
It’s a perfect fit for now, and for the future. A big strong winger who can play in the corners, in front of the net, plays right wing, shoots right. He plugs the hole that we hoped would be addressed in two years with Michael McCarron/Nikita Scherbak. He’s a great puzzle piece. He won’t be a UFA for five years, so he’ll be affordable, we have him for his ‘prime’ years.
We now have, in no particular order, Brendan Gallagher, P.A. Parenteau, Devante Smith-Pelly and Dale Weise on right wing, and that’s really good. All are true-blue RW’s, they shoot right, none is a displaced leftie. It’s not crystal clear who plays first or second or third line, and Dale may seem destined for the fourth, except that the coaches love him and he’s shown this season that he can play on the first line in spurts. That will be healthy competition. Pierre-Alexandre loves playing with David and Max, he’ll have to put up points, put out 100% effort to do so.
So the roster has better fits on the right side, rather than last season with a Thomas Vanek who preferred left wing, except that he also wanted to play on the top line with David and Max, but not so much when the Bruins were angry and mean, and a Daniel Brière who took the money but never relished the RW assignment, instead wanting to play centre.
One caveat I’ll have is that growing up, we were forever searching for ‘un gros ailier gauche’, or ‘un gros joueur de centre’, and would look longingly at the Islanders with Clarke Gillies and John Tonelli and Bob Nystrom. So we’d keep trading for big wingers who had big rep, and would come here and disappoint or flop completely. Perry Turnbull, Lucien DeBlois, Ryan Walter, I’m probably forgetting a couple, we’d find that these big guys weren’t that great, a cure for what ailed us.
I’ll take comfort in what Pierre LeBrun reported yesterday, how another GM told him you don’t get players like Devante Smith-Pelly at their peak. We got him in a trade for a significant piece, but still relatively cheap because the Ducks had a surplus and maybe thought the kid needed a change. Maybe he blossoms with us.
And we should all congratulate Marc Bergevin, for his patience and also for his guts, for his perseverance in trying to improve the team. He doesn’t always hit a homerun, but a baffling Christian Thomas for Danny Kristo trade aside, his moves always make sense, they have an internal logic. He sacrificed a leftie to tick off many needs on his list in one swoop, yet didn’t take on an expensive veteran to do so. He didn’t give up the younger better player, he swapped youth for youth.
Without the profusion of smoke signals that would have emanated from Toronto. We learned of this trade once Jiri was in the hotel underground waiting for his cab, not from Louis Jean or Davren Dregnoniser. Berg runs a tight, professional organization, he’s always moving forward, climbing one rung at a time.
Nice work.
Tuesday, 24 February 2015
Gary Bettman must chainsaw a chunk of his nose off every night.
Reportedly, when he was asked whether the league would try to resurrect CagGeek or launch a similar site, Gary Bettman answered that hockey fans aren’t interested in player salaries.
It’s impossible to get a straight answer from this guy, everything is spin, everything is a strenuous denial in face of the facts. No decision has been made on Vegas. The Emperor has no clothes. The Emperor has no epidermis either.
Here’s the actual quote, from Puck Daddy:
It’s impossible to get a straight answer from this guy, everything is spin, everything is a strenuous denial in face of the facts. No decision has been made on Vegas. The Emperor has no clothes. The Emperor has no epidermis either.
Here’s the actual quote, from Puck Daddy:
“I don’t think it’s a resource we need to provide because I’m not sure fans are as focused on what players make as they are about their performance on the ice,” he said.Gary, with your three lockouts, you actually made it central, essential to know what players make, and fans as a matter of course are going to care what a David Clarkson or Scott Gomez makes. You laughable lying tool.
Should the Canadiens have signed and kept Devan Dubnyk?
Lots of talk on Jacob Markstrom on TSN 1040 Vancouver, how he’s finally delivering on his promise, a former can’t-miss 6’6″ prospect, drafted 31st overall in the 2008 draft. They’re saying that he responded really well to the Canucks' Rollie Melanson’s coaching, after being confused by a succession of goalie coaches in Florida, who all tried changing his style, working on his weaknesses instead of playing to his strengths.
It’s reminiscent of Carey Price maybe not responding very well to former Habs' goalie coach Pierre Groulx’s methods, looking confused at times, sliding way out of his net, dropping to his knees too early, etc. The change to Stéphane Waite has been a godsend, he’s now at the top of his game, fully exploiting his physical gifts, reaching his lofty potential.
This great response to a coaching change is what made me wonder last summer if we should try to hold on to Devan Dubnyk and see how he’d do working with Stéphane Waite. His recent play in Minny, and Dustin’s concurrent struggles, have made me re-visit this idea lately.
Now, Marc Bergevin has proven to be very in tune with team dynamics. He prizes character, veteranship, guys who are ‘good in the room’. We’ve heard talk about Peter Budaj being a perfect backup, that this helped the team morale.
So maybe he thought that having Devan Dubnyk as a backup to Carey was a non-starter, that he’d chafe in that role and be a rival rather than a complement, that it might poison the well.
But as an uninformed fan, I’d feel a lot less exposed going into the playoffs with Devan Dubnyk as our spare tire rather than scrappy, undersized Dustin Tokarski.
It’s reminiscent of Carey Price maybe not responding very well to former Habs' goalie coach Pierre Groulx’s methods, looking confused at times, sliding way out of his net, dropping to his knees too early, etc. The change to Stéphane Waite has been a godsend, he’s now at the top of his game, fully exploiting his physical gifts, reaching his lofty potential.
This great response to a coaching change is what made me wonder last summer if we should try to hold on to Devan Dubnyk and see how he’d do working with Stéphane Waite. His recent play in Minny, and Dustin’s concurrent struggles, have made me re-visit this idea lately.
Devan Dubnyk is the most intriguing UFA on the rolls, in that he’s a big NHL goalie, a former first-rounder, and that the Canadiens’ goaltending situation past Carey Price is now more muddled. Dustin Tokarski will be eligible for waivers next season, and has probably little left to learn at the AHL level, it may be time for him to take the next step and function as the backup to Carey Price. This would mean Peter Budaj getting traded away, and every goalie in the system taking another step up the depth chart.
Most probably, Devan Dubnyk will ply his trade elsewhere next season, in the NHL most likely. He’s obviously not eager to remain in the AHL, few players are. The fact that he left the Canadiens during their playoff run rather than remain with the Black Aces, and was unavailable for emergency duty when Carey Price fell to injury, probably didn’t endear him to Canadiens management. It would be no big loss, in that he was received at the trade deadline at no cost, in a ‘future considerations’ move to help out the Predators. There is nothing invested in him by the Canadiens.
Yet a fan can dream. What if he did stay as the main guy in Hamilton, and got some of the Stéphane Waite treatment that worked wonders with Carey this season? Could our goalie coach point the former Oiler in the right direction, and unlock his potential? Could Mr. Dubnyk see this as a necessary step for the good of his career? This is a very long shot, but it’s worth discussing it before dismissing it as a pipe dream. Right?
Now, Marc Bergevin has proven to be very in tune with team dynamics. He prizes character, veteranship, guys who are ‘good in the room’. We’ve heard talk about Peter Budaj being a perfect backup, that this helped the team morale.
So maybe he thought that having Devan Dubnyk as a backup to Carey was a non-starter, that he’d chafe in that role and be a rival rather than a complement, that it might poison the well.
But as an uninformed fan, I’d feel a lot less exposed going into the playoffs with Devan Dubnyk as our spare tire rather than scrappy, undersized Dustin Tokarski.
Game 60: Canadiens 5, Blues 2
Canadiens Express thoughts on tonight's game, a convincing 5-2 win over the Blues.
- The mighty Blues, often held up as a Western power, don't seem like they're all that. Sure, the big names are still there, the Top 6, but very quickly you get to the Jaden Schwartzes and the Marcel Goces and the Dmitrij Jaskins, and I'm not shaking in my boots anymore.
- Steve Ott is such a jerk, a dirty player who should get 20-30 PIM's per game.
- I wasn't crazy about Ryan Reaves punching Jarred Tinordi in his facemask either.
- Surprised that they're paying Paul Stastny all that money to centre the third line.
- I thought that Alex Galchenyuk playing his off-wing was a very short-term deal, until Devante Smith-Pelly joins the team and P.A. Parenteau is cleared to play again, but after a 2 goal, 3 point night, maybe Michel Therrien rides this horse for a while?...
- I was glad to see Lars go for the net on Alex's second goal, right after Tomas won the break. Jake Allen let the puck by from a sharp angle, and it seems that Lars and his counterpart being right in front of him may have played a part.
- Dale Weise and Brandon Prust played a surprising game, with some hitting and forechecking sure, but also showing some skill and attempting some very nice passing plays.
- Greg Pateryn and Jarred had relatively quiet nights, they got caught in their zone a couple of times, and Jarred committed an unnecessary icing, but overall they kept chopping wood and gave their team twelve minutes of good hockey. Nice work boys.
- The coaches managed to ease off on the minutes for P.K. and Andrei, they were kept under 25 minutes. Tom Gilbert and Nathan Beaulieu actually got more ice time.
- Max Pacioretty is a breakaway machine. Always great to see him in flight.
- I liked Brendan Gallagher's restrained, Cammalleri-esque goal celebration on the clinching powerplay goal late in the third. No sense rubbing it in, act like you've been there before, all that good stuff. Steve Ott, pay attention, learn yourself up some, son.
- Michaël Bournival got an offsetting roughing penalty with Ryan Reaves. Sure refs, Bourni was trying to goon the Blues enforcer, giving as much as he got. Makes sense. That wasn't a copout of a call at all.
- Good to see Bourni score on a breakaway once out of the box, hope that gets him going a little bit, gives him a little more confidence. It would be nice if he went on a run like he had out of training camp last season.
- Is it inevitable that once everyone is mostly healthy, that Lars and Jacob de la Rose will centre the third and fourth lines, and Manny, as strong as he is on faceoffs (67% tonight), sits out?
Canadiens trade Jiri Sekac to the Ducks in return for Devante Smith-Pelly
It’s mildly disappointing to lose a prospect/young player like Jiri Sekac, one who as an in-demand free agent chose Montréal over all other destinations to boot. I really liked his combination of size and skill, and wasn’t worried about his recent swoon, long-term I could see him being a very important piece of our puzzle.
I’m very surprised that we got Devante Smith-Pelly in this deal, as late as last summer the Canucks reportedly were trying to obtain him in the Ryan Kesler trade and were told he was basically an untouchable. So I don’t know if that was hype, or if he’s regressed this season, to the point that the Ducks felt comfortable flipping him. More likely, something wasn’t clicking, he was a little stalled in his development.
So even though I’ve always had a man-crush on this kid, thought he’d fit the bill as a big winger who can score, now I’m a little gunshy. Why did the Ducks feel he was disposable all of a sudden? Are we being sathered? Couldn’t we have given them Connor Crisp or Gabriel Dumont for Mr. Smith-Pelly? And a fifth?
But I trust the scouting of Marc Bergevin’s team, and suspect the swap of a leftie for a right-shooting, true-blue right winger is a big reason behind the move, on top of any other consideration. Kind of like flipping Daniel Brière for P.A. Parenteau, we gave up and received roughly equivalent pieces, except the one we get back fits in better in our overall picture. We had a bunch of players who can play on the left, but were being forced on the right side with muted results.
Now, we have Brendan Gallagher, P.A. Parenteau and Devante Smith-Pelly on the right wing on our top three lines, and that’s pretty decent in my opinion. They all have a nice complement of skills and attributes, we can mix and match depending on how they’re producing, or who the opposition is. These three players will have to fight for icetime, powerplay time, for inclusion on the top line with Max and his centre-du-jour. They’ll be kept on their toes. Right wing is no longer a glaring weakness.
So we get a player on the team that I’ve always liked, always wished we had or could have drafted, but the price tag stings a bit. As an ever-hard-to-please fan, I wish we could have gotten him in the René Bourque trade, gotten him and kept Jiri. But I see a more complete, coherent picture of our roster, and a General Manager who continues to impress with shrewd, gutsy deals that the ‘insiders’ don’t have the faintest inkling of.
I’m very surprised that we got Devante Smith-Pelly in this deal, as late as last summer the Canucks reportedly were trying to obtain him in the Ryan Kesler trade and were told he was basically an untouchable. So I don’t know if that was hype, or if he’s regressed this season, to the point that the Ducks felt comfortable flipping him. More likely, something wasn’t clicking, he was a little stalled in his development.
So even though I’ve always had a man-crush on this kid, thought he’d fit the bill as a big winger who can score, now I’m a little gunshy. Why did the Ducks feel he was disposable all of a sudden? Are we being sathered? Couldn’t we have given them Connor Crisp or Gabriel Dumont for Mr. Smith-Pelly? And a fifth?
But I trust the scouting of Marc Bergevin’s team, and suspect the swap of a leftie for a right-shooting, true-blue right winger is a big reason behind the move, on top of any other consideration. Kind of like flipping Daniel Brière for P.A. Parenteau, we gave up and received roughly equivalent pieces, except the one we get back fits in better in our overall picture. We had a bunch of players who can play on the left, but were being forced on the right side with muted results.
Now, we have Brendan Gallagher, P.A. Parenteau and Devante Smith-Pelly on the right wing on our top three lines, and that’s pretty decent in my opinion. They all have a nice complement of skills and attributes, we can mix and match depending on how they’re producing, or who the opposition is. These three players will have to fight for icetime, powerplay time, for inclusion on the top line with Max and his centre-du-jour. They’ll be kept on their toes. Right wing is no longer a glaring weakness.
So we get a player on the team that I’ve always liked, always wished we had or could have drafted, but the price tag stings a bit. As an ever-hard-to-please fan, I wish we could have gotten him in the René Bourque trade, gotten him and kept Jiri. But I see a more complete, coherent picture of our roster, and a General Manager who continues to impress with shrewd, gutsy deals that the ‘insiders’ don’t have the faintest inkling of.
Sunday, 22 February 2015
Canucks 4, Islanders 0
The Canucks are on a five-game road trip in the Eastern Time Zone, historically a very difficult proposition for a West Coast team. I know that in the NFL, West Coast teams have a very poor record in the East. The Canucks have often pointed to difficult road trips for their difficulties in the standings, and in attracting free agents.
In any case, they took off with an unstated goal of six points out of ten, according to the local media, but after a win against the Rangers, some optimists re-adjusted the target to eight points, what with the Devils and Sabres being patsies, and the Bruins in a tailspin.
Then they went and coughed up an ugly loss against the Devils, so it was back to the drawing board, prepping for a game against the neo-powerhouse Islanders. That figured to be a tough game.
Instead, the Canucks jumped out to an early lead and never looked back, winning 4-0.
The Sedin brothers again displayed their magic touch, setting up Zack Kassian and Radim Vrbata for a powerplay goal each. One play which caught my eye was a behind-the-net bank pass from Daniel to Henrik, which wasn't just a blind dump around the boards attempt, but a measured, called shot, as if Daniel was playing pool. And don't look now, but Zack Kassian is on some kind of consecutive games point streak, broken up only by a couple of healthy scratches, believe it or not.
On the other end of the scale, revolting creep Cal Clutterbuck skated by the Canucks bench and hit/speared players seated there. Somehow that escaped the refs' attention. Had it been P.K. pulling that crap, he'd have been drawn and quartered in the parking lot after the game.
The easy way to deal with this nonsense is to re-arrange hockey rinks so that player benches aren't next to each other but rather facing each other on either side of the rink. This would remove this 'opportunity' from the Steve Otts and the Chris Neils of the world.
During the broadcast of the game, we had an intermission feature on Manon Rhéaume, and what a treat that was. She was always very photogenic, and if that's possible she's even more camera-friendly now, but what hasn't changed is her class and graciousness.
So six points is definitely in sight, four are already in the bag, and the two in Buffalo are already assured right? All that remains for them is the troublesome Bruins, but then again, the Canucks always play them tough.
In any case, they took off with an unstated goal of six points out of ten, according to the local media, but after a win against the Rangers, some optimists re-adjusted the target to eight points, what with the Devils and Sabres being patsies, and the Bruins in a tailspin.
Then they went and coughed up an ugly loss against the Devils, so it was back to the drawing board, prepping for a game against the neo-powerhouse Islanders. That figured to be a tough game.
Instead, the Canucks jumped out to an early lead and never looked back, winning 4-0.
The Sedin brothers again displayed their magic touch, setting up Zack Kassian and Radim Vrbata for a powerplay goal each. One play which caught my eye was a behind-the-net bank pass from Daniel to Henrik, which wasn't just a blind dump around the boards attempt, but a measured, called shot, as if Daniel was playing pool. And don't look now, but Zack Kassian is on some kind of consecutive games point streak, broken up only by a couple of healthy scratches, believe it or not.
On the other end of the scale, revolting creep Cal Clutterbuck skated by the Canucks bench and hit/speared players seated there. Somehow that escaped the refs' attention. Had it been P.K. pulling that crap, he'd have been drawn and quartered in the parking lot after the game.
The easy way to deal with this nonsense is to re-arrange hockey rinks so that player benches aren't next to each other but rather facing each other on either side of the rink. This would remove this 'opportunity' from the Steve Otts and the Chris Neils of the world.
During the broadcast of the game, we had an intermission feature on Manon Rhéaume, and what a treat that was. She was always very photogenic, and if that's possible she's even more camera-friendly now, but what hasn't changed is her class and graciousness.
So six points is definitely in sight, four are already in the bag, and the two in Buffalo are already assured right? All that remains for them is the troublesome Bruins, but then again, the Canucks always play them tough.
Game 59: Canadiens 3, Blue Jackets 1
The Canadiens break a panic-inducing two-game losing streak with a 3-1 against the Blue Jackets, and quell the head-coach-defenestrating mood of the more reactionary Canadiens fans.
-The saying goes that your best players have to be your best players, and again that borne out for the Habs, with Max Pacioretty scoring two goals, Tomas Plekanec sealing it with an empty-net goal, and Carey Price smoothing the roiling waters on occasion, stopping 32 of 33 shots.
--Nathan Beaulieu getting lots of love from the Sportsnet crew, and Chantal Machabée on L'Antichambre. She quoted Sergei Gonchar who claims that if he continues developing he can turn into one of the best defencemen of the NHL. He did play a good-to-great game, skating with authority, claiming loose pucks and going the other way with it, and being creative in the offensive zone, notably on a beauty of a feed to Max for a one-timed goal.
--Why can Jared Boll put his stick between Jacob de la Rose's legs and push him on the back into the boards?
--Why can Fedor Tyutin hit Jiri Sekac square in the back into the boards face-first with impunity? BecauseSportsnet's Jason York deems it a hockey play, a "good hit"?
--Why do Max and Gally get assaulted when they shoot on net half a second after the whistle blows, but Cam Atkinson can shoot on Carey Price with the friggin' siren going off, and no one says boo to him?
--Lars Eller appears unsure, unsteady, with or without the puck. He took a 'lazy' tripping penalty by trying to harass an opponent while coasting, not moving his feet, instead of using his size and speed to knock him off the puck.
--Jarred Tinordi and Greg Pateryn are doing the job while Alexei Emelin and Sergei Gonchar are injured. They both played a respectable twelve minutes, doled out hits, and didn't get douglasmurrayed in their zone for minutes on end.
--Greg Pateryn was a little unlucky on his penalty in the third, when he clipped a Jacket in the visor with a high stick. I'd just noticed, earlier in the same sequence, how he had the size and strength to battle along the boards mano a mano, as opposed to Raphaël Diaz or Jaro Spacek who would decorporealize when up against a Nick Foligno or Mike Hartnell.
--P.A. Parenteau and Alex Galchenyuk are two big pieces missing from the Top 6. They can't come back soon enough, we're not going to win too many more with just Max scoring.
--Christian Thomas won plaudits from the talking heads for standing up to Cam Atkinson, going after him and dropping the gloves after getting run in the corner. Still, it was a totally unnecessary sequence, needing only that the refs call a penalty on the Blue Jacket. It was a clear case of interference, of hitting in the back. It was goonery, anti-hockey, plain and simple.
--In light of the recent death of Steve Montador, and the announcement that doctors may be able to test for CTE on living patients, it's an odd time to congratulate two guys for whaling on each other and giving each other bloody noses. But that's the NHL for you, letting the players 'police themselves', 'letting them play', as Don Cherry exhorts from his pulpit. Which really means letting them cheat. So it goes.
--Meanwhile Gary Bettman is making ice in San Fran. Winning.
--Wouldn't it be in the best self-interest of owners to reduce this thuggery, this mindless violence, and not have star players on the sidelines and IR? To not have Sidney Crosby fighting Brandon Dubinsky? Shouldn't that slash-and-elbow artist be penalized for being in the same zone as Sidney?
--I'm still marveling at the transformation of Nathan Beaulieu, who's now an aw-shucks can-do guy, modest and deferential, a big change from a kid who was once characterized as cocky. He did very well in his appearance on L'Antichambre.
--Not a great homestand, all-in-all, some 'easy' points were squandered, but the Canadiens are on top of the Eastern Conference with games in hand on Tampa. Nice work boys.
-The saying goes that your best players have to be your best players, and again that borne out for the Habs, with Max Pacioretty scoring two goals, Tomas Plekanec sealing it with an empty-net goal, and Carey Price smoothing the roiling waters on occasion, stopping 32 of 33 shots.
--Nathan Beaulieu getting lots of love from the Sportsnet crew, and Chantal Machabée on L'Antichambre. She quoted Sergei Gonchar who claims that if he continues developing he can turn into one of the best defencemen of the NHL. He did play a good-to-great game, skating with authority, claiming loose pucks and going the other way with it, and being creative in the offensive zone, notably on a beauty of a feed to Max for a one-timed goal.
--Why can Jared Boll put his stick between Jacob de la Rose's legs and push him on the back into the boards?
--Why can Fedor Tyutin hit Jiri Sekac square in the back into the boards face-first with impunity? BecauseSportsnet's Jason York deems it a hockey play, a "good hit"?
--Why do Max and Gally get assaulted when they shoot on net half a second after the whistle blows, but Cam Atkinson can shoot on Carey Price with the friggin' siren going off, and no one says boo to him?
--Lars Eller appears unsure, unsteady, with or without the puck. He took a 'lazy' tripping penalty by trying to harass an opponent while coasting, not moving his feet, instead of using his size and speed to knock him off the puck.
--Jarred Tinordi and Greg Pateryn are doing the job while Alexei Emelin and Sergei Gonchar are injured. They both played a respectable twelve minutes, doled out hits, and didn't get douglasmurrayed in their zone for minutes on end.
--Greg Pateryn was a little unlucky on his penalty in the third, when he clipped a Jacket in the visor with a high stick. I'd just noticed, earlier in the same sequence, how he had the size and strength to battle along the boards mano a mano, as opposed to Raphaël Diaz or Jaro Spacek who would decorporealize when up against a Nick Foligno or Mike Hartnell.
--P.A. Parenteau and Alex Galchenyuk are two big pieces missing from the Top 6. They can't come back soon enough, we're not going to win too many more with just Max scoring.
--Christian Thomas won plaudits from the talking heads for standing up to Cam Atkinson, going after him and dropping the gloves after getting run in the corner. Still, it was a totally unnecessary sequence, needing only that the refs call a penalty on the Blue Jacket. It was a clear case of interference, of hitting in the back. It was goonery, anti-hockey, plain and simple.
--In light of the recent death of Steve Montador, and the announcement that doctors may be able to test for CTE on living patients, it's an odd time to congratulate two guys for whaling on each other and giving each other bloody noses. But that's the NHL for you, letting the players 'police themselves', 'letting them play', as Don Cherry exhorts from his pulpit. Which really means letting them cheat. So it goes.
--Meanwhile Gary Bettman is making ice in San Fran. Winning.
--Wouldn't it be in the best self-interest of owners to reduce this thuggery, this mindless violence, and not have star players on the sidelines and IR? To not have Sidney Crosby fighting Brandon Dubinsky? Shouldn't that slash-and-elbow artist be penalized for being in the same zone as Sidney?
--I'm still marveling at the transformation of Nathan Beaulieu, who's now an aw-shucks can-do guy, modest and deferential, a big change from a kid who was once characterized as cocky. He did very well in his appearance on L'Antichambre.
--Not a great homestand, all-in-all, some 'easy' points were squandered, but the Canadiens are on top of the Eastern Conference with games in hand on Tampa. Nice work boys.
Saturday, 21 February 2015
Leafs Nazem Kadri, Phil Kessel aren't a fit with the 'CHaracter' Canadiens.
With the fire sale/down-to-the-foundations implosion and rebuild of the Maple Leafs underway, we've seen a few rumours involving a possible trade with the Canadiens. Now I believe these are mostly created by bloggers attempting to generate hits by including two teams with lots of followers.
About Nazem Kadri being a desirable option for the Canadiens, I respectfully, strongly disagree. He may be an idiot-savant, able to do wizardly things with the puck but completely inept at others.
Like being a decent teammate and human being.
Offhand, there’s the way he’d throw his weight around and act like a tough guy when he had that revolving cast of goons on his side, but now barely checks his opponents, careful not to rile them.
There’s his quote that he’s pretty much as talented as John Tavares.
There’s his acrimonious contract squabble with the Leafs, performed in public with the media, including a mention of how offended he was at one offer (compare to P.K. both times he’s had to negotiate a deal), and a Twitter battle with Bob McKenzie.
There’s his quote that his teammates had to hold him back on the bench when John Scott was going after Phil Kessel.
I’m probably forgetting a couple of other specific reasons why I detest him.
So no thanks. He and Phil and Dion can continue starring with the Dave Clark(son) Five, that’s quite the nice little group they’re cheering for out there in T.O. Let’s not help them out by taking a headcase off their hands.
That video Sportsnet showed of Phil Kessel getting off the team bus before the game shocked me. I went over it a couple of times on PVR. He’s not just chubby, or skinny fat, or out of condition, or doesn’t pass Paul Maurice’s ‘Shirt off test’. He’s obese. He has a huge roll over his belt, and his face is exploding more than Barry Bonds’ in his last few seasons in ‘Frisco.
I do believe that the Canadiens dressing room has leadership, and that the coaching staff and front office work hand in hand, there’s no vacuum there. But is there anyone that can make Phil lift anything other than a six-pack?
At such an early age, that he’s progressively letting himself go like that, after the kerfuffle at training camp, when he made the remark that he hadn’t skated ten times over the summer, and just scoffed at the skeptics, implying that he’d play himself into shape, like usual. Well it’s not happening.
And this isn’t new. In “Future Greats and Heartbreaks”, he’s being interviewed before the draft, and they’re questioning him about his fitness testing scores. He allows that they’re not good, but says that he played late into the spring, on the U.S. World Championship team, so he didn’t have the opportunity to ‘get ready’ like the others at the combine. When he’s pressed about this, that even without the specific training to prep, his scores shouldn’t be that low, he shrugs.
So can a couple instances of Andrei barking at him, or the sight of P.K. and Max preaching by example, all of a sudden make him develop good dietary and training habits? Or has he been successful so far on his natural gifts, and is about to fade quickly as he approaches thirty?
So again, no thanks.
About Nazem Kadri being a desirable option for the Canadiens, I respectfully, strongly disagree. He may be an idiot-savant, able to do wizardly things with the puck but completely inept at others.
Like being a decent teammate and human being.
Offhand, there’s the way he’d throw his weight around and act like a tough guy when he had that revolving cast of goons on his side, but now barely checks his opponents, careful not to rile them.
There’s his quote that he’s pretty much as talented as John Tavares.
There’s his acrimonious contract squabble with the Leafs, performed in public with the media, including a mention of how offended he was at one offer (compare to P.K. both times he’s had to negotiate a deal), and a Twitter battle with Bob McKenzie.
There’s his quote that his teammates had to hold him back on the bench when John Scott was going after Phil Kessel.
I’m probably forgetting a couple of other specific reasons why I detest him.
So no thanks. He and Phil and Dion can continue starring with the Dave Clark(son) Five, that’s quite the nice little group they’re cheering for out there in T.O. Let’s not help them out by taking a headcase off their hands.
That video Sportsnet showed of Phil Kessel getting off the team bus before the game shocked me. I went over it a couple of times on PVR. He’s not just chubby, or skinny fat, or out of condition, or doesn’t pass Paul Maurice’s ‘Shirt off test’. He’s obese. He has a huge roll over his belt, and his face is exploding more than Barry Bonds’ in his last few seasons in ‘Frisco.
I do believe that the Canadiens dressing room has leadership, and that the coaching staff and front office work hand in hand, there’s no vacuum there. But is there anyone that can make Phil lift anything other than a six-pack?
At such an early age, that he’s progressively letting himself go like that, after the kerfuffle at training camp, when he made the remark that he hadn’t skated ten times over the summer, and just scoffed at the skeptics, implying that he’d play himself into shape, like usual. Well it’s not happening.
And this isn’t new. In “Future Greats and Heartbreaks”, he’s being interviewed before the draft, and they’re questioning him about his fitness testing scores. He allows that they’re not good, but says that he played late into the spring, on the U.S. World Championship team, so he didn’t have the opportunity to ‘get ready’ like the others at the combine. When he’s pressed about this, that even without the specific training to prep, his scores shouldn’t be that low, he shrugs.
So can a couple instances of Andrei barking at him, or the sight of P.K. and Max preaching by example, all of a sudden make him develop good dietary and training habits? Or has he been successful so far on his natural gifts, and is about to fade quickly as he approaches thirty?
So again, no thanks.
Are/were the Canadiens really in trade talks involving Alexei Emelin with the Canucks?
With Kevin Bieksa lost to a hand fracture(s) for another month, and now Alex Edler maybe gone for an extended period as well, the Canucks are in trouble. I’m not sure they might not be sellers at the deadline, trying to amass picks and prospects. Jim Benning is all about developing the farm system.
If they decide to trade for a defenceman to hold the fort and help through the playoffs, I wonder if there’s a trade fit for the Canadiens. It’s been bruited that Alexei Emelin might be a trade chip for Marc Bergevin (that’ll learn him to talk to Davrren Dronis), and he would actually be the kind of guy they’re looking for, they want a bit of toughness, some hitting on their blue line. Only Kevin Bieksa brings an edge back there, and he can’t do it all by himself.
These rumours have cooled off with Alexei on the shelf himself, but after sensationalized reports that he was out a minimum of six weeks, it's now revealed that his shoulder ailment will keep him out 'week to week'.
That pretty much squelches any chance of a trade involving Alexei, but if the trade talks had led anywhere, would the Canucks have flip;ed back a forward like Zack Kassian? He’s started producing again, but it’s still not unicorns and rainbows there. He might respond to a change of scenery like Dale Weise did. He’s apparently not keen to be pigeonholed as the team’s answer to any opposition heavyweight who wants to fight.
Shawn Matthias might be a good depth addition as a centre for the fourth line, or a winger who can skate and bang. He also has started producing again, so his trade value may be going up.
Could Chris Higgins make a comeback in Montréal? Would Marc Bergevin be interested in a defensively-oriented forward? Probably not.
Maybe Alex Burrows might be able to contribute, he’s healthy and having a better season than his nightmare last year, but I don’t see him as palatable to the Canadiens unless the Canucks retain some of his salary, his long-term deal is a bit of an albatross, but looks better this season now that he’s back on the top line, and Radim Vrbata has been moved off the Sedin line and down to the second.
If they decide to trade for a defenceman to hold the fort and help through the playoffs, I wonder if there’s a trade fit for the Canadiens. It’s been bruited that Alexei Emelin might be a trade chip for Marc Bergevin (that’ll learn him to talk to Davrren Dronis), and he would actually be the kind of guy they’re looking for, they want a bit of toughness, some hitting on their blue line. Only Kevin Bieksa brings an edge back there, and he can’t do it all by himself.
These rumours have cooled off with Alexei on the shelf himself, but after sensationalized reports that he was out a minimum of six weeks, it's now revealed that his shoulder ailment will keep him out 'week to week'.
That pretty much squelches any chance of a trade involving Alexei, but if the trade talks had led anywhere, would the Canucks have flip;ed back a forward like Zack Kassian? He’s started producing again, but it’s still not unicorns and rainbows there. He might respond to a change of scenery like Dale Weise did. He’s apparently not keen to be pigeonholed as the team’s answer to any opposition heavyweight who wants to fight.
Shawn Matthias might be a good depth addition as a centre for the fourth line, or a winger who can skate and bang. He also has started producing again, so his trade value may be going up.
Could Chris Higgins make a comeback in Montréal? Would Marc Bergevin be interested in a defensively-oriented forward? Probably not.
Maybe Alex Burrows might be able to contribute, he’s healthy and having a better season than his nightmare last year, but I don’t see him as palatable to the Canadiens unless the Canucks retain some of his salary, his long-term deal is a bit of an albatross, but looks better this season now that he’s back on the top line, and Radim Vrbata has been moved off the Sedin line and down to the second.
Memo to Marc Bergevin: Don't trade anyone.
Tangent: Anyone see the latest 24CH, featuring Lars Eller’s surprisingly winsome and cheekboned wife? She was in a ‘Dancing with the Stars’-style benefit for the Montréal Children’s Hospital I believe, and you see her as well as some others going through their day-to-day, how they’re dealing with life in this hockey-mad town, married to a celebrity.
She spoke convincingly about how she and Lars love it, how it takes them aback constantly how passionate people are about hockey, about how it’s home for them and where they started their family, how much they sacrificed as a couple yet don’t want to be anywhere else.
So I don’t want Lars, or any of these boys traded. Thomas Vanek, sure, run the bum out of town after the playoffs. Follow Michael Ryder’s shuffling, meandering footsteps.
Bums like Mike Ribeiro, yeah let’s rid the team of their toxicity.
René Bourque, we tried everything, gave him every opportunity. Good luck wherever life takes you.
Travis Moen, good luck, but he wasn’t going to play much, we were doing him a favour. Better that he get a chance to play somewhere else.
Erik Cole, what happened to you? You had such an awesome season, saved that year for me as a fan, your assaults on the offensive zone, your gallant charges at the enemy net, the way Max followed your lead. The way you once memorably, solicitously squirted water for your teammates to quench to their thirst. It still stings that you had to leave, and I still don’t quite understand why.
But our boys, the guys we’ve watched grow up, I don’t want these guys going anywhere.
I want to win, but I want to win with our boys.
She spoke convincingly about how she and Lars love it, how it takes them aback constantly how passionate people are about hockey, about how it’s home for them and where they started their family, how much they sacrificed as a couple yet don’t want to be anywhere else.
So I don’t want Lars, or any of these boys traded. Thomas Vanek, sure, run the bum out of town after the playoffs. Follow Michael Ryder’s shuffling, meandering footsteps.
Bums like Mike Ribeiro, yeah let’s rid the team of their toxicity.
René Bourque, we tried everything, gave him every opportunity. Good luck wherever life takes you.
Travis Moen, good luck, but he wasn’t going to play much, we were doing him a favour. Better that he get a chance to play somewhere else.
Erik Cole, what happened to you? You had such an awesome season, saved that year for me as a fan, your assaults on the offensive zone, your gallant charges at the enemy net, the way Max followed your lead. The way you once memorably, solicitously squirted water for your teammates to quench to their thirst. It still stings that you had to leave, and I still don’t quite understand why.
But our boys, the guys we’ve watched grow up, I don’t want these guys going anywhere.
I want to win, but I want to win with our boys.
Michel Therrien, normally bland, lets slip his frustration with Lars Eller, regarding his absence from the shootout roster.
Michel Therrien saying last night that he hadn't selected Lars or Jiri for the shootout because they hadn't scored in two months reminded me of Jacques Martin's rebuke to Jessica Rusnak that she should do her research on Erik Cole and the powerplay. It's something said in irritation, something he shouldn't have said.
Now, it won't be his Waterloo, the coach has way too much credit in the bank, but it will be a chink in his armour that the intolerance faction on social media will pick at for years.
We worried when Michel Therrien was hired that he'd shoot his mouth off and get the team in trouble, like 'Mount' Orval Tessier would erupt sometimes. In fact, we've found that he has been quite restrained, plain vanilla in his press briefings. When he was hired, it was pointed out that he'd taken a lot of training in media relations and public speaking, and it showed in how innocuous his remarks are, always reverting to safe bromides like 'one game at a time' and 'work ethic' and 'responding to adversity'.
Here, he let his impatience get the better of him. He could simply have said that Andrei and P.K. do well during workouts on the shootout drill and deserve a chance. He could have even added that Lars and Jiri were in the rotation, would have come up soon had the shootout gone a little longer.
Player selection in the shootout is always open to second-guessing. We still talk about Wayne Gretzky on the bench in Nagano against Flopinik Hasek. With P.A. Parenteau and Alex Galchenyuk unavailable, the candidates at the top of the list become less self-evident.
A commenter on social media had a good post on the Habs Inside Out Liveblog to illustrate how Andrei Markov is actually proficient in the shootout, copied below:
That's all that the coach should have relied on to explain his decision making, that Andrei is really good. Add that P.K. routinely scores in the practice shootouts, and he's covered.
If anything, this blip, this slipup by the Head Coach, is another illustration that despite all the denials, coaches and GM's and players do 'read the papers', they're not as oblivious as they claim to be. If Coach Therrien didn't read the papers, wasn't exposed to the constant harping on Lars' utilization by one and all, he wouldn't have responded this way. He'd have been genuinely puzzled by the question and answered neutrally, instead of being vexed by it and giving a jab back.
Now, it won't be his Waterloo, the coach has way too much credit in the bank, but it will be a chink in his armour that the intolerance faction on social media will pick at for years.
We worried when Michel Therrien was hired that he'd shoot his mouth off and get the team in trouble, like 'Mount' Orval Tessier would erupt sometimes. In fact, we've found that he has been quite restrained, plain vanilla in his press briefings. When he was hired, it was pointed out that he'd taken a lot of training in media relations and public speaking, and it showed in how innocuous his remarks are, always reverting to safe bromides like 'one game at a time' and 'work ethic' and 'responding to adversity'.
Here, he let his impatience get the better of him. He could simply have said that Andrei and P.K. do well during workouts on the shootout drill and deserve a chance. He could have even added that Lars and Jiri were in the rotation, would have come up soon had the shootout gone a little longer.
Player selection in the shootout is always open to second-guessing. We still talk about Wayne Gretzky on the bench in Nagano against Flopinik Hasek. With P.A. Parenteau and Alex Galchenyuk unavailable, the candidates at the top of the list become less self-evident.
A commenter on social media had a good post on the Habs Inside Out Liveblog to illustrate how Andrei Markov is actually proficient in the shootout, copied below:
Chris FEBRUARY 19, 2015 AT 10:38 PMI went another way, and presented video evidence of Andrei scoring big shootout goals in high-pressure situations.
Markov was 1 for 1 last season, and was 5 of 13 in his career. That makes him the 4th most efficient shootout performer on the team, behind Parenteau (50%), Desharnais (46.9%) and Eller (41.7%).
That's all that the coach should have relied on to explain his decision making, that Andrei is really good. Add that P.K. routinely scores in the practice shootouts, and he's covered.
If anything, this blip, this slipup by the Head Coach, is another illustration that despite all the denials, coaches and GM's and players do 'read the papers', they're not as oblivious as they claim to be. If Coach Therrien didn't read the papers, wasn't exposed to the constant harping on Lars' utilization by one and all, he wouldn't have responded this way. He'd have been genuinely puzzled by the question and answered neutrally, instead of being vexed by it and giving a jab back.
Thursday, 19 February 2015
Game 57: Canadiens 2, Senators 4
- Another loss to another bottom-feeder. Shouldn't be, even with the mitigating circumstances.
- I'm so sick of being gooned by the Senators.
- I want to launch a Kickstarter campaign to fund the hire of a hitman to take care of Eric Gryba, with the method of disposal being a poison-dipped nitroglycerin elbow.
- I was looking forward to seeing Greg Pateryn and Nathan Beaulieu play together, but the Alexei Emelin injury foiled that.
- I was looking forward to seeing Michaël Bournival centre Jiri Sekac and Christian Thomas, having those youths skating wild out there, but the fact that the Canadiens couldn't get a lead foiled that.
- I'm so sick of having Gary Galley on Canadiens broadcasts. Near the end, referring to the fact that the game wasn't over yet, he said "...so this thing has a minute fourty-five, and lots of real estate to play out." Real estate?
- Isn't having to hear Nick Kypreos bark constantly as an 'analyst' enough? Do I have to endure his 'états d'âme' related to life after hockey in an interview segment with Strombo? Oh, wait, I don't, I can skip over it but quick.
- I took the time to walk over to my PVR so I could give it a big smooch.
- Dustin Tokarski's a nice kid, but I've taken to fantasizing that we'd signed Devan Dubnyk as our backup last summer, instead of letting him walk.
- Lars Eller isn't doing much at wing. Should we put him back at centre and drop Jacob de la Rose down to the fourth line, and actually try to roll four lines?
- Does Alexei's injury signal a sure trade, as the Sportsnet geniuses were predicting, or a phone call to Hamilton to get Jarred Tinordi's gear bag packed? He'd be exactly the type of player who could sub in for Alexei, a defensively-oriented guy who plays physical.
- Three rookies on defence? Couldn't happen...
- I'm so sick of journeymen rookie goalies getting their first starts against us and winning them.
- Michel Therrien mixed up his lines in the third period, but I can't blame him, none of them seemed to be clicking.
- On the empty-net goal, P.K. made a bad play, a bad decision, showed a lack of awareness, a poor grasp of situational hockey. With his net empty and the game on the line, with lots of time left, on the offensive blue line, with a Senator in his face, it wasn't time to stickhandle, to walk the line, to futz around with the puck. It was time for what bright hockey minds call a 'strong play', meaning to put the puck deep in the zone. He should have fired it against the boards, he had two teammates there to gain control. Instead, he tried a fancy little flip pass that was intercepted and in his net two seconds later.
- Some will point to his courage, to his playing hurt, to his ice-time due to Alexei's absence, but I don't want to hear it. That's not the point. I'm not questioning his heart, or whether he's a horse or not.
- He's a veteran who should understand this stuff. If he wants to be a team leader, he can't make rookie mistakes like that, trying the high-risk play in the wrong situations. Not at his pay grade.
- Thank you Gary Bettman for making me watch this sub-par Sportsnet garbage instead of RDS or TSN much more polished products.
Monday, 16 February 2015
Will Marc Bergevin make a trade to improve the Canadiens before the deadline?
With surprise contenders Nashville Predators having loaded up for a Stanley Cup run with the addition of Cody Franson and Mike Santorelli, the starting pistol for the March 2 trade deadline frenzy may have been fired early.
Fans of the Canadiens are wondering if Marc Bergevin will pull the trigger on a similar deal to shore up his blue line and scoring in the forwards, especially at right wing. These areas are seen as glaring weaknesses despite the excellent results the team has garnered so far, flirting with the top spot in the Eastern Conference all season long.
Last year, Marc Bergevin pulled a rabbit out of a hat and obtained Thomas Vanek at a surprisingly reasonable cost. I didn’t think the price was inconsiderable, had qualms about the trade immediately, and thought those who were flip-flopping and now dismissing Sebastian Collberg as a valid prospect were thinking with their cheerfanius maximus muscle. Sure, support the team, but don’t twist facts.
One fact we can add in to our equation now, and which tilts the decision in favour of making that trade again, is that Sebastian Collberg hasn’t been setting the world on fire the last couple of seasons.
Maybe the brain trust had this situation sussed out, they were fairly sure that his worth as a prospect, his likelihood of panning out as a slick scoring forward, was dropping fast. So we may have sold high on him.
We still need to worry about that second-round pick we gave up, how Trevor Timmins might have invested that pick, but right now, it looks like the price we paid for that rental Vanek wasn’t very high at all.
Having considered the cost we paid, we can say that the return was worth it, and Marc Bergevin’s roll of the dice paid off. Thomas Vanek took a while to get going, but once he did playing right wing with David Desharnais and Max Pacioretty, after Michel Therrien had first acceded to his wishes and put him on left wing with Tomas Plekanec but it didn’t click, he took off. Watching him and Max and David pass the puck around was pure joy. As a fan, he was well worth the cost of admission, for the spectacle and the hope he gave us and the team.
When he disappeared against the Bruins I posted as much, that he wasn’t giving enough effort, wasn’t producing, I was glad that at the end of the season Marc Bergevin was categorical: he wouldn’t be back. If he can’t get inspired by that playoff run, if he’s going to sulk and mope, and fear to tread territory where David and Brendan Gallagher and Brian Gionta courageously battle Bruins, then we can’t have him on our team.
But the trade was a calculated gamble that paid off. It’s like the slot machine that spits out $100. It’s not the Superrific Boombastic Jackpot of $7.7M, but it was a nice little prize for a quarter.
The common wisdom is that this season, Marc Bergevin is trying to make a 'hockey trade' rather than a rental deal, meaning he wants a player or players who are signed for longer than the rest of the season, and can contribute and fit in to the team long term.
I understand this desire from any GM. If you're going to give up picks and prospects for rentals, eventually it's going to drain your organization of depth and talent. You don't want to do so every season, especially for short-term band-aid solutions.
One thing about the rental trade market this year is that there isn’t as much ‘supply’, so it will probably be a seller’s market. Whatever help can be had through trade will come very dearly.
Just working off memory, last season there were Marian Gaborik, Thomas Vanek, Mike Cammalleri and Matt Moulson among others available for teams looking for a scoring winger, for contenders looking to round out their roster. That played in Marc Bergevin’s favour in getting Mr. Vanek relatively cheaply, too many teams holding, waiting and trying to get a first-rounder plus for their perishable UFA-to-be.
The previous year, fewer such were players available and many teams thinking they needed help led to the situation where Jarome Iginla and Jaromir Jagr were swapped for first-rounders plus, and plugs like Douglas Murray were fetching two second-rounders.
So I hope, I expect that Marc Bergevin will take the pulse of the market, will window shop, but if it’s a market like two seasons ago, if the price is high for measly help, that he’ll stand pat. I don’t want us frittering away picks and prospects on the likes of Antoine Vermette or Chris Stewart.
Fans of the Canadiens are wondering if Marc Bergevin will pull the trigger on a similar deal to shore up his blue line and scoring in the forwards, especially at right wing. These areas are seen as glaring weaknesses despite the excellent results the team has garnered so far, flirting with the top spot in the Eastern Conference all season long.
Last year, Marc Bergevin pulled a rabbit out of a hat and obtained Thomas Vanek at a surprisingly reasonable cost. I didn’t think the price was inconsiderable, had qualms about the trade immediately, and thought those who were flip-flopping and now dismissing Sebastian Collberg as a valid prospect were thinking with their cheerfanius maximus muscle. Sure, support the team, but don’t twist facts.
One fact we can add in to our equation now, and which tilts the decision in favour of making that trade again, is that Sebastian Collberg hasn’t been setting the world on fire the last couple of seasons.
Maybe the brain trust had this situation sussed out, they were fairly sure that his worth as a prospect, his likelihood of panning out as a slick scoring forward, was dropping fast. So we may have sold high on him.
We still need to worry about that second-round pick we gave up, how Trevor Timmins might have invested that pick, but right now, it looks like the price we paid for that rental Vanek wasn’t very high at all.
Having considered the cost we paid, we can say that the return was worth it, and Marc Bergevin’s roll of the dice paid off. Thomas Vanek took a while to get going, but once he did playing right wing with David Desharnais and Max Pacioretty, after Michel Therrien had first acceded to his wishes and put him on left wing with Tomas Plekanec but it didn’t click, he took off. Watching him and Max and David pass the puck around was pure joy. As a fan, he was well worth the cost of admission, for the spectacle and the hope he gave us and the team.
When he disappeared against the Bruins I posted as much, that he wasn’t giving enough effort, wasn’t producing, I was glad that at the end of the season Marc Bergevin was categorical: he wouldn’t be back. If he can’t get inspired by that playoff run, if he’s going to sulk and mope, and fear to tread territory where David and Brendan Gallagher and Brian Gionta courageously battle Bruins, then we can’t have him on our team.
But the trade was a calculated gamble that paid off. It’s like the slot machine that spits out $100. It’s not the Superrific Boombastic Jackpot of $7.7M, but it was a nice little prize for a quarter.
The common wisdom is that this season, Marc Bergevin is trying to make a 'hockey trade' rather than a rental deal, meaning he wants a player or players who are signed for longer than the rest of the season, and can contribute and fit in to the team long term.
I understand this desire from any GM. If you're going to give up picks and prospects for rentals, eventually it's going to drain your organization of depth and talent. You don't want to do so every season, especially for short-term band-aid solutions.
One thing about the rental trade market this year is that there isn’t as much ‘supply’, so it will probably be a seller’s market. Whatever help can be had through trade will come very dearly.
Just working off memory, last season there were Marian Gaborik, Thomas Vanek, Mike Cammalleri and Matt Moulson among others available for teams looking for a scoring winger, for contenders looking to round out their roster. That played in Marc Bergevin’s favour in getting Mr. Vanek relatively cheaply, too many teams holding, waiting and trying to get a first-rounder plus for their perishable UFA-to-be.
The previous year, fewer such were players available and many teams thinking they needed help led to the situation where Jarome Iginla and Jaromir Jagr were swapped for first-rounders plus, and plugs like Douglas Murray were fetching two second-rounders.
So I hope, I expect that Marc Bergevin will take the pulse of the market, will window shop, but if it’s a market like two seasons ago, if the price is high for measly help, that he’ll stand pat. I don’t want us frittering away picks and prospects on the likes of Antoine Vermette or Chris Stewart.
Sunday, 15 February 2015
Game 55: Canadiens 2, Maple Leafs 1 (SO)
Forget being able to handle the Bruins, the Lightning, the Rangers in the playoffs, can we handle the Albany Devils or the Rockford Ice Hogs? Because we can handle the Bruins, we get up for games against the Penguins, but have recently lost against the Sabres, the Coyotes, the Oilers, and now barely beat a dispirited, zombified Toronto Maple Leaf squad 2-1 in the shootout.
Would the Orlando Solar Bears give us all we could handle? How about some of those Pee Wee teams at the Colisée?
The Maple Leafs have given up on their season, and on its constituent parts, with the frame about to be stripped and sold for parts. Might as well, this jalopy has been on blocks for over a decade.
Obviously, based on video evidence, Phil Kessel has given up on himself. Late in the third, the Hockey Night in Canada broadcast showed footage of the Leafs getting off the team bus this afternoon, and the Leafs' sniper's appearance was shameful. His beefy face, his big gut straining his shirt buttons and spilling over his belt, they bring to mind a college-aged fast-food franchise assistant manager, not an elite athlete, outside our 1988 Olympic curling team.
I think I can, uh, stomach a hockey player who in the off-season prefers fishing and hanging out with his buddies rather than maniacally hoisting iron or pushing a SUV around a parking lot. It takes all kinds. We can't expect them all to be like P.K. or Max, workout warriors who love the gym almost as much as the ice. Someone has to be at the bottom of the fitness test rankings.
But this is letting yourself go, rank indiscipline. Ease off the french fries and beer Phil, people are paying hundreds of dollars to watch you play and wear your jersey. You owe them that.
The Canadiens didn't exactly loaf through the game, we can't fault their effort, but the scoring talent is being confirmed as too thin. P.A. Parenteau can't return from the injured list fast enough.
In this climate, it was hard for me to not bolt off my couch and yell at David Desharnais to shoot on a couple of occasions. During his purgatory on the third line's left wing, he would take a shot or two on net every game when in the slot. He's been returned to his position of comfort centering the first line, but unfortunately he's not retained the lessons from the past couple of months, and has reverted to his pass-only setting. On odd-man rushes. On static powerplays. Even near the net with a clear shooting lane.
It's been discussed how teams scout opponents extensively, and players are briefed that David will look for Max, to a degree approaching neurosis, so they're defending the pass against him. He needs to use the relative latitude he's given by defenders, and let his shot rip once in a while. Heck, cue it up, look off the defender, and do a no-look shot and try to surprise a goalie.
Jacob de la Rose continued to impress, being smooth, strong and determined, breaking up plays in the defensive zone, dishing out hits, and generally making a strong case for continued employment. As a fan, I love to see him out there, good-looking rook, all rangy and swoopy, he's eye-candy.
Christian Thomas caught my eye tonight, with a lot of battle, fighting through Leaf slashes and hooks and holds, trying to get the puck for a good shot on net. He and Michaël Bournival did their job, running around and causing headaches for defencemen with their forecheck and their effort.
The experiment with Lars on the wing is inconclusive, but we can't expect definite results so soon. I did see him throwing some hits, and getting off some shots on net. The obvious benefit of taking him off centre is to lighten his load, reduce his workload and responsibilities, to simplify things and hope he gets off the slump he's in. Maybe he's taking it to heart and embracing it. Maybe Prusty spoke with him and encouraged him: "Hey Larry, let's just go out there and throw some hits and cause havoc, have fun."
There was some discussion on TV early in the season about whether Lars should be on the wing, and one analyst thought that he should because "Michel Therrien, and pretty much every coach likes having big wingers who can skate." His counterpart retorted that Michel Therrien and every other coach loved having big centres who can skate also.
It was a humorous exchange, but the kernel of truth is that Lars can help this team, by using his size and speed, at whatever position he plays. He, and I'm repeating myself, needs to apply Marc Bergevin's maxim that he play like a big player with skill, rather than a skill player with size. Those no-nonsense shots he took at the net and bodychecks he threw are a good start.
Nathan Beaulieu stole my heart on this Valentine's Day, with his no-hesitation fistfight with Leaf luxury pugilist David Clarkson. The Leafs forward had just rammed Sergei Gonchar face-first into the boards and stunned him. Nate, two steps away and already on the approach, didn't jaw at Mr. Clarkson or dance a minuet to invite him, he just dropped the gloves and went at him, and gave a very good account of himself.
It was a baffling showing by Dave Clarkson. Earlier in the game, he broke the Code by harassing Brandon Prust, goading him into a fight even though it was the end of his shift, a big no-no among those samurais. Brandon just grappled with him, tied him up and kept out of range of any punches. For his troubles, the Leaf got an extra two minutes for unsportsmanlike conduct.
He also got five minutes and a game for his dangerous boarding of Sergei Gonchar, on top of the five minutes for fighting. Sergei skated off under his own power but was knocked out of the game.
This showing evidenced Mario Tremblay's laconic assessment of the player he coached with the Devils, that he's a good kid with lots of heart, but there's not much more there.
Later in the game, Nathan wowed spectators and Jim Hughson with a backcheck after a foray in the offensive zone. The HNIC crew lauded his effortless skating, and supposed that he wouldn't be seeing any time in Hamilton or the pressbox from now on, that he was in the lineup to stay.
I agreed with their assessment, but really liked the heart and courage and team spirit for taking David Clarkson to account. It's on par with Francis Bouillon taking on Derek Dorsett after his knee-on-knee assault on David Desharnais, Ryan White's beatdown of Johnny Boychuck after a similar attempt on P.K., and any number of Josh Gorges sacrifices against other teams' heavyweights.
I don't know what to say about P.K. How can you fault his effort and energy during the monster shifts he had to pull in Nathan's and Sergei's absence? You'd hope that he'd understand the situation though, and pace himself, understand that passing the puck instead of skating it away from a forechecker will conserve his energy and serve the team better, in this specific situation at least. And that the cross-ice cross-crease through-the-box pass on the powerplay is a low-percentage play, along with the blind behind-the-back spinorama backhand pass. Just give the puck back to Andrei, P.K., he'll tee it up for you so you can shoot it. And hit the net with it.
In any case, this Leaf team, without Mike Brown and Mark Fraser and Colton Orr and Frazer McLaren and Dion Phaneuf, they're not detestable, but there's also not much fight in them, in every sense of the word. You wonder if Brian Burke had a point there...
Would the Orlando Solar Bears give us all we could handle? How about some of those Pee Wee teams at the Colisée?
The Maple Leafs have given up on their season, and on its constituent parts, with the frame about to be stripped and sold for parts. Might as well, this jalopy has been on blocks for over a decade.
Obviously, based on video evidence, Phil Kessel has given up on himself. Late in the third, the Hockey Night in Canada broadcast showed footage of the Leafs getting off the team bus this afternoon, and the Leafs' sniper's appearance was shameful. His beefy face, his big gut straining his shirt buttons and spilling over his belt, they bring to mind a college-aged fast-food franchise assistant manager, not an elite athlete, outside our 1988 Olympic curling team.
I think I can, uh, stomach a hockey player who in the off-season prefers fishing and hanging out with his buddies rather than maniacally hoisting iron or pushing a SUV around a parking lot. It takes all kinds. We can't expect them all to be like P.K. or Max, workout warriors who love the gym almost as much as the ice. Someone has to be at the bottom of the fitness test rankings.
But this is letting yourself go, rank indiscipline. Ease off the french fries and beer Phil, people are paying hundreds of dollars to watch you play and wear your jersey. You owe them that.
The Canadiens didn't exactly loaf through the game, we can't fault their effort, but the scoring talent is being confirmed as too thin. P.A. Parenteau can't return from the injured list fast enough.
In this climate, it was hard for me to not bolt off my couch and yell at David Desharnais to shoot on a couple of occasions. During his purgatory on the third line's left wing, he would take a shot or two on net every game when in the slot. He's been returned to his position of comfort centering the first line, but unfortunately he's not retained the lessons from the past couple of months, and has reverted to his pass-only setting. On odd-man rushes. On static powerplays. Even near the net with a clear shooting lane.
It's been discussed how teams scout opponents extensively, and players are briefed that David will look for Max, to a degree approaching neurosis, so they're defending the pass against him. He needs to use the relative latitude he's given by defenders, and let his shot rip once in a while. Heck, cue it up, look off the defender, and do a no-look shot and try to surprise a goalie.
Jacob de la Rose continued to impress, being smooth, strong and determined, breaking up plays in the defensive zone, dishing out hits, and generally making a strong case for continued employment. As a fan, I love to see him out there, good-looking rook, all rangy and swoopy, he's eye-candy.
Christian Thomas caught my eye tonight, with a lot of battle, fighting through Leaf slashes and hooks and holds, trying to get the puck for a good shot on net. He and Michaël Bournival did their job, running around and causing headaches for defencemen with their forecheck and their effort.
The experiment with Lars on the wing is inconclusive, but we can't expect definite results so soon. I did see him throwing some hits, and getting off some shots on net. The obvious benefit of taking him off centre is to lighten his load, reduce his workload and responsibilities, to simplify things and hope he gets off the slump he's in. Maybe he's taking it to heart and embracing it. Maybe Prusty spoke with him and encouraged him: "Hey Larry, let's just go out there and throw some hits and cause havoc, have fun."
There was some discussion on TV early in the season about whether Lars should be on the wing, and one analyst thought that he should because "Michel Therrien, and pretty much every coach likes having big wingers who can skate." His counterpart retorted that Michel Therrien and every other coach loved having big centres who can skate also.
It was a humorous exchange, but the kernel of truth is that Lars can help this team, by using his size and speed, at whatever position he plays. He, and I'm repeating myself, needs to apply Marc Bergevin's maxim that he play like a big player with skill, rather than a skill player with size. Those no-nonsense shots he took at the net and bodychecks he threw are a good start.
Nathan Beaulieu stole my heart on this Valentine's Day, with his no-hesitation fistfight with Leaf luxury pugilist David Clarkson. The Leafs forward had just rammed Sergei Gonchar face-first into the boards and stunned him. Nate, two steps away and already on the approach, didn't jaw at Mr. Clarkson or dance a minuet to invite him, he just dropped the gloves and went at him, and gave a very good account of himself.
It was a baffling showing by Dave Clarkson. Earlier in the game, he broke the Code by harassing Brandon Prust, goading him into a fight even though it was the end of his shift, a big no-no among those samurais. Brandon just grappled with him, tied him up and kept out of range of any punches. For his troubles, the Leaf got an extra two minutes for unsportsmanlike conduct.
He also got five minutes and a game for his dangerous boarding of Sergei Gonchar, on top of the five minutes for fighting. Sergei skated off under his own power but was knocked out of the game.
This showing evidenced Mario Tremblay's laconic assessment of the player he coached with the Devils, that he's a good kid with lots of heart, but there's not much more there.
Later in the game, Nathan wowed spectators and Jim Hughson with a backcheck after a foray in the offensive zone. The HNIC crew lauded his effortless skating, and supposed that he wouldn't be seeing any time in Hamilton or the pressbox from now on, that he was in the lineup to stay.
I agreed with their assessment, but really liked the heart and courage and team spirit for taking David Clarkson to account. It's on par with Francis Bouillon taking on Derek Dorsett after his knee-on-knee assault on David Desharnais, Ryan White's beatdown of Johnny Boychuck after a similar attempt on P.K., and any number of Josh Gorges sacrifices against other teams' heavyweights.
I don't know what to say about P.K. How can you fault his effort and energy during the monster shifts he had to pull in Nathan's and Sergei's absence? You'd hope that he'd understand the situation though, and pace himself, understand that passing the puck instead of skating it away from a forechecker will conserve his energy and serve the team better, in this specific situation at least. And that the cross-ice cross-crease through-the-box pass on the powerplay is a low-percentage play, along with the blind behind-the-back spinorama backhand pass. Just give the puck back to Andrei, P.K., he'll tee it up for you so you can shoot it. And hit the net with it.
In any case, this Leaf team, without Mike Brown and Mark Fraser and Colton Orr and Frazer McLaren and Dion Phaneuf, they're not detestable, but there's also not much fight in them, in every sense of the word. You wonder if Brian Burke had a point there...
Friday, 13 February 2015
The eye test: David Desharnais vs. Lars Eller
When discussing old school vs. new school, analytics vs. classic scouting, we often talk of the 'eye test', how a player looks to scouts and hockey men, and to the fans generally. Fans and scouts love players like Wendell Clark or Trevor Linden who play the right way, but analytics mavens sometimes find great value in players like Benoit Pouliot, who 'drive possession', or other similar statements.
The Canadiens are very quiet about how or even whether they use objective metrics, but Marc Bergevin obviously believes in the old-school method to a great degree. Offhand, I remember him lauding Dalton Thrower at the 2012 draft, relying on the fact that he took on a much bigger Tom Wilson at the Top Prospects game in a fight, ie: he has heart, he plays the right way.
Does it come down to the eye test when it comes to evaluating David Desharnais and Lars Eller, and their respective usage? Because when David has the puck, he generally makes good decisions, he's quick, you can see what he's trying to do, or you're pleasantly surprised by it. It's a seeing-eye pass to Max, or a one-touch pass to Max, or a blind behind-the-back pass. To Max.
I kid, but David, when he doesn't get slashed or crosschecked to oblivion, knows what to do with the puck, and often ends up on the highlight reels. Lars, unfortunately, often makes baffling decisions, crystallized in his 3-on-1 rush against the Capitals when he dithered and finally put the puck into the goalie's chest, but weakly. I always have in the back of my mind Lars' four-goal game as a sign of what he can achieve, but maybe that really was an unhelpful blip, a setup for expectations that can't be met.
Factor in the fact that David is best used in offensive situations with more open space, whereas Lars' size and strength makes him more useful along the boards in the defensive zone, and that sets up this 'unfair' usage where David gets the plum assignments, and Lars digs ditches.
But that's a realistic use of our resources. I've often compared David to a quick scrappy scrum half, who's limited in how he can run the ball or tackle, but will shine when distributing the ball or reading the situation, in running the team. Sure, there might be a bigger, faster, more athletic player who could do well at scrum half too, but we can use that guy at fly half or inside center, and maximize our team's potential, get both players on the field. If the taller, 'better' player gets the scrum half position, the scrappy guy sits on the bench, and you're not fielding your best team possible.
So maybe that's how David gets trotted out for offensive opportunities and powerplay duty again and again, at the 'expense' of Lars. Because that's the square hole for that square peg. And because Lars just looks a little hesitant sometimes in those same situations, and fails the eye test.
The Canadiens are very quiet about how or even whether they use objective metrics, but Marc Bergevin obviously believes in the old-school method to a great degree. Offhand, I remember him lauding Dalton Thrower at the 2012 draft, relying on the fact that he took on a much bigger Tom Wilson at the Top Prospects game in a fight, ie: he has heart, he plays the right way.
Does it come down to the eye test when it comes to evaluating David Desharnais and Lars Eller, and their respective usage? Because when David has the puck, he generally makes good decisions, he's quick, you can see what he's trying to do, or you're pleasantly surprised by it. It's a seeing-eye pass to Max, or a one-touch pass to Max, or a blind behind-the-back pass. To Max.
I kid, but David, when he doesn't get slashed or crosschecked to oblivion, knows what to do with the puck, and often ends up on the highlight reels. Lars, unfortunately, often makes baffling decisions, crystallized in his 3-on-1 rush against the Capitals when he dithered and finally put the puck into the goalie's chest, but weakly. I always have in the back of my mind Lars' four-goal game as a sign of what he can achieve, but maybe that really was an unhelpful blip, a setup for expectations that can't be met.
Factor in the fact that David is best used in offensive situations with more open space, whereas Lars' size and strength makes him more useful along the boards in the defensive zone, and that sets up this 'unfair' usage where David gets the plum assignments, and Lars digs ditches.
But that's a realistic use of our resources. I've often compared David to a quick scrappy scrum half, who's limited in how he can run the ball or tackle, but will shine when distributing the ball or reading the situation, in running the team. Sure, there might be a bigger, faster, more athletic player who could do well at scrum half too, but we can use that guy at fly half or inside center, and maximize our team's potential, get both players on the field. If the taller, 'better' player gets the scrum half position, the scrappy guy sits on the bench, and you're not fielding your best team possible.
So maybe that's how David gets trotted out for offensive opportunities and powerplay duty again and again, at the 'expense' of Lars. Because that's the square hole for that square peg. And because Lars just looks a little hesitant sometimes in those same situations, and fails the eye test.
Game 54: Canadiens 3, Oilers 4 (OT)
Observations on the Canadiens Express version of the 4-3 loss to the Oilers last night:
After their game in October at Northlands Coliseum, I wrote how the Canadiens felt, looked like the clearly more powerful team on the ice, that they were indisputably the better squad, that both teams knew it and played like it early in the game. Then, the Oilers slowly ramped up their effort, their skating, and that clear disadvantage disappeared as the game progressed.
The same happened last night. A couple of posts, missed opportunities, a few unnecessarily fancy passes, and the Oilers hung around and gained confidence and realized they could win this thing.
Watching Dustin Tokarski flail about must have been a big factor in how they were embiggened. I'm no expert on goaltending, but he seemed often pointed the wrong way, unready for a rebound, one which shouldn't have occurred anyway, which he shouldn't have allowed. Pierre Bouchard and the rest of l'Antichambre panel confirmed my evaluation; the former Habs policeman called him a 'land carp' at times.
It looked like the coaching staff protected Nathan Beaulieu on Saturday against the Bruins, limiting his time and exposure, after a stretch during which he increased in confidence and minutes. I'm not sure if that has changed the dynamic or affected his confidence, but he had a difficult game last night, playing less than fifteen minutes.
He got hammered along the boards on one sequence, and seemed hesitant for the rest of the shift, making strange decisions and struggling to clear his zone, before heading to the bench. I wondered if he was stunned, or whether an arm or shoulder was injured in the collision.
We're focusing on the negatives, yet this could be another wrapup of a game the Canadiens won 'luckily', or by the skin of their teeth. Tomas Plekanec had the game on his stick in the last minute, but flubbed the chance to confirm the win with an assurance goal, sending a weak-ish shot onto a defender instead of taking his time and burying it, or passing off to an oncoming Brandon Prust and Lars Eller.
Earlier this season, after a 4-3 win against the Avalanche, I wrote:
-I'll ask the question again: are the Canadiens the worst team in the league at scoring into an empty net? Is there a stat for that?
What was an irking propensity of our team, mere missed opportunities for our heroes to pad their stats totals, to reduce the number of grey hairs on their coaches scalp, came back to bite us last night.
There's a Code to everything in the NHL, and this includes the whole subject of empty-net goals. Generally, there's a decorum to be obeyed. Players can't seem too eager to score such a goal, they have to act like it's a little bit beneath them. At all times they need to defer to a teammate if at all possible, and be lauded by Don Cherry and Kate Beirness for their generosity. Once the puck is in the net you can't celebrate too hard, you have to act like you've scored before, like 'you've been there before'. So a sober acknowledgment of your teammates is all that's permitted, with maybe an uptick if you're picking up a hat-trick or a significant milestone like a 50th goal or something.
I think Tomas fell prey to this mandated good-guyism, and fumbled away the win. Instead of stickhandling or skating and trying to get open, to act like a slavering dog after a bone in quest of that goal, he kind of desultorily gave it an 80% attempt, nothing too unseemly. You wouldn't want to look like a Linus Omark or a Tiger Williams, right, a guy who's in it for himself and too showy, right? To work harder to ensure a pass got through to Brandon for an assured assurance goal would have been rubbing it in, and we don't do that.
Even at the cost of an overtime loss, of a point.
Recently, the Hurricanes played the Maple Leafs and during the game Eric Staal instigated a fight with Dion Phaneuf in retaliation for his hard bodycheck on his brother Jordan. The Hurricanes captain lost the fight in a decisive fashion, and the rest of the game was reportedly chippy. At the end of the game, the Leafs pulled their goalie and tried to even up the score, but the puck ended up on Eric Staal's stick in the Toronto zone.
To conclude the win, and put a bit of an exclamation point on it, Mr. Staal took a wicked slapshot to bury it, blasting it by Dion Phaneuf who was cromulating as the goalie in the crease. There were a few mutters about this, how there might have been a personal angle to his play selection, how Eric Staal pulled the driver out of his bag instead of the pitching wedge, and we might have heard a little more, had it been a Jonathan Toews or Pavel Datsyuk in front of the net. Since the Leafs and their captain don't have many defenders this season, the matter died quickly.
But at the time I thought the 'Canes captain had acted properly. The game was still in doubt, the win was in the balance, he was supposed to try as hard as he could to score to seal the win. If there had been no one in his path, sure, he could have lobbed it in, or dished to a teammate in need of an easy goal, but since the opposition was still battling, wasn't conceding the win, he was entitled to battle just as hard.
Generally, I wish the Canadiens would, when they're faced with an empty-net, play a little harder to score when they have that opportunity. Too often it seems, and again I wish I knew how to look up this statistic if it exists, they scratch and claw to protect their own net in these situations, there's nothing to be desired in terms of effort on that aspect, but once they get over the red line and are no longer in danger of being called for icing, they ease off way too much, act a little too much like the courtly gentlemen instead of the junkyard dogs they should be.
I'm thinking it's a lesson learned for them this morning, and we'll not see them chipanddale themselves out of wins anymore, for a long time.
Tuesday, 10 February 2015
Claude Ruel, an important figure in creating the Canadiens' '70's dynasty, passes on.
Sad to hear that Claude Ruel passed away at the age of 76. He was just at the Guy Lapointe jersey retirement and Jean Béliveau’s funeral. He was very low key, mostly avoiding the camera and interviews, but it was good to see him, if fleetingly.
For you young ones, Claude Ruel was the kindly uncle, the assistant coach who took the edge off the mean head coach’s burrs, especially Scotty Bowman. Youngsters would have their confidence shaken, but ‘Piton’, as he was affectionately known, would just work with them, stay with them after practice for an extra twenty minutes, drill them, work on this or that situation.
“Hey, let’s spend a few minutes working on this…” was how former Canadiens say he’d approach them. It helped their skill development, it made the kids ‘pay their dues’ in the eyes of the vets and be accepted within the team. While they were headed to the pub for lunch, the ex-Voyageurs were putting in the extra time.
This baton, this method of operating was passed on to defenceman coach Jacques Laperrière, who played a big, big part in this unending succession of young defenceman who’d rise through the ranks and be ready to contribute in short order.
It’s interesting that for the last couple decades or so the Collective Bargaining Agreement has had language that limits the amount of time a player can practice every day, so this ‘extra work’ may no longer be permitted. Which makes sense, you wouldn’t want to be playing for John Tortorella or Doug Maclean’s Blue Jackets or Dallas Eakins and have endless practices, but it’s unfortunate that players on good teams with good coaches who can develop skills can’t benefit from this method.
A very humble man who won a Stanley Cup as a coach and was beloved by his players, Claude Ruel was a great Canadien. He was also an able scout who spotted talent, and brought many key players into the fold with his hard work.
We can warmly remember him as the originator of the saying "Y'en aura pas d'faciles", meaning, when talking about the schedule and upcoming games, that "There ain't gonna be any easy ones", a quote he uttered often as the harried coach of a marquee team always battling inferior teams that keyed up against his.
A man who loved the Canadiens, loved hockey, and was still scouting midget and Junior games as a hobby, long into retirment, he will be missed.
For you young ones, Claude Ruel was the kindly uncle, the assistant coach who took the edge off the mean head coach’s burrs, especially Scotty Bowman. Youngsters would have their confidence shaken, but ‘Piton’, as he was affectionately known, would just work with them, stay with them after practice for an extra twenty minutes, drill them, work on this or that situation.
“Hey, let’s spend a few minutes working on this…” was how former Canadiens say he’d approach them. It helped their skill development, it made the kids ‘pay their dues’ in the eyes of the vets and be accepted within the team. While they were headed to the pub for lunch, the ex-Voyageurs were putting in the extra time.
This baton, this method of operating was passed on to defenceman coach Jacques Laperrière, who played a big, big part in this unending succession of young defenceman who’d rise through the ranks and be ready to contribute in short order.
It’s interesting that for the last couple decades or so the Collective Bargaining Agreement has had language that limits the amount of time a player can practice every day, so this ‘extra work’ may no longer be permitted. Which makes sense, you wouldn’t want to be playing for John Tortorella or Doug Maclean’s Blue Jackets or Dallas Eakins and have endless practices, but it’s unfortunate that players on good teams with good coaches who can develop skills can’t benefit from this method.
A very humble man who won a Stanley Cup as a coach and was beloved by his players, Claude Ruel was a great Canadien. He was also an able scout who spotted talent, and brought many key players into the fold with his hard work.
We can warmly remember him as the originator of the saying "Y'en aura pas d'faciles", meaning, when talking about the schedule and upcoming games, that "There ain't gonna be any easy ones", a quote he uttered often as the harried coach of a marquee team always battling inferior teams that keyed up against his.
A man who loved the Canadiens, loved hockey, and was still scouting midget and Junior games as a hobby, long into retirment, he will be missed.
Agreeing on a trade is not as easy as some fans think.
Rumours abound before the NHL trade deadline, and the Canadiens aren't exempt for these trade proposals. Marc Bergevin and his team are apparently shopping for a scoring Top 6 forward and another defenceman.
The thing about trading for a major piece like Evander Kane, or Wayne Simmonds as we seem to be dreaming about, is that the other team is usually looking for a major piece back, if we’re not talking about rentals. And I don’t know that we have that major piece to flip back.
Sometimes you're in a position to trade, to sell. One such situation was when we had Pierre Turgeon burning a hole in our pocket. He didn’t have a place in the roster, incredibly, being forced down to the third line, so he was used to re-acquire Shayne Corson. We had ‘too many’ frontline centres, and used one to get a big tough winger with skill.
Same with the Canucks, who had a Todd Bertuzzi needing a ticket out of town in the wake of his assault of Steve Moore. With that big piece and throw-ins Bryan Allen and Alex Auld, they got Roberto Luongo out of Florida, when he was at the height of his powers, but had the misfortune of having Mike Keenan as his GM.
Right now, we don’t have this extra piece, this good-to-great player who doesn’t fit in our plans but that other teams are salivating at. If we want to obtain these impact players, and if they're not to be 'rentals', but rather players who are under contract and will help beyond these playoffs, if it is to be a 'hockey trade', and if we don't want to sacrifice draft picks, then we'll have to give up core players. We'll be robbing Peter to pay Paul. It'll be whack-a-mole, we'll always be trying to plug holes in our roster.
So as much fun as it is to envision one of these big wingers on our team, it’s almost a waste of time, or self-torture. It’s like window shopping at the bakery when on an Atkins diet.
The thing about trading for a major piece like Evander Kane, or Wayne Simmonds as we seem to be dreaming about, is that the other team is usually looking for a major piece back, if we’re not talking about rentals. And I don’t know that we have that major piece to flip back.
Sometimes you're in a position to trade, to sell. One such situation was when we had Pierre Turgeon burning a hole in our pocket. He didn’t have a place in the roster, incredibly, being forced down to the third line, so he was used to re-acquire Shayne Corson. We had ‘too many’ frontline centres, and used one to get a big tough winger with skill.
Same with the Canucks, who had a Todd Bertuzzi needing a ticket out of town in the wake of his assault of Steve Moore. With that big piece and throw-ins Bryan Allen and Alex Auld, they got Roberto Luongo out of Florida, when he was at the height of his powers, but had the misfortune of having Mike Keenan as his GM.
Right now, we don’t have this extra piece, this good-to-great player who doesn’t fit in our plans but that other teams are salivating at. If we want to obtain these impact players, and if they're not to be 'rentals', but rather players who are under contract and will help beyond these playoffs, if it is to be a 'hockey trade', and if we don't want to sacrifice draft picks, then we'll have to give up core players. We'll be robbing Peter to pay Paul. It'll be whack-a-mole, we'll always be trying to plug holes in our roster.
So as much fun as it is to envision one of these big wingers on our team, it’s almost a waste of time, or self-torture. It’s like window shopping at the bakery when on an Atkins diet.
Game 53: Canadiens 2, Flyers 1 (OT)
Canadiens Express thoughts on the 2-1 OT win against the Flyers:
Stupid Michel Therrien keeps insisting on David Desharnais, who's clearly not an NHL'er, being on the first line with Max. Unfathomable. He could only score a garbage goal at the very end of the game, before that he didn't produce.
Nathan Beaulieu's mobility is a definite plus, not just in his skating in open ice, but also in close quarters, when he can take a couple of choppy steps and get to a loose puck quickly, to poke it out of harm's way.
Jacob de la Rose has earned himself a couple more games reprieve from the Hamilton commuter flight. He's looking good out there, finishing a few checks, and having a great stick check to negate two players in succession on a line rush by the Flyers. He finished with a 57% faceoff percentage. Good stuff.
Manny Malhotra may not see the ice for a while. I support the concept of kids learning their trade in Hamilton, I believe in being patient with the kids, but for now let's see what Jacob can do, if the NHL isn't too much for him at this stage.
Lars Eller had some good flashes, in that he got off a few shots on net, and didn't try to stickhandle through the entire Flyers lineup. He'd get set and shoot, and forced Ray Emery to make save, generated rebounds.
The dark cloud inside that silver lining is how on the powerplay he ineffectually lurked in the slot, waiting for a pass, while no one was blocking Ray Emery's sightlines, no one was in front of the net. And when Lars did get an opportunity he fanned on his one-timer. Keep charging the net Lars. And no more penalties in the offensive zone please.
I'm glad Ryan White chose not to pick a fight to prove a point or something. He laid a few hits, forechecked, stuck to hockey. Good on you kid.
Vincent Lecavalier got off one shot on goal in under fifteen minutes of ice time, but he's happy Philly's a good sports town, the 76'ers are a hoot right now.
I hate giving up a point to the hated Flyers, but I'll take two wins in a row against our worst rivals.
Stupid Michel Therrien keeps insisting on David Desharnais, who's clearly not an NHL'er, being on the first line with Max. Unfathomable. He could only score a garbage goal at the very end of the game, before that he didn't produce.
Nathan Beaulieu's mobility is a definite plus, not just in his skating in open ice, but also in close quarters, when he can take a couple of choppy steps and get to a loose puck quickly, to poke it out of harm's way.
Jacob de la Rose has earned himself a couple more games reprieve from the Hamilton commuter flight. He's looking good out there, finishing a few checks, and having a great stick check to negate two players in succession on a line rush by the Flyers. He finished with a 57% faceoff percentage. Good stuff.
Manny Malhotra may not see the ice for a while. I support the concept of kids learning their trade in Hamilton, I believe in being patient with the kids, but for now let's see what Jacob can do, if the NHL isn't too much for him at this stage.
Lars Eller had some good flashes, in that he got off a few shots on net, and didn't try to stickhandle through the entire Flyers lineup. He'd get set and shoot, and forced Ray Emery to make save, generated rebounds.
The dark cloud inside that silver lining is how on the powerplay he ineffectually lurked in the slot, waiting for a pass, while no one was blocking Ray Emery's sightlines, no one was in front of the net. And when Lars did get an opportunity he fanned on his one-timer. Keep charging the net Lars. And no more penalties in the offensive zone please.
I'm glad Ryan White chose not to pick a fight to prove a point or something. He laid a few hits, forechecked, stuck to hockey. Good on you kid.
Vincent Lecavalier got off one shot on goal in under fifteen minutes of ice time, but he's happy Philly's a good sports town, the 76'ers are a hoot right now.
I hate giving up a point to the hated Flyers, but I'll take two wins in a row against our worst rivals.
Sunday, 8 February 2015
Game 52: Canadiens 3, Bruins 1
Almost an anti-climactic 3-1 win by the good guys over the Gooins, a tight game on the scoreboard, but it didn't feel like it. Sure I was tense and trepidatious-like, but it seemed apparent that the Bruins finish-your-check style wouldn't compensate for their lack of skill and speed. The Canadiens were literally skating out of trouble all night, headmanning the puck and breaking out of their zone with ease.
RDS' André Savard on L’Antichambre commented on how slow Zdeno Chara is: “Il s’est fait dépasser par Brandon Prust…”, meaning, Brandon Prust outskated him on a specific play. The whole panel agreed that their whole team is too slow, top to bottom, even young franchise-defenceman-to-be Dougie Hamilton couldn’t keep up.
They conceded that injuries to Zdeno Chara and David Krejci played a big part in their slow start to the season, but I was afraid things were starting to pick up for them. Boston had a good streak of success going the last fifteen games or so. Let’s hope this speed bump throws them in another funk.
And it was still a very tasty win, as succulent as the duck Poppy prepared for Jerry and Elaine. The degree of schadenfreudulty was multiplied by the two points that Dale Weise picked up, the opening goal and a great assist on Max Pacioretty's goal to make it 2-0. I was hoping he'd tune up Greg 'Sonny Boy' Campbell again, to finish off the Gordie Howe hat-trick.
Most analysts criticized the use of Dale Weise on the Canadiens first line, arguing that his skillset makes him a fourth or third-liner at best. I understood that it was a bit of a desperation gambit by the coaches to jumpstart their offence. Michel Therrien explained that with his size and speed Dale could be a good complement on Max's opposite wing.
In fact, Dale has been exceeding expectations. He's playing smart, throwing hits but not taking penalties, going to the net, trying to deflect pucks and pick up rebounds. As a pleasant bonus, he's showing chemistry with Max, and has made quite a few deft passes, touch passes that belie his grinder rep.
When he was traded from Vancouver, I did my best to caution the overexcited optimists, the guys who think we should look into trading for Wayne Simmonds and use Magnus Nygren as a trade chip, that Dale was a great guy with heart and would be useful on the fourth line, but the supposition that he could help out in the Top 6 was risible.
I patiently reasoned that the Canucks have been searching high and low for a big scoring winger to plop on the Sedins' right for years now, so if Dale was any good on the Top 6 they'd have used him there. I also tried to describe how Dale's reputation, his M.O., is that he causes lots of loose pucks and breakdowns in the offensive zone but can't cash them in, he misses the net or flubs his shot routinely. Because he has no hands, see?
So I'll own up with a passage from what I posted at the time:
So yeah, he's making his naysayers look bad right now. Sure he may be playing over his head, André Savard was saying that it's easy for him since there's no pressure yet, but when he starts being counted on to score, and other teams check him more closely, he may fall back to Earth.
In any case, let’s enjoy the ride, this hot streak should be fun.
Maybe if he cools off we can flip him back to the Canucks for Alex Edler and Zack Kassian?
As the Bruins felt the game slipping away, they reverted back to thuggery, notably by punching or crosschecking Brendan Gallagher in the face after whistles, and a notable hit by Daniel Paillé who left his feet to try to crush Sergei Gonchar.
I began to think of a David Letterman-style list: "Top Ten reasons the referees aren't handing out penalties to the Bruins."
Later in the game, when the result was still in doubt, Max chipped the puck past Bruin 'defenceman' (quotation marks intentional) Adam McQuaid and was set to go off on another breakaway. I'll emphasize the fact that Max didn't have the puck, yet Mr. McQuaid stuck out an interfery sticky-out knee, and luckily didn't catch Max flush knee-on-knee.
That, a slower dumber badder player trying to make up for it with a flagrant foul, and the subsequent indulgence of the refs, is everything that’s wrong with the NHL.
Trusty vet Manny Malhotra was a healthy scratch due to his shortcomings on offence. The coaches went with a fourth line of Hamilton Bulldog callup Jacob de la Rose between Michaël Bournival and Christian Thomas. Gabriel Dumont, another AHL callup, was also scratched. The combination seemed to work, they didn't look out of place, their speed creating difficulty for the Bruins.
Generally, we need to get Michaël Bournival going. Enough of this sitting him out. Let’s have him go on a streak like he had at the start of last season. And I think it’s kind of counterproductive to call up Christian Thomas and Gabriel Dumont if it’s going to send Bourni in the press box. Let Bourni play, and let these guys play big minutes in Hamilton and make something of themselves.
The third line of Sekac-Eller-Prust had its moments, but Lars would lose focus on occasion. Again, Lars needs to stop lurking in the O-zone like he's a sniper waiting for his setup, and just go to the net. I'll guarantee him more goals by potting rebounds and getting deflections than by trying to be Brett Hull out there.
Carey Price didn't have to be miraculous for us to win, he merely excelled and that was enough. There was a spectacular reaching-behind-with-the-stick save that made it look like he was trying to out-carterhutton Carter Hutton.
P.K. and Andrei had another dominant performance. Andrei intercepted/broke up a pass in the neutral zone at the end of the game with Tuukka Rask on the bench for an extra attacker, and for once we were lucky in scoring an empty-netter.
Usually we hit posts, or barely miss, but this time his flailing poke at the puck caused it to deflect high in the air, then drop to the ice right near the crease and roll in. I thought that field goal by Andrei should have been worth three, but maybe the refs were using CFL rules, and called it a rouge.
Milan Lucic was left to mutter to himself as he slinked off to the showers. He didn't cover himself in glory on this night. He got off a couple of dangerous shots, made a couple of plays, but he wasn't able to be the difference, which he seemed to be on the verge of, a couple seasons ago, that he might become the pre-eminent big forward in the league.
Instead, he gradually lost discipline during the game and became more interested in his feud with Alexei Emelin than playing hockey, and when T-74 caught him with a hit, he retaliated with a crosscheck. We were treated to his trademark sneer of disbelief that the refs would single him out for the penalty box.
We should buy low on Milan Lucic now, get him from the Bruins in a trade, and solve our lack of depth on the wing problems.
Of course, to follow the 'Dale Weise' salvage/reboot model, we'd need an undersized, under-producing defenceman to use as a trade piece. Maybe we can re-acquire Frédéric St-Denis from the Blue Jackets?...
RDS' André Savard on L’Antichambre commented on how slow Zdeno Chara is: “Il s’est fait dépasser par Brandon Prust…”, meaning, Brandon Prust outskated him on a specific play. The whole panel agreed that their whole team is too slow, top to bottom, even young franchise-defenceman-to-be Dougie Hamilton couldn’t keep up.
They conceded that injuries to Zdeno Chara and David Krejci played a big part in their slow start to the season, but I was afraid things were starting to pick up for them. Boston had a good streak of success going the last fifteen games or so. Let’s hope this speed bump throws them in another funk.
And it was still a very tasty win, as succulent as the duck Poppy prepared for Jerry and Elaine. The degree of schadenfreudulty was multiplied by the two points that Dale Weise picked up, the opening goal and a great assist on Max Pacioretty's goal to make it 2-0. I was hoping he'd tune up Greg 'Sonny Boy' Campbell again, to finish off the Gordie Howe hat-trick.
Most analysts criticized the use of Dale Weise on the Canadiens first line, arguing that his skillset makes him a fourth or third-liner at best. I understood that it was a bit of a desperation gambit by the coaches to jumpstart their offence. Michel Therrien explained that with his size and speed Dale could be a good complement on Max's opposite wing.
In fact, Dale has been exceeding expectations. He's playing smart, throwing hits but not taking penalties, going to the net, trying to deflect pucks and pick up rebounds. As a pleasant bonus, he's showing chemistry with Max, and has made quite a few deft passes, touch passes that belie his grinder rep.
When he was traded from Vancouver, I did my best to caution the overexcited optimists, the guys who think we should look into trading for Wayne Simmonds and use Magnus Nygren as a trade chip, that Dale was a great guy with heart and would be useful on the fourth line, but the supposition that he could help out in the Top 6 was risible.
I patiently reasoned that the Canucks have been searching high and low for a big scoring winger to plop on the Sedins' right for years now, so if Dale was any good on the Top 6 they'd have used him there. I also tried to describe how Dale's reputation, his M.O., is that he causes lots of loose pucks and breakdowns in the offensive zone but can't cash them in, he misses the net or flubs his shot routinely. Because he has no hands, see?
So I'll own up with a passage from what I posted at the time:
Dale Weise is like a half of a Travis Moen, we shouldn't expect too much from him. He has decent size and a big heart, but little vision or dexterity. He'll chip in some hits and fights, but few points. He barely hung on to a roster spot with the 'Nucks, and their third and fourth lines are arid wastelands devoid of talent. Best-case scenario is that he fits in better in our roster, but that's a remote chance, since the Canucks have the same profile we do (low-scoring, undersized).Ouch. Step right up, folks, I'll be predicting the winning lottery numbers now.
So yeah, he's making his naysayers look bad right now. Sure he may be playing over his head, André Savard was saying that it's easy for him since there's no pressure yet, but when he starts being counted on to score, and other teams check him more closely, he may fall back to Earth.
In any case, let’s enjoy the ride, this hot streak should be fun.
Maybe if he cools off we can flip him back to the Canucks for Alex Edler and Zack Kassian?
As the Bruins felt the game slipping away, they reverted back to thuggery, notably by punching or crosschecking Brendan Gallagher in the face after whistles, and a notable hit by Daniel Paillé who left his feet to try to crush Sergei Gonchar.
I began to think of a David Letterman-style list: "Top Ten reasons the referees aren't handing out penalties to the Bruins."
10. He’s a big bad Bruin is all.And son on. So disheartening.
9. He was forechecking.
8. The Bruins are behind in the score.
7. They’re playing at home.
6. Jeremy Jacobs signs the cheques.
Later in the game, when the result was still in doubt, Max chipped the puck past Bruin 'defenceman' (quotation marks intentional) Adam McQuaid and was set to go off on another breakaway. I'll emphasize the fact that Max didn't have the puck, yet Mr. McQuaid stuck out an interfery sticky-out knee, and luckily didn't catch Max flush knee-on-knee.
That, a slower dumber badder player trying to make up for it with a flagrant foul, and the subsequent indulgence of the refs, is everything that’s wrong with the NHL.
Trusty vet Manny Malhotra was a healthy scratch due to his shortcomings on offence. The coaches went with a fourth line of Hamilton Bulldog callup Jacob de la Rose between Michaël Bournival and Christian Thomas. Gabriel Dumont, another AHL callup, was also scratched. The combination seemed to work, they didn't look out of place, their speed creating difficulty for the Bruins.
Generally, we need to get Michaël Bournival going. Enough of this sitting him out. Let’s have him go on a streak like he had at the start of last season. And I think it’s kind of counterproductive to call up Christian Thomas and Gabriel Dumont if it’s going to send Bourni in the press box. Let Bourni play, and let these guys play big minutes in Hamilton and make something of themselves.
The third line of Sekac-Eller-Prust had its moments, but Lars would lose focus on occasion. Again, Lars needs to stop lurking in the O-zone like he's a sniper waiting for his setup, and just go to the net. I'll guarantee him more goals by potting rebounds and getting deflections than by trying to be Brett Hull out there.
Carey Price didn't have to be miraculous for us to win, he merely excelled and that was enough. There was a spectacular reaching-behind-with-the-stick save that made it look like he was trying to out-carterhutton Carter Hutton.
P.K. and Andrei had another dominant performance. Andrei intercepted/broke up a pass in the neutral zone at the end of the game with Tuukka Rask on the bench for an extra attacker, and for once we were lucky in scoring an empty-netter.
Usually we hit posts, or barely miss, but this time his flailing poke at the puck caused it to deflect high in the air, then drop to the ice right near the crease and roll in. I thought that field goal by Andrei should have been worth three, but maybe the refs were using CFL rules, and called it a rouge.
Milan Lucic was left to mutter to himself as he slinked off to the showers. He didn't cover himself in glory on this night. He got off a couple of dangerous shots, made a couple of plays, but he wasn't able to be the difference, which he seemed to be on the verge of, a couple seasons ago, that he might become the pre-eminent big forward in the league.
Instead, he gradually lost discipline during the game and became more interested in his feud with Alexei Emelin than playing hockey, and when T-74 caught him with a hit, he retaliated with a crosscheck. We were treated to his trademark sneer of disbelief that the refs would single him out for the penalty box.
We should buy low on Milan Lucic now, get him from the Bruins in a trade, and solve our lack of depth on the wing problems.
Of course, to follow the 'Dale Weise' salvage/reboot model, we'd need an undersized, under-producing defenceman to use as a trade piece. Maybe we can re-acquire Frédéric St-Denis from the Blue Jackets?...
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