Confirmed with Link: Alexandre Carrier acquired from the Predators in exchange for Justin Barron

[ChesterNimitz]

You cant eat all the food that's in your fridge at the same time. Barron was taken out the freezer to thaw too soon and someone had to cook him but we were full already. Your outlook needs to be that at least this Barron steak didnt go to waste.

Mistakes were made, but between Barron, Mailloux and Reinbacher, who do you keep? Honestly


If you want JUST skating lets get Elvis Stojko or Victor Mete

I heard similar complaints and concerns about Lehkonen's game.

My post addressed the issue of potential. In Barron's short NHL career (111 games) he's already scored 13 goals. Carrier, in 246 NHL games, has 11 goals. At 28 years old what you see in Carrier today is what you get. If that satisfies you, then its a great trade.

As I said, my comments were strictly limited to potential. And I stand on what I said: Barron, is a younger, faster, bigger and much less expensive player. If Barron can improve his defensive game (a big if) this trade will age as well as the Lehkonen trade has.

 

[BehindTheTimes]

I thought Carrier played well last night and showed strong defensive awareness, a good element of physicality and more mobility/ quickness than I expected. But he’s undersized and has a shot that couldn’t break glass.

As I have often posted, I hate transactions where we trade away skating for lesser skating. But during his short tenure in Montreal, Barron displayed limited defensive acumen, had constantly shown a ‘deer in the headlights’ look when under heavy forecheck pressure and, for a player of his size, was surprisingly unable to physically control opponents along the boards or box them out in front of the net.

While Barron, if given adequate playing time, will probably score more goals this year than Carrier will score in the rest of his career, the question will be if the goals Barron’s poor defensive play causes will exceed the goals he scores.

If Barron’s defensive game does develop and takes the next step, this trade may be one that Montreal fans long rue.

You trade away superior skating ability at your team’s peril.

I don’t place the same value as you do on skating alone. It’s an important attribute, no doubt, but without an thing else you are just a good skater.

I still think Barron could find his form. He’s a big, mobile, dman, who have shown they often need some time to put it together. He is surprisingly weak and timid for a big boy though.

 

[Naslundforever]

I like how he closes the gap fast and early while still in the neutral zone even. Looked like he’s played pro hockey before.

 

[Habssince89]

I heard similar complaints and concerns about Lehkonen's game.

My post addressed the issue of potential. In Barron's short NHL career (111 games) he's already scored 13 goals. Carrier, in 246 NHL games, has 11 goals. At 28 years old what you see in Carrier today is what you get. If that satisfies you, then its a great trade.

As I said, my comments were strictly limited to potential. And I stand on what I said: Barron, is a younger, faster, bigger and much less expensive player. If Barron can improve his defensive game (a big if) this trade will age as well as the Lehkonen trade has.

The lehkonen trade HAS aged well. Getting Hage out of it seals it

 

[Big Lurk]

I heard similar complaints and concerns about Lehkonen's game.

My post addressed the issue of potential. In Barron's short NHL career (111 games) he's already scored 13 goals. Carrier, in 246 NHL games, has 11 goals. At 28 years old what you see in Carrier today is what you get. If that satisfies you, then its a great trade.

As I said, my comments were strictly limited to potential. And I stand on what I said: Barron, is a younger, faster, bigger and much less expensive player. If Barron can improve his defensive game (a big if) this trade will age as well as the Lehkonen trade has.

If we draft 5 demidovs but need defense.
Would you complain if we traded 1 for a top 2 D?

Its the same issue here, whether Barron reaches is potential or not is none of our business. I hope he does and I would be happy for him. But would you wait another 3-5 years, potentially, for it?
Are you ready to be SUPER ASS defensively for all this time?

The cupboard is full. We need to trade assets for tangible items at some point.
Or we could continue to accumulate picks for 10 years and live in WhatIf Land forever.

This was the right move to be made with the data available at the time, and whether Barron reaches his potential not should not affect how we view this trade at all IMHO. Barron was ass and traded because of it.

 

[dackelljuneaubulis02]

Was nobody here alive that summer? Markov WANTED to go back to Russia to be with his child. And he had one good year left in him, no more. If he'd gotten a deal large enough to get him to stay you'd all be whining because Bergevin overpaid for an over the hill vet on his last legs.

The problem was thinking Karl freaking Alzner could somehow fill in for what Markov brought to the team.

I never really got the anger over Markov. He was all but done. Pretty awful against the Rags in the playoffs.

Letting Radulov walk was inexcusable. Dude was a beast.

 

[ChesterNimitz]

The lehkonen trade HAS aged well. Getting Hage out of it seals it

Yes, Bergevin must have been a genius to know that his successor would be in a position to draft a player who was 14 years old when the trade was made.

I know its sometimes better to be lucky than good, but I wouldn’t want to base my management decisions largely on good fortune.

 

[Sorinth]

That is the misfire, do you create a team of young guys to give them all the ice in the World to see what they can do or you have a balanced team where th young guys have to work hard to make the line-up? We have seen in recent memory that simply having a young team, it doesn't teach them much to be professionals. That is the issue of a scorched Earth rebuild.

We have seen for example a Maillioux given all the ice and he did not perform. Why not have him instead force the Habs to play him by him busting his ass to make the line up? This should have been the road to take. But instead we traded a valuable asset in Kovacevic to play Mailloux, it did not work out and we took a step back this year.

You've completely misremembered what actually happened. Mailloux didn't make the team out of camp and was sent to Laval to start the year. Guhle got injured and Mailloux was called up as the injury replacement and sent down as soon as Guhle was healthy again.

Trading Kovacevic to make room for Mailloux didn't happen.

 

[Habssince89]

Yes, Bergevin must have been a genius to know that his successor would be in a position to draft a player who was 14 years old when the trade was made.

I know its sometimes better to be lucky than good, but I wouldn’t want to base my management decisions largely on good fortune.

That's a fair point, but my point is we ended up with a good return so there's no need to dwell on a negative outcome that will never come to pass. Barron has tonnes of potential and at the time the trade made sense. I still think he can become something decent but it will take more time

 

[JianYang]

Markov was still very effective in his final season and his contract demands weren’t unreasonable. I believe he wanted 2 years and Bergevin basically spit in his face. Two years even if he did decline wouldn’t have killed the team. Replacing him with Alzner was a completely different issue.

That whole situation was sad. He was a few games away from 1,000 and one point away from taking sole possession of the 2nd leading scorer in team history for dmen.

Regardless of what markov had left in the tank, 2 years of Andrei versus the contract given to alzner a huge blunder by bergevin, and the kicker is that it arguably wasn't even his worst blunder of that summer.

 

[japhi27returns]

Yes, Bergevin must have been a genius to know that his successor would be in a position to draft a player who was 14 years old when the trade was made.

I know its sometimes better to be lucky than good, but I wouldn’t want to base my management decisions largely on good fortune.

GM success in the league is 80% luck, 20% talent.

 

[1909]

The lehkonen trade HAS aged well. Getting Hage out of it seals it

That was pure luck.

 

[Jurivan Demidovsky]

That was pure luck.

See post right above yours lol.

 

[Gaylord Q Tinkledink]

GM success in the league is 80% luck, 20% talent.

15% concentrated power over will.
5% pleasure.
50% pain
And 100% reason to remember the name


He stepped up and tried to throw a hit early and didn't really notice him after that except for a part where the puck came out front and instead of rushing to block it and potentially screen his goalie, he stayed to the side and let Monty front it

That's a good game for the type of player he is.

 

[Habssince89]

That was pure luck.

Nope. It was a deliberate move up in the draft using the assets from the lehkonen trade

 

[HabzSauce]

You've completely misremembered what actually happened. Mailloux didn't make the team out of camp and was sent to Laval to start the year. Guhle got injured and Mailloux was called up as the injury replacement and sent down as soon as Guhle was healthy again.

Trading Kovacevic to make room for Mailloux didn't happen.

I swear I read somewhere recently Gorton said they traded Kovy so they could see what they had in the kids this year to better evaluate them. Mailloux is part of that bunch

 

[Sorinth]

I swear I read somewhere recently Gorton said they traded Kovy so they could see what they had in the kids this year to better evaluate them. Mailloux is part of that bunch

In the presser for this trade he did talk about how they wanted to know what they had with a number of their players, and that they needed to play them in order to have that evaluation. It wasn't stated as why Kovacevic was traded but sure that's an easy assumption to make. But Mailloux being in that bunch isn't really the case. We had 8 NHL D men who derserved ice time + Hutson who seemed like a lock for a total of 9 guys.

So yes Kovacevic was traded in part to clear help clear that logjam up which means more opportunity for young guys, but there was never any room for Mailloux unless he forced his way onto the team with an amazing camp.

And it's funny how this argument that players shouldn't be gifted spots and should have to earn it doesn't seem to apply to a guy like Hutson who was arguably gifted a spot, or how everyone wants Demidov gifted a top-6 spot next season. And in any case nobody was gifted a spot, Kovacevic was already seeing much less ice time last year compared to the year before. Kovacevic basically lost his spot by Struble coming in and forcing management to keep him up.

 

[ReHabs]

And it's funny how this argument that players shouldn't be gifted spots and should have to earn it doesn't seem to apply to a guy like Hutson who was arguably gifted a spot, or how everyone wants Demidov gifted a top-6 spot next season. And in any case nobody was gifted a spot, Kovacevic was already seeing much less ice time last year compared to the year before. Kovacevic basically lost his spot by Struble coming in and forcing management to keep him up.

One could argue Hutson earned a spot through the actual mechanism of earning a spot: training camp.

It's a meritocracy in a way but the real objective is winning, and during the camp Hutson confirmed he is head and shoulders more talented than Struble, Harris, Kovacevic, etc. and could keep up with the play. Everybody knows it -- so even if it was the case, it doesn't matter if he's been gifted the spot... if he keeps it.

 

[Sorinth]

One could argue Hutson earned a spot through the actual mechanism of earning a spot: training camp.

It's a meritocracy in a way but the real objective is winning, and during the camp Hutson confirmed he is head and shoulders more talented than Struble, Harris, Kovacevic, etc. and could keep up with the play. Everybody knows it -- so even if it was the case, it doesn't matter if he's been gifted the spot... if he keeps it.

He got 22min a game right off the bat last season so he was gifted his spot before his first training camp. And yes he's kept it by playing great, but that just highlights the difference in philosophies. Do you have to work your way up the NHL lineup starting at the bottom like say Suzuki had to do, or can you be given an opportunity based on skill/potential but then you still have to play well enough to keep the spot.

 

[dcyhabs]

GM success in the league is 80% luck, 20% talent.

There are uncontrollable aspects. NHL GMing is backgammon, not chess, but good backgammon players beat poor backgammon players 99.9% of the time.

There aren’t that many really good GMs. Some years there are none.

 

[ChesterNimitz]

GM success in the league is 80% luck, 20% talent.

I guess with no championships in over 30 years other GM’s were just luckier than Montreal’s collection of General Managers.

Sam Pollack must have been born with a horseshoe up his ….

 

[japhi27returns]

I guess with no championships in over 30 years other GM’s were just luckier than Montreal’s collection of General Managers.

Sam Pollack must have been born with a horseshoe up his ….

Yes, they were.

How do you explain guys like Holland, Burke, being top GM’s then brutal GM’s? Is Rutherford a great GM? How many modern GM’s have built teams that consistently win without getting lucky in the draft?

Everyone here hates MB….he made a Cup final and may have a Cup if Krieder doesn’t get wiped out. He had a lot of success relative to his peers, one of the more successful GM’s during his time here. Great GM?

Sam Pollack would be like 120 years old today, the league had 6 teams and MTL had serious regional advantages that are disadvantages today. Silly comp.

 

[tazsub3]

I guess with no championships in over 30 years other GM’s were just luckier than Montreal’s collection of General Managers.

Sam Pollack must have been born with a horseshoe up his ….

Yea man Hughes was very lucky he got two first for Monahan , while poor mb was so unlucky he gave a first plus for Dvorak

 

[Subban signed e5]

Looks pretty good so far, more physical and tougher than i expected.

 

[ChesterNimitz]

Yea man Hughes was very lucky he got two first for Monahan , while poor mb was so unlucky he gave a first plus for Dvorak

The ones here who think that the determinative factor in successful team building is luck probably have the purchase of lottery tickets as the core component of their retirement strategy.