Are We Headed in the Right Direction?

[ReHabs]

Most of the fanbase had so much optimism going into this season only to see it wiped away over the span of 48 hours. Guhle was injured yet again and even though it was beyond his control, same for Dach, it makes it tough to see either as key parts of a new core of players. Someone posted a reply a few days ago about the possibility that some of these players might not even be here by the time the rebuild was complete and I thought it sounded crazy but now, not so much.

Molson is the wild card in all of this and will he force the hand of management to make trades that will bring in vets with the selling point being that the playoffs are a possibility? If the injuries continue it's hard to imagine that the team will draw many fans, things are very uncertain right now.

A lot of the optimism was built on very rickety and conditional circumstances:

If Dach continues improving…
If Slafkovsky actually develops in the NHL….
If Hutson becomes a PMD first pairing dman…
If Reinbacher becomes the “D-2” he was drafted to be…

… We will have a team that could make the playoffs regularly (when they’re all in the NHL).

Beyond that, what do you expect? We have no scoring depth, we have no skill prospects beyond Hutson, we have no C prospects worth thinking about…

A single Leo Carlsson would’ve made a world of difference. Or a Logan Cooley. Or a Simon Nemec. Or Matvei Michkov. Or Zach Benson. Someone who isn’t incapable of making plays.

I’ll say this: it’ll be extremely appreciated if Slafkovsky really does grow into whatever it is so many of you and Kent Hughes see in him. If he really lives up to the hype, it’ll be such a big relief.

 

[LaP]

A lot of the optimism was built on very rickety and conditional circumstances:

If Dach continues improving…
If Slafkovsky actually develops in the NHL….
If Hutson becomes a PMD first pairing dman…
If Reinbacher becomes the “D-2” he was drafted to be…

… We will have a team that could make the playoffs regularly (when they’re all in the NHL).

Beyond that, what do you expect? We have no scoring depth, we have no skill prospects beyond Hutson, we have no C prospects worth thinking about…

A single Leo Carlsson would’ve made a world of difference. Or a Logan Cooley. Or a Simon Nemec. Or Matvei Michkov. Or Zach Benson. Someone who isn’t incapable of making plays.

I’ll say this: it’ll be extremely appreciated if Slafkovsky really does grow into whatever it is so many of you and Kent Hughes see in him. If he really lives up to the hype, it’ll be such a big relief.

It's the same for every team rebuilding. Outside of once in a while prospects like Connor God and Connor McJesus and probably eventually Connor Something (he'll be named Connor we all know it) all prospects might or might not develop. I'd agree our prospects pool is not as good as some believe it to be but all teams rebuilding are stuck in a maybe scenario until they are not.

You seem to believe Cooley is a surefire thing and all our prospects will bust and all prospects around the NHL will develop into elite talents but really outside of a few select prospects none of them is a sure thing. There was not a single surefire prospect in 2022. People can spin as much as they want they all had pros and cons. You are too high on Cooley imo. He has a long way to go before being a number 1 center of a contender.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

We are tanking for as long as it takes for the young players to step up and show they can build a team around them or not. No one knows how long that will take if it even happens, could be this year or we could be in the same boat 10 years from now.

Exactly. Some players will pan out some won’t. The earliest I can see is competing for a playoff spot is two years from now.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

Key is Suzuki
I'm not confident
Has he become too content
Too much soonias too soon

Whatever is happening with Suzuki, it will pass.

 

[CGG]

I don't think there's any question we're on the right track. In two trade deadlines and two off-seasons Hughes has somehow managed to pull this off:

Out = Toffoli, Romanov, Lehkonen, Petry, Chiarot, Kulak, Edmundson, Hoffman, Poehling, Pitlick, Weber (LTIR), 2nd, 3rd, 4th

In = Dach, Newhook, Matheson, Monahan, Pearson, Barron, 1st, 1st (Mesar), 2nd, 2nd (Hutson), 2nd, 3rd, 3rd, 4th, 4th, 4th, 5th, 5th, 7th, 7th

On the Out list, we only miss maybe the first 3 guys? The rest were overpaid and/or not very good. But from that pile of 3 guys and a bunch of crap, we now have 6 bona fide NHLers and basically 2 whole years worth of extra draft picks. If someone said in Jan 2022 that anyone could have pulled that off with our roster, no one would have believed them.

I think we can complain all we want that there's no McDavid or Bedard on the team, but there's a bunch of different ways to win. We should be following the Carolina model. They have exactly 1 forward who has put up more than 71 points over the past 3 years (Aho) and none that have ever scored 40 goals or put up more than 83 points. But they have 4 solid forwards (Aho, Svechnikov, Tervainen, Necas) and some depth on D with Pesce and Slavin, and most imporantly, no real salary cap errors. They were able to pounce on disgruntled RFA Kotkaniemi (using surplus draft picks) and pick up a bunch of guys for free (Burns, Pacioretty, Bunting, Orlov, etc) due to cap space, giving them a very deep team. They also drafted well with guys like Jarvis making an impact. Filled the 3rd and 4th lines with non descript cheap journeymen and treated goaltending as a complete afterthought, picking up rejected Leafs on the UFA scrap heap.

And they're perennial contenders. We're not that far off. We might already have 4 forwards on par with their Big 4 in a few years. Give it 2 more years with some continued development and some salary cap space and we can be right there with them.

 

[larek]

Whatever is happening with Suzuki, it will pass.

It's going to be interesting how many points he gets this season for that big contract

 

[Ezpz]

Key is Suzuki
I'm not confident
Has he become too content
Too much soonias too soon

He goes through these stretches and usually still maintains a pretty decent points-per-game. He looks worse because he's a guy who slows the game down and everything he does looks slow. When it's not working it just looks like he's giving less effort. Patches had the same issue whenever he wasn't scoring despite his defensive metrics being top tier for a winger league-wide. Cole does nothing defensively and is pretty poor at retrieving pucks so Nick is working double on that line and being pushed away from his strengths at time. They need someone better than Anderson at doing the dirty work on that line.

 

[417]

Most of the fanbase had so much optimism going into this season only to see it wiped away over the span of 48 hours. Guhle was injured yet again and even though it was beyond his control, same for Dach, it makes it tough to see either as key parts of a new core of players. Someone posted a reply a few days ago about the possibility that some of these players might not even be here by the time the rebuild was complete and I thought it sounded crazy but now, not so much.

Molson is the wild card in all of this and will he force the hand of management to make trades that will bring in vets with the selling point being that the playoffs are a possibility? If the injuries continue it's hard to imagine that the team will draw many fans, things are very uncertain right now.

That's probably a bit too dramatic IMO, it sucks for for this year (well moreseo for Dach) but both players are firmly entrenched as cornerstone pieces of this franchise.

But it does seem like there's some bad karma with this team for the last few years as it relates to injuries.

My friend used to tell me someone in the Habs organization made a deal with the devil to make it to the Finals a few years ago…i used to laugh it off.

But now….lol

He goes through these stretches and usually still maintains a pretty decent points-per-game. He looks worse because he's a guy who slows the game down and everything he does looks slow. When it's not working it just looks like he's giving less effort. Patches had the same issue whenever he wasn't scoring despite his defensive metrics being top tier for a winger league-wide. Cole does nothing defensively and is pretty poor at retrieving pucks so Nick is working double on that line and being pushed away from his strengths at time. They need someone better than Anderson at doing the dirty work on that line.

He's the last player we should be worried about.

 

[OldCraig71]

A lot of the optimism was built on very rickety and conditional circumstances:

If Dach continues improving…
If Slafkovsky actually develops in the NHL….
If Hutson becomes a PMD first pairing dman…
If Reinbacher becomes the “D-2” he was drafted to be…

… We will have a team that could make the playoffs regularly (when they’re all in the NHL).

Beyond that, what do you expect? We have no scoring depth, we have no skill prospects beyond Hutson, we have no C prospects worth thinking about…

A single Leo Carlsson would’ve made a world of difference. Or a Logan Cooley. Or a Simon Nemec. Or Matvei Michkov. Or Zach Benson. Someone who isn’t incapable of making plays.

I’ll say this: it’ll be extremely appreciated if Slafkovsky really does grow into whatever it is so many of you and Kent Hughes see in him. If he really lives up to the hype, it’ll be such a big relief.

I don't take any of this as seriously as I used to but I will say, no matter what the draft hype is that surrounds certain players, there are no guarantees of success. Injuries happen to star players as well as plugs and it is a reality of the sport. Every team has hits and misses on draft day and we are no different. We have no choice but to wait and see how many of these kids turn out, I don't know what else to say.

 

[larek]

He goes through these stretches and usually still maintains a pretty decent points-per-game. He looks worse because he's a guy who slows the game down and everything he does looks slow. When it's not working it just looks like he's giving less effort. Patches had the same issue whenever he wasn't scoring despite his defensive metrics being top tier for a winger league-wide. Cole does nothing defensively and is pretty poor at retrieving pucks so Nick is working double on that line and being pushed away from his strengths at time. They need someone better than Anderson at doing the dirty work on that line.

Caufield isn't as bad defensively as you think he's smart
Like I said going to be interesting to see Suzuki's production this season

 

[ReHabs]

It's the same for every team rebuilding. Outside of once in a while prospects like Connor God and Connor McJesus and probably eventually Connor Something (he'll be named Connor we all know it) all prospects might or might not develop. I'd agree our prospects pool is not as good as some believe it to be but all teams rebuilding are stuck in a maybe scenario until they are not.

I know you believe Cooley is a surefire thing and all our prospects will bust and all prospects around the NHL will develop into elite talents but really outside of a few select prospects none of them is a sure thing. There was not a single surefire prospect in 2022. People can spin as much as they want they all had pros and cons. You are too high on Cooley imo. He has a long way to go before being a number 1 center of a contender.

I’m not high on anybody. I don’t know prospects or amateurs. What I do know is the Habs shouldn’t have gotten it wrong.

I don't take any of this as seriously as I used to but I will say, no matter what the draft hype is that surrounds certain players, there are no guarantees of success. Injuries happen to star players as well as plugs and it is a reality of the sport. Every team has hits and misses on draft day and we are no different. We have no choice but to wait and see how many of these kids turn out, I don't know what else to say.

The problem is entropy.

Wanting a long rebuild means wanting chaos. People want both a long rebuild and to hold onto every prospect as a promising magic bean. The two thoughts are orthogonal imo — shit happens, see Dach’s mangled knee for evidence.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

I don't take any of this as seriously as I used to but I will say, no matter what the draft hype is that surrounds certain players, there are no guarantees of success. Injuries happen to star players as well as plugs and it is a reality of the sport. Every team has hits and misses on draft day and we are no different. We have no choice but to wait and see how many of these kids turn out, I don't know what else to say.

Ah, I see you also suffer, as I do, from Bergevin induced apathy.

 

[ReHabs]

Exactly. Some players will pan out some won’t. The earliest I can see is competing for a playoff spot is two years from now.

Then it was a major mistake to have not sold Anderson, no?

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

It's going to be interesting how many points he gets this season for that big contract

He had 66 in the first year of the contract, so what's changed is not the money.

 

[Ezpz]

Caufield isn't as bad defensively as you think he's smart
Like I said going to be interesting to see Suzuki's production this season

It's not that he's bad defensively, it's that he can't contribute in certain areas just because of his size. He is great at attacking the puck carrier through the neutral zone but any time the boards are involved he is neutralized. Even if he didn't have his shot and was a bottom six guy you'd never see him on a penalty kill. He is even smaller than Gallagher or Byron who basically ended their careers early trying to play that type of game to stick in the NHL.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

He goes through these stretches and usually still maintains a pretty decent points-per-game. He looks worse because he's a guy who slows the game down and everything he does looks slow. When it's not working it just looks like he's giving less effort. Patches had the same issue whenever he wasn't scoring despite his defensive metrics being top tier for a winger league-wide. Cole does nothing defensively and is pretty poor at retrieving pucks so Nick is working double on that line and being pushed away from his strengths at time. They need someone better than Anderson at doing the dirty work on that line.

I think you’re selling CC “short” on his defensive abilities. He’s good at stealing pucks and isn’t intimidated by physical play. In a GDT about a week ago a poster pointed out the he got thumped by a bigger player - but CC came way with the puck.

I agree he’s a bit one dimensional. But he’s not terrible defensively.

 

[JRichard]

Here's some interesting numbers

Habs have allowed 12 goals in 3 games this season, only one of them is at 5-on-5
Oh yeah, they are at this point the team that allowed the least goals at 5-on-5
View attachment 754284

Habs have scored 12 goals so far this season too, 8 of them were at 5-on-5
That put tied in 3rd place in the NHL.
View attachment 754286

By every metric available, the Habs is the most penalized team by far.
24 minors, 1st in the NHL
28,20 PIM per game, 3 more than anybody else
-8 in the penalty drawn and taken, the closest team is at -4
9.41 penalty taken per 60 min, 1st in the the NHL
View attachment 754288

Too early…
X and Anderson got misconducts
Pit and Buf have drawn only 10 calls in 3 games vs Habs 21.
Mtl has been involved in over-reffed games so far.

 

[larek]

It's not that he's bad defensively, it's that he can't contribute in certain areas just because of his size. He is great at attacking the puck carrier through the neutral zone but any time the boards are involved he is neutralized. Even if he didn't have his shot and was a bottom six guy you'd never see him on a penalty kill. He is even smaller than Gallagher or Byron who basically ended their careers early trying to play that type of game to stick in the NHL.

I even notice Anderson being neutralized alot

He had 66 in the first year of the contract, so what's changed is not the money.

That's fresh he just signed it all excited
Now it's been a little while - he's settled
I see complacency

 

[OldCraig71]

Ah, I see you also suffer, as I do, from Bergevin induced apathy.

Yes, I do Oz, I used to get riled up by all of this crap but not anymore, I like the banter of GDT's the most because frankly, it was what got us through so many frustrating years under MB and his clan. We all thought that his reign would never end and many of us (including you) forecasted that the new GM would need 5 years to get out from under what was left behind. Bad contracts, a shitty farm system and whatever they called development under MB. The new guys have no small task in front of them, they have to be crazy to even want to do it and now we are witnessing the pains of rebuilding a franchise.

It sucks that we have been hit with so many injuries and that Slafkovsky isn't a 30-goal scorer yet and we should have drafted someone else blah blah blah. I just don't even give a damn lol. Most of these players are millionaires being paid to play a game and live a life that many people on this board could only dream of and my obsession with the habs is not nearly what it used to be because of it all. I care more about my achy knees and grey hair dammit!

 

[Boss Man Hughes]

Then it was a major mistake to have not sold Anderson, no?

It depends on what might have been offered. Anything less than a 1st is no big loss.

 

[Milhouse40]

Too early…
X and Anderson got misconducts
Pit and Buf have drawn only 10 calls in 3 games vs Habs 21.
Mtl has been involved in over-reffed games so far.

If you prefer it that way. The Habs played shorthanded for 29:29 out of 180 minutes and that does not include the 4 minutes Toronto was playing 6-on-5 in game #1.

We've had 24 minor penalties in 3 games, it's 5 more than any other team not named Carolina who has 23 in 4 games. League's average is 14-16 minor penalties. We're 10 to 12 about average in 3 little games.

And yes we've drawn 21 penalties but only spent 18:13 on the PP which is good for 19th in the NHL.

 

[Fledgemyhedge]

Hughes hasn't been GM of this team for 2 years, and you're already "losing faith".

It doesn't matter who the GM of this team is, even if they fired Hughes today and hired your handpicked replacement, you'd lose faith after their first 20 months on the job too.

If you thought turning this thing around was going to be a quick endeavour, you played yourself.


Last year was Hughes first FULL season as GM of this team. He took over the Habs in January of 2022.'

He's barely begun to put his own imprint on this team.

It's very telling of this fanbase that in Kent Hughes 2nd FULL season as GM of this team, after the team loses it's first game in regulation, that fans are acting like this "rebuild" is off the rails SMDH.

Y'all ain't built for this here...

He passed on a potential 100+ point player which we haven’t had in decades for a safer (?) pick in reinbacher. I don’t really need to see more to see which direction we’re going. A solid middle of the pack team lacking high end players.

I want a GM who swings.

Plus in that post you quoted I said nothing about Hughes. Just that our forward prospects need work which is just a fact. So have no reason why you came after that

 

[Habnot]

He passed on a potential 100+ point player which we haven’t had in decades for a safer (?) pick in reinbacher. I don’t really need to see more to see which direction we’re going. A solid middle of the pack team lacking high end players.

I want a GM who swings.

Plus in that post you quoted I said nothing about Hughes. Just that our forward prospects need work which is just a fact. So have no reason why you came after that

Hughes swings, go look at his transaction history on CapFriedly. Again, just butt hurt they didn't pick Michkov and assuming he's a can't miss prospect.

The majority of this fanbase talks out of both sides of their mouths. They want a slow rebuild but then react to every game lost. Rebuilds are painful and full of obstacles. A blueprint for success does not exist.

But what Hughes has done is stockpiled picks, prospects and soon cap space. With his penchant for pulling trades someone with Hughes's cojones and many assets is a good place to be. The Newhook trade is the latest example of a great move and with Dach's injury even more valuable.

 

[Fledgemyhedge]

Hughes swings, go look at his transaction history on CapFriedly. Again, just butt hurt they didn't pick Michkov and assuming he's a can't miss prospect.

The majority of this fanbase talks out of both sides of their mouths. They want a slow rebuild but then react to every game lost. Rebuilds are painful and full of obstacles. A blueprint for success does not exist.

But what Hughes has done is stockpiled picks, prospects and soon cap space. With his penchant for pulling trades someone with Hughes's cojones and many assets is a good place to be. The Newhook trade is the latest example of a great move and with Dach's injury even more valuable.

I’m not butt hurt. And its not “again” I’ve never talked to you. I want a slow rebuild and don’t care about the current results but the fact of the matter is there’s a good shot our two high picks were flubs. Slaf looks rough and passing on Michkov is what I think is going to define this regime. I could be wrong but that’s how I see it. I don’t know how you could say the Newhook trade is a great move already after 3 games but I thought it was meh at the time. Replacing dach because he’s injured is irrelevant to me because I don’t care about the team doing well in the short term

 

[Sorinth]

I don't think there's any question we're on the right track. In two trade deadlines and two off-seasons Hughes has somehow managed to pull this off:

Out = Toffoli, Romanov, Lehkonen, Petry, Chiarot, Kulak, Edmundson, Hoffman, Poehling, Pitlick, Weber (LTIR), 2nd, 3rd, 4th

In = Dach, Newhook, Matheson, Monahan, Pearson, Barron, 1st, 1st (Mesar), 2nd, 2nd (Hutson), 2nd, 3rd, 3rd, 4th, 4th, 4th, 5th, 5th, 7th, 7th

On the Out list, we only miss maybe the first 3 guys? The rest were overpaid and/or not very good. But from that pile of 3 guys and a bunch of crap, we now have 6 bona fide NHLers and basically 2 whole years worth of extra draft picks. If someone said in Jan 2022 that anyone could have pulled that off with our roster, no one would have believed them.

I think we can complain all we want that there's no McDavid or Bedard on the team, but there's a bunch of different ways to win. We should be following the Carolina model. They have exactly 1 forward who has put up more than 71 points over the past 3 years (Aho) and none that have ever scored 40 goals or put up more than 83 points. But they have 4 solid forwards (Aho, Svechnikov, Tervainen, Necas) and some depth on D with Pesce and Slavin, and most imporantly, no real salary cap errors. They were able to pounce on disgruntled RFA Kotkaniemi (using surplus draft picks) and pick up a bunch of guys for free (Burns, Pacioretty, Bunting, Orlov, etc) due to cap space, giving them a very deep team. They also drafted well with guys like Jarvis making an impact. Filled the 3rd and 4th lines with non descript cheap journeymen and treated goaltending as a complete afterthought, picking up rejected Leafs on the UFA scrap heap.

And they're perennial contenders. We're not that far off. We might already have 4 forwards on par with their Big 4 in a few years. Give it 2 more years with some continued development and some salary cap space and we can be right there with them.

Mostly agree, though I don't think we shouldn't necessarily be modelling after Carolina. There are some parallels but they are also a bit of a cautionary tale, they were supposed to have built a stud D core around Slavin, Fleury, Hanifin, and eventually Hamilton but it didn't work out that way. But your right they are proof that a good offence doesn't have to be top heavy especially in terms of cap.