Poor man's Nathan Beaulieu
Jokes aside, the last time we properly developed a good D we low balled him and ran him out of the city.
This organisation does not know how to develop Defencemen.
Chelios - Ran him out of town, won a Norris, was a good D for us... i always forget he was a hab once
Malakhov - Ran him out of town
Markov - Exception, din't speak english
Hainsey - He came, he left
Komisarek - After the Lucic fight... donzo.
McDonagh - We din't develop him
Tinordi - Chased him out
Beaulieu - Nate the Great
Which one of these players had a long lasting succesful career in montreal?
Markov, thats it
The habs coaches and fans have overrated effort vs skill. Most of these guys were victims of incompetence, though:
Chelios - the GM was told his knees wouldn't last and he should trade him while he had value.
Malakhov - great skill, effort was questioned and he got dumped
Markov - the team actually worked through his weak defense his first few years and developed him.
Hainsey - skill, effort questioned early in his career, habs couldn't evaluate D by the late '90s.
Komisarek - great effort, low skill, vastly overrated, done after Lucic fight.
McDonagh - badly evaluated and dumped
Tinordi - overrated prior to draft, damaged by Lefebvre, league sped up and he didnt.
Bealieu - Low effort, low intelligence... He was fast, he'd fight, he needed development, he got Sly.
Habs management was mediocre or worse from the last cup, or even before that, until, possibly, the last couple of years. The habs made a litany of mistakes with most of the list other than Markov, though some would be debatable. It's possible, for example, that Hainsey would not have developed without being dumped by the habs and realizing he needed to change his attitude, but who knows? There were definitely mistakes.
It's too early in the Hughes/Gorton years to know for sure if they have botched evaluations or development yet, but so far the indications are good. Most of their prospects have done well. Reinbacher looks good, in spite of his last year with Kloten, and there is no reason to think that they will destroy him or dump him. Next year will be tough, there isn't space for everyone they would like to keep so there will be a lot of opportunities for errors, trading the wrong guy, losing the wrong guy on waivers, but there is a chance that they have broken with the incompetence that has defined habs management for 3 decades. There have been dramatic organizational changes, especially on the development side, and Reinbacher should benefit.