Line Combos: Early look at the 23-24 Habs

[pickles555]

Not a bad team at all

For a bottom 10 finish, it's a great team

 

[HabzSauce]

For a bottom 10 finish, it's a great team

Yea that's too good for my liking. I want another top 5... preferably top 3 and even more so #1

 

[calder candidate]

CC Suzuki Anderson
Newhook Dach Monahan
Slaf Dvorak Gallagher
RHP Evans Armia
Pitlick

Matheson Barron
Ghule Savard
Xhekaj Harris
Kovacevic

 

[Rapala]

CC Suzuki Anderson
Newhook Dach Monahan
Slaf Dvorak Gallagher
RHP Evans Armia
Pitlick

Matheson Barron
Ghule Savard
Xhekaj Harris
Kovacevic

I'm not a fan of having Anderson on that top line. We keep going to it and it keeps disappointing us. I'd rather try Newhook Monahan or even RHP before going back to that again. On a good team Anderson is on the 3rd line. Not knowing what will happen with Monahan health wise we are still very weak on the wings. Like two top 6 wingers weak.

 

[calder candidate]

I'm not a fan of having Anderson on that top line. We keep going to it and it keeps disappointing us. I'd rather try Newhook Monahan or even RHP before going back to that again. On a good team Anderson is on the 3rd line. Not knowing what will happen with Monahan health wise we are still very weak on the wings. Like two top 6 wingers weak.

I don’t find it ideal either but figure we need some size with CC and Suzuki, Dach is the best fit but he showed he might have 1C potential+ we also need more than one line, Anderson has is strength but doesn’t rely on other to produce and don’t really make other better and if he is on the 3rd line where will Gallagher play… The way I see it is we have duo and we have bunch of guy that can move around we just need to find out the combination…
Anderson
Slaf
Armia
RHP
Newhook
These guy are kind of interchangeable.

 

[Rapala]

I don’t find it ideal either but figure we need some size with CC and Suzuki, Dach is the best fit but he showed he might have 1C potential+ we also need more than one line, Anderson has is strength but doesn’t rely on other to produce and don’t really make other better and if he is on the 3rd line where will Gallagher play… The way I see it is we have duo and we have bunch of guy that can move around we just need to find out the combination…
Anderson
Slaf
Armia
RHP
Newhook
These guy are kind of interchangeable.

The only thing I dislike about Anderson is his Ozone play. Opportunities tend to die on his stick. This team wants to progress to a fast paced possession game we need wingers on our top lines who can play that style.

 

[PaulD]

I'll tune back in when they are officially done with the "not about wins" campaign and they put the standings back up in the room.
Until then I'll check in here from time to time for HF reports.

 

[PhysicX]

Cannot wait for Hoffman to disappear from the roster. I can handle one last unbearable tank year.

 

[BLONG7]

Cannot wait for Hoffman to disappear from the roster. I can handle one last unbearable tank year.

Hoff, Armia and Gally for me..................boys just have to go.
I know we all keep hoping Gally can make a comeback, but as a fan of his, the honest truth is he can no longer skate with these guys, and is overpaid by 3M so it just makes it that much worse.

 

[Belial]

Hoff, Armia and Gally for me..................boys just have to go.
I know we all keep hoping Gally can make a comeback, but as a fan of his, the honest truth is he can no longer skate with these guys, and is overpaid by 3M so it just makes it that much worse.

Gally will retire as a Hab, there's no way someone takes on that contract.

 

[Habs Halifax]

Yea that's too good for my liking. I want another top 5... preferably top 3 and even more so #1

Hard to say what the next 3 years will look like. I think they will be Transition/Rebuild years still. More bottom 5 picks? That would mean our youth is not as good as we think it is today. If they are, we are moving up the standings gradually.

If there are injuries like last year, we are looking at another 5-10 range pick ish. If we are healthy, I expect us to be in the 8-16 pick range.

 

[BLONG7]

Gally will retire as a Hab, there's no way someone takes on that contract.

Sadly, this will be the case...........

 

[Habs Halifax]

Hoff, Armia and Gally for me..................boys just have to go.
I know we all keep hoping Gally can make a comeback, but as a fan of his, the honest truth is he can no longer skate with these guys, and is overpaid by 3M so it just makes it that much worse.

Agreed. Armia and Dvorak is 2 more years, Hoffman is 1. If it costs us an asset to move them, we can't do that. We are also not going to be in playoff/contender mode for the next two years. I don't have too much issues with it other than trying to free up space for some younger guys. If anything, the young players are not rushed and they can dominate the AHL first. Wouldn't that be nice for a change?

Gallagher is a problem. He's not rebounding to 30/30 at this point. Maybe 20/20 at best. Probably going to be 10-15 goals and 30 pts IMO. The term left is concerning.

 

[ChesterNimitz]

Hard to say what the next 3 years will look like. I think they will be Transition/Rebuild years still. More bottom 5 picks? That would mean our youth is not as good as we think it is today. If they are, we are moving up the standings gradually.

If there are injuries like last year, we are looking at another 5-10 range pick ish. If we are healthy, I expect us to be in the 8-16 pick range.

Other teams are also not static. Some are improving and others falling. If we still are drafting in the top 5 over the next few years it doesn’t necessarily mean that our youth isn’t as good as we think (hope).

 

[Belial]

Sadly, this will be the case...........

Hopefully, he worked on his cardio this offseason, he seems completely gassed out there after every shift... That's not normal IMO.

 

[Habs Halifax]

Other teams are also not static. Some are improving and others falling. If we still are drafting in the top 5 over the next few years it doesn’t necessarily mean that our youth isn’t as good as we think (hope).

We had historic injuries again last year and finished 5th last. I don't agree. If we finish below this and we don't have injuries like that again, it's not good. Nothing to panic about but that means a lot of our youth take steps back.

 

[BaseballCoach]

Hoff, Armia and Gally for me..................boys just have to go.
I know we all keep hoping Gally can make a comeback, but as a fan of his, the honest truth is he can no longer skate with these guys, and is overpaid by 3M so it just makes it that much worse.

More like $5M.

 

[BaseballCoach]

Hoff, Armia and Gally for me..................boys just have to go.
I know we all keep hoping Gally can make a comeback, but as a fan of his, the honest truth is he can no longer skate with these guys, and is overpaid by 3M so it just makes it that much worse.

Hoffman is on his last year. We just need to be paitent.

Armia has two years but can probably be traded for at worst a bad one-year contract back.

Now, Gallagher. After this season, he will still have 3 years left. A buyout would give him about $2.2M per year for 6 years.

If his body is wasted and he is mentally tired from dragging the team down, why not cheer him up with a post-retirement 6 year contract to be an assistant coach at about $2M per year?

 

[ChesterNimitz]

We had historic injuries again last year and finished 5th last. I don't agree. If we finish below this and we don't have injuries like that again, it's not good. Nothing to panic about but that means a lot of our youth take steps back.

Because of the effects of the cap era, the difference between a team finishing in the bottom 5 and being a fringe playoff team is marginal. One bad month or one important injury can have a telling effect. In any event, most of the young players that hold our hopes for the future Hutson, Reinbacher and Mailloux probably won’t even be playing in the NHL over the next few years. If and when they make the team and we remain a bottom feeder, that’s the time when we should begin panicking .

 

[Belial]

Hoffman is on his last year. We just need to be paitent.

Armia has two years but can probably be traded for at worst a bad one-year contract back.

Now, Gallagher. After this season, he will still have 3 years left. A buyout would give him about $2.2M per year for 6 years.

If his body is wasted and he is mentally tired from dragging the team down, why not cheer him up with a post-retirement 6 year contract to be an assistant coach at about $2M per year?

That's not entirely true...

You would get a cap hit of almost 5M$ in 26/27... That's brutal.

 

[BaseballCoach]

That's not entirely true...

You would get a cap hit of almost 5M$ in 26/27... That's brutal.

OK, but it's $6.5M without the buyout.

Anyway, it's not brutal if we give him a coaching job instead of a buyout!

 

[Belial]

OK, but it's $6.5M without the buyout.

Anyway, it's not brutal if we give him a coaching job instead of a buyout!

I don't think that's something you can do, it would clearly be cap circumvention.

If that would be allowed you'd have quite a number of 'coaches' out there

 

[Gustave]

Cannot wait for Hoffman to disappear from the roster. I can handle one last unbearable tank year.

I'm out of patience for the tank years. Not that I think we can win or some delusion like that.

Only, I can't stand hoping for losses. It's a disgusting way to go through a season... I'm out of those.

As for Hoff, DVo Hoff Armia Gally. No time for those 4. All others I can live with. Including Andy, I like him and his size. I think he fits this team. Shoot me

 

[BaseballCoach]

I don't think that's something you can do, it would clearly be cap circumvention.

If that would be allowed you'd have quite a number of 'coaches' out there

There are not many Gallys, but every team has some guys who get Assistant coaching jobs after they retire. Is it a sham? No. It is a real full-time coaching job, show up every day just like Burrows. Hell, I'd be ok with him REPLACING Burrows! It's entirely reasonable for Gally to retire when he hits a wall. Tons of guys do that every year. What would be unreasonable would be for the league to insist Gally keep on playing when he can't keep up. That's the real issue, not the injuries.

 

[Belial]

There are not many Gallys, but every team has some guys who get Assistant coaching jobs after they retire. Is it a sham? No. It is a real full-time coaching job, show up every day just like Burrows. Hell, I'd be ok with him REPLACING Burrows! It's entirely reasonable for Gally to retire when he hits a wall. Tons of guys do that every year. What would be unreasonable would be for the league to insist Gally keep on playing when he can't keep up. That's the real issue, not the injuries.

Burrows is not getting paid 6.5 M$ though...