Player Discussion Former Habs & Picks watch: Gone but not forgotten (No Current NHLers) II

[Dutronc]

Any news from Jaroslav Spacek ?

 

[donghabs98]

Hammer was really solid for us.

One of the most under-rated habs of the 2000s. He was really solid, never flashly but never a liability. He was just rock solid and that was with having to play bigger minutes with Markov out.

 

[Treb]

Any news from Jaroslav Spacek ?

Got named coach of the U17 and U20 HC Plzen this year while keeping his position of Director of youth hockey with HC Plzen (third year).

Before that, he was assistant coach for the HC Plzen main team.

 

[teamfirst]

Desharnais was worse in every possible way.

There's NO excuse.

Davy ''never drafted 5'7'' Desharnais

524

87

195

282

Alex ''3rd overall 6'1'' Galcheyniuk

654

146

208

354

I'd feel pretty good being DD

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Davy ''never drafted 5'7'' Desharnais

524

87

195

282

Alex ''3rd overall 6'1'' Galcheyniuk

654

146

208

354

I'd feel pretty good being DD

So would I.

Esp since I found a coach stupid enough to play me on the first line.

 

[teamfirst]

So would I.

Esp since I found a coach stupid enough to play me on the first line.

Thing is, guy's like Davy have to fight to get ice time while others think they should be given that ice time

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Thing is, guy's like Davy have to fight to get ice time while others think they should be given that ice time

Right. Davey had to work so hard. What was it? 20 games without a point? And they STILL kept him there?

Excatly the opposite of what you're saying here.

Mindblowingly stupid usage. And you're going to defend it...

 

[Team_Spirit]

 

[Catanddogguitarrr]

Desharnais was worse in every possible way.

There's NO excuse.

DD didn't have an hockey body. Chucky had quite a body and skills (the top).
DD was listening to the coach and made everything to make Pacio score. DD had a brain.
The other one had a problem in his very upper body.

In retrospect, any nhl coach would prefered DD over AC.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

DD didn't have an hockey body. Chucky had quite a body and skills (the top).
DD was listening to the coach and made everything to make Pacio score. DD had a brain.
The other one had a problem in his very upper body.

In retrospect, any nhl coach would prefered DD over AC.

DD didn't score a point in twenty f***ing games and stayed on the first line! Chuck outproduced him everytime he was on the first. DD listened to the coach? "Grind! Grind! Grind!" What the f*** does that even mean?

When our idiot coach finally put Chuck on the first in 2016 he was a top ten scorer the rest of the way.

So what in the world are you talking about????

 

[teamfirst]

Right. Davey had to work so hard. What was it? 20 games without a point? And they STILL kept him there?

Excatly the opposite of what you're saying here.

Mindblowingly stupid usage. And you're going to defend it...

Not really defending is usage, only saying that compare to Galcheyniuk with the tools he had he did ALOT better, if only Chuky had 25% of his hart

BTW what is mindblowing is still being here defending Galcheyniuk after all these years just so you can put all his failure on one guy except him

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Not really defending is usage, only saying that compare to Galcheyniuk with the tools he had he did ALOT better, if only Chuky had 25% of his hart

Why do you think that is?

What could it be?

Hmmm...

Usage?

How the f*** was DD anywhere near the first line? And how the f*** do you bury your best scorer (and Chuck was easily our best forward in 2016) in favour of this midget? He FINALLY puts him on the first after we're out of the playoffs and he goes top ten.

You cannot make this shit up. Therrien was the f***ing dumbest coach in the league. A demonstrably terrible coach. And for some reason, we thought it'd be a good idea to put this mongloid in charge of our young players.

I just can't get over how stupid this is.

BTW what is mindblowing is still being here defending Galcheyniuk after all these years just so you can put all his failure on one guy except him

Feel free to read my posts on the previous page. Chuck owns what he owns. I'd never say otherwise. But the Canadiens did not get anywhere close to what they should've out of him. There is no excuse for this. It happened repeatedly with other players and it's a huge reason why we went nowhere for a decade.

You do not get to misuse players and then blame THEM for not performing.

 

[Catanddogguitarrr]

DD didn't score a point in twenty f***ing games and stayed on the first line! Chuck outproduced him everytime he was on the first. He listened to the coach? "Grind! Grind! Grind!" What the f*** does that even mean?

When our idiot coach finally put Chuck on the first in 2016 he was a top ten scorer the rest of the way.

So what in the world are you talking about????

Ask the 6 other teams and coaches. Chuck never was able to reproduce 25% of what he did in the period you are talking about. There are things we don't know and teams and coaches have their reasons we will always ignore. Where there is smoke there is a fire you know. Go ask all the coaches who had him and if you're lucky one of them might give you a beginning of an answer.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Ask the 6 other teams and coaches.

I don't need to. Injuries ruined him. He was never the same player.

Chuck never was able to reproduce 25% of what he did in the period you are taliking about. There are things we don't know and teams and coaches have their reasons we will always ignore. Where there is smoke there is a fire you know. Go ask all the coaches who had him and if you're lucky one of them might give you a beginning of an answer.

Nobody denies his problems. Again, I wrote about this extensively about a page ago in this thread. Nobody blames Therrien for his later problems or whatever. The guy obviously had his own issues.

That doesn't mean he wasn't a much better hockey player than he was able to show. It doesn't mean he wasn't horribly mishandled and we f***ed up with him. Both things can be true.

But the bottom line is that we did absolutely everything wrong with this guy. And it happened again and again with other players. There is simply no excuse for this.

 

[japhi]

Galchenyuk…. It still hurts to think of how he was used. Dumbest shit if all time.

And that’s another thing we’re doing so much better… development.

Most of the blame for AG's career flop is on him. Sure they could have used him better near the end of his time here but he had personal issues - multiple times in the players program - and an injury history coming in. And got injured again. And he couldn't skate to save his life. His skating was always going to limit his upside, post NHL injury and player program I'm not convinced he could outskate Glenn Murray.

So don't feel too bad, he was an incredibly flawed player, He was a big, slow, non physical player with a good release. In a good draft class he should have been a mid 1st round pick.

Oh, and when he left MTL his career fell apart. He left a 20/25 guy and became an AHL level talent. In his mid 20s.

 

[teamfirst]

Why do you think that is?

What could it be?

Hmmm...

Usage?

How the f*** was DD anywhere near the first line? And how the f*** do you bury your best scorer (and Chuck was easily our best forward in 2016) in favour of this midget? He FINALLY puts him on the first after we're out of the playoffs and he goes top ten.

You cannot make this shit up. Therrien was the f***ing dumbest coach in the league. A demonstrably terrible coach. And for some reason, we thought it'd be a good idea to put this mongloid in charge of our young players.

I just can't get over how stupid this is.

Feel free to read my posts on the previous page. Chuck owns what he owns. I'd never say otherwise. But the Canadiens did not get anywhere close to what they should've out of him. There is no excuse for this. It happened repeatedly with other players and it's a huge reason why we went nowhere for a decade.

You do not get to misuse players and then blame THEM for not performing.

Let's agree to disagree , in my book DD over Chucky everyday of the week and twice on Sunday.

We clearly dont value hockey players the same way, regarding MT maybe you should start a thread ''ex habs coach gone but not forgotten'' and transfer your posts there

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Most of the blame for AG's career flop is on him. Sure they could have used him better near the end of his time here but he had personal issues - multiple times in the players program - and an injury history coming in. And got injured again. And he couldn't skate to save his life. His skating was always going to limit his upside, post NHL injury and player program I'm not convinced he could outskate Glenn Murray.

Multple things are true at the same time.
- He had his own issues
- We badly misused him
- Injuries

What I'm really honing in on is our mishandling of him. I've never seen a worse mishandling of player. I'm not old enough to remember the Wickenheiser fiasco but I guess this is the modern equivalent of Montreal screwing up a prospect.

So don't feel too bad, he was an incredibly flawed player, He was a big, slow, non physical player with a good release. In a good draft class he should have been a mid 1st round pick.

Sorry no. But we steamrolled over an entire generation of prospects. Chuck was the most egregious example but it really, really hurt us.

We had a cup window and played... David f***ing Desharnais on the first line. Meanwhile we had a young kid who - while flawed - had some great offensive tools. It's simply stunning that we were THAT stupid as to continue with Desharnais - a player who was worse in every way.

Oh, and when he left MTL his career fell apart. He left a 20/25 guy and became an AHL level talent. In his mid 20s.

Injuries ruined him and he wasn't exactly the kind of personality to recover from it. Again, nobody denies he had his issues. But that has nothing to do with how we used him under Therrien.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Let's agree to disagree , in my book DD over Chucky everyday of the week and twice on Sunday.

There is simply nothing to back up what you're saying. Nothing. A number one center who goes 20 games without a point is a flat out embarassment. And when I say that, I don't direct it at the player. It's not his fault.

But it is an embarassement on the coach. A coach who was so bad he had an eventual cup winner out of the playoffs before getting fired. A guy so stupid at least three players have written about how terrible a coach he was. He not only stunted Galchenyuk, there's a good chance he actually cost us a cup. He certainly hurt a whole generation of prospects as well.

We clearly dont value hockey players the same way, regarding MT maybe you should start a thread ''ex habs coach gone but not forgotten'' and transfer your posts there

I value players who can produce. Galchenyuk produced when given the opportunity and DD did not. A f***ing janitor could've done a better job coaching that team. Disagree all you wish but you have nothing to support what you're saying.

I mean you can argue that Ti Domi is better than Gretzky but you'd still be wrong. Some things are black and white and this is one of them.

 

[Estimated_Prophet]

Let's agree to disagree , in my book DD over Chucky everyday of the week and twice on Sunday.

We clearly dont value hockey players the same way, regarding MT maybe you should start a thread ''ex habs coach gone but not forgotten'' and transfer your posts there

The Galchenyuk apologists are a bit much. He is/was a terrible skater to begin with and as the game sped up and his off ice habits affected his conditioning he simply became a useless player. The only thing he had were his hands and his shot. His IQ was poor and his skating was gross and it is no surprise that he has sucked everywhere that he has played since. The narrative that Montreal ruined him is tin foil hat nonsense that does not belong in a rational discussion.

 

[Catanddogguitarrr]

There is simply nothing to back up what you're saying. Nothing. A number one center who goes 20 games without a point is a flat out embarassment. And when I say that, I don't direct it at the player. It's not his fault.

But it is an embarassement on the coach. A coach who was so bad he had an eventual cup winner out of the playoffs before getting fired. A guy so stupid at least three players have written about how terrible a coach he was. He not only stunted Galchenyuk, there's a good chance he actually cost us a cup. He certainly hurt a whole generation of prospects as well.

I value players who can produce. Galchenyuk produced when given the opportunity and DD did not. A f***ing janitor could've done a better job coaching that team. Disagree all you wish but you have nothing to support what you're saying.

I mean you can argue that Ti Domi is better than Gretzky but you'd still be wrong. Some things are black and white and this is one of them.

Saku Koivu was better than DD and AC and went 50 games without scoring a friggin goal. DD in that 20 games without scoring had how many assists on Paccio's goals.

We didn't have a real contender window team at the time. We didn't have a true #1 C, no power forward playing top line able to drop gloves and no depth on 3 and 4th lines. The only good players we had were Price, Markov, Subban and Paccio. Sorry but that's not enough for a window winning Cup Contender.

Feel free to rewrite history pretending we had a contender winning Cup Team between 2014 and 2017. I'm not buying it, sorry.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

The Galchenyuk apologists are a bit much. He is/was a terrible skater to begin with and as the game sped up and his off ice habits affected his conditioning he simply became a useless player. The only thing he had were his hands and his shot. His IQ was poor and his skating was gross and it is no surprise that he has sucked everywhere that he has played since. The narrative that Montreal ruined him is tin foil hat nonsense that does not belong in a rational discussion.

The bottom line is that he was able to produce when given a chance. That doesn't mean he was going to be a star player. It doesn't mean he was going to have a long career.

But he was easily Montreal's best option at center. And we absolutely did stunt him. Not only that but by playing an inferior player at center on the first line we immeasurably hurt any chance we had at a championship.

And finally as I've said many times before... they simply could've traded him. The idea that 'no centers were available' is absolutely ridiculous. We had a very tradeable asset and simply could've gotten a veteran scoring center in return.

Instead, we played... David Desharnais on the first line.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Saku Koivu was better than DD and AC and went 50 games without scoring a friggin goal. DD in that 20 games without scoring had how many assists on Paccio's goals.

1 point in 19 games man.

1 point...

Please explain how this made sense.

We didn't have a real contender window team at the time. We didn't have a true #1 C, no power forward playing top line able to drop gloves and no depth on 3 and 4th lines. The only good players we had were Price, Markov, Subban and Paccio. Sorry but that's not enough for a window winning Cup Contender.

We made it to the semi finals. We were a first place team in 2015. We had two superstars and some strong supporting players. We had the best player in the league at the time and a top three blueliner. We were not far off.

And we played a 4th line center over our best talent.

Now, you want to say that Chuck wasn't a legit number one? Okay. But he was better than DD. And he produced when put there.

And... we could've simply traded him.

We did none of those things. Instead we continued to play a 4th line player (at best) on our first line.

Feel free to rewrite history pretending we had a contender winning Cup Team between 2014 and 2017. I'm not buying it, sorry.

Nope sorry. Those are the facts. We played an inferior talent on the first line for years. There's no excuse for it.

None.

 

[Catanddogguitarrr]

1 point in 19 games man.

1 point...

Please explain how this made sense.

We made it to the semi finals. We were a first place team in 2015. We had two superstars and some strong supporting players. We had the best player in the league at the time and a top three blueliner. We were not far off.

And we played a 4th line center over our best talent.

Now, you want to say that Chuck wasn't a legit number one? Okay. But he was better than DD. And he produced when put there.

And... we could've simply traded him.

We did none of those things. Instead we continued to play a 4th line player (at best) on our first line.

Nope sorry. Those are the facts. We played an inferior talent on the first line for years. There's no excuse for it.

None.

19 games with 1 point is almost average with slumps. Koivu went 50 games without a goal and Gomez more than a year and he was paid 8M$. Players have slumps, it happen all the time.

Quote : "We had the best player in the league at the time". It was Subban or Price? I guess you mean it was Price. Yeah maybe but I beleive more with a true #1 center like Messier was, Lemieux, Gretzky and later Crosby, McKinnon and McDavid. I'm old school beleiver of #1 centers with size and skills. Modano was another one, so was Getzlaf and Bergeron. Good mention to Sakic, Yserman, Bobby Smith, Damphousse, Zetterberg and Lemaire.

Chuck had problems skating. Not his very first year but years later. DD wasn't a fast skater but he skated faster than Chuck. Ok, only one physical advantage to DD. The other advantage was the brain/ or attitude.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

19 games with 1 point is almost average with slumps. Koivu went 50 games without a goal and Gomez more than a year and he was paid 8M$. Players have slumps, it happen all the time.

19 games and 1 point does not happen with first line centers. It happens with guys who are in roles they aren't supposed to be in.

And DD was playing with Max, Gallagher, Markov and Subban.

Quote : "We had the best player in the league at the time". It was Subban or Price? I guess you mean it was Price.

Yeah it was Price. From 2014-17 he was arguably the best player in the league. We made the semi-finals in 2013-14 and guess who was playing on the first line.

Mindblowingly stupid.

Yeah maybe but I beleive more with a true #1 center like Messier was, Lemieux, Gretzky and later Crosby, McKinnon and McDavid. I'm old school beleiver of #1 centers with size and skills. Modano was another one, so was Getzlaf and Bergeron. Good mention to Sakic, Yserman, Bobby Smith, Damphousse, Zetterberg and Lemaire.

Sure. That's fine. Want to argue he wasn't a number one? No problem.

But he was better than DD. He produced like a number one when given the chance. And yet, we played the midget who couldn't get a point in 20 games.

Chuck had problems skating. Not his very first year but years later. DD wasn't a fast skater but he skated faster than Chuck. Ok, only one physical advantage to DD. The other advantage was the brain/ or attitude.

You are defending the indefensible. There's no rational argument to be made to play DD ahead of Chuck. No argument whatsoever to not play your best prosepect with your best players, esp when he produced when put there.

I've asked you several times... explain it. Explain how playing DD on the first made sense when we are in the f***ing semi finals. Explain to me how it makes sense when we couldn't score. Explain how that makes sense when it's an auto win when we score three goals in the playoffs and couldn't even do that.

You can't explain it. Know why? Because it didn't make any sense whatsoever.

 

[Catanddogguitarrr]

You are defending the indefensible. There's no rational argument to be made to play DD ahead of Chuck. No argument whatsoever to not play your best prosepect with your best players, esp when he produced when put there.

I've asked you several times... explain it. Explain how playing DD on the first made sense when we are in the f***ing semi finals. Explain to me how it makes sense when we couldn't score. Explain how that makes sense when it's an auto win when we score three goals in the playoffs and couldn't even do that.

You can't explain it. Know why? Because it didn't make any sense whatsoever.

I can't explain because I don't have the inside informations. Again, go ask the coaches and gms of the 7 teams he went. Or maybe you have insiders infos you can share?

From outside and few infos I was able to get, I think coach Therrien and Arizoma coach had their reasons and the corporate public relations avoid to tell the reasons. I wont lose sleep because of this, there is no conspiracy, it's just bad management, a player who doesn't help himself and fans like you who want to rewrite history. Case should be closed and forgotten.