Post-Game Talk: Habs lose to Tampa in the first period

[LaP]

Wondering if those that liked the Anderson trade and contract still feel that way...

People complain about Slaf but JA is worse honestly. And he is 29 years old vet paid 5.5 millions (for many years to come) not a 19 years old player on a ELC contract.

 

[Takeru]

I paid pretty close attention to Slaf during this game and you could see glimpses of his skillset but his compete level is quite abysmal out there right now. He needs to start moving his feet and to stop gliding around doing f all. Plus for a guy his size he plays a very soft game and shies away from far too many potential board battles, which he should excel at due to his size.

It really is gonna be a very long process with A LOT of much needed patience with this player yet and for the Habs sake they really do need him to eventually get there because they really need this guy to pan out for them big time. Hopefully he can get there.

Ironically, I remember that being the main knock on Wright in pre-draft conversations.
Hope we didn't dodge one bullet to then fall on our sword.

 

[Habs]

No offense but reading this post made me think of, remember that time posters tried to tell the board that Hab fans can withstand a rebuild. Boy were they wrong.

I think they could if they were drafting the right players, I really do. But our PTSD of failed first round gems really does throw up a guard.

 

[salbutera]

Matheson was completely lost most of the night.... that's not good

Not a surprise though, that’s who Matheson has been his entire career, perfectly flawless skating technique…. but flawed defensively

 

[Adriatic]

All in all a pretty good night!

 

[ChesterNimitz]

Not a surprise though, that’s who Matheson has been his entire career, perfectly flawless skating technique…. but flawed defensively

Was Guhle any better ? It was bad game by a team that has to play to its upmost potential ( see the Vegas game) to be competitive against superior teams. Such is the current state of our re-build. To expect more is to only engender more disappointment.

All in all a pretty good night!

Except for the faithful fans who booed the team. At least we didn’t have to listen to the same loyalists singing.

 

[Catanddogguitarrr]

Habs started scoring after I stopped watching the game. So there is that. Still too little, too late.

Habs really need to work on dealing with heavy forechecks. Teams got the Habs number now by just doing that and the Habs just looks like everything goes too fast for team when it happens.

I feel like there is a coaching issue ( or a captain/assistant one) as well: the team is never ready to start the game. It's the polar opposite of the time where they stopped paying after the 2nd period (sometimes the 1st) a few years ago.

We got rid of Danault and Lehkonen and see the results. Defensive forwards are gone and it's party time for opposite teams. Habs don't have defensive specialists in their prospect pool, so that forechecking party will go on and on and on.

We will tank more years and maybe for nothing. After 3 years we might come back to middle of the pack team, barely making the PO one year out of 2. New players needs mentors. Monahan is perfect but we would need 3 more of his kind. And what might happen, Monahan will be traded at TDL. Dvo might be the worst mentor for young players. No joy, no passion, no offensive flair, no nothing except FO.

 

[Kosseca]

Hmmm... well I'm not surprised that they lost again. the first few wins of the season where all pretty lucky - winning by 1 or in OT/SO is not a sign that you have taken control of a game. So, that luck had to run out at some point and.... there we are. Few observation:

MSL: He needs help. I think the guy is a great motivator and all, but he's not an X and O kinda guy. The defensive system suck. if the puck is not out of MTL zone within 5 sec, the defensive coverage is all over the place and they cant retrieve the puck and counter attack. Spending too much time chasing the other team in your zone mean tired player that cant sustain an offensive push. Other point, the team seems to be playing better when in "desperation mode"... a time when the player are not applying the system to the letter.... so I'm starting to think that there is a problem there.

Need a C: ok... Dach going down is not helping, but this team need another offensive C. Dvorak is a more expensive version of Evans, Monahan is doing great, but at this pace he's gone soon, Newhook can help a here and there, but he can't be a full time C.

Anderson: I always liked him, but he's impossible to match on a line. He's not developing chemistry with ANYONE... WTF!!!! In pre-season, he seemed to have some with Newhook, but that's gone. In his case, I would think that a "hockey trade" may be beneficial. I have no candidate in mind, but you have to admit that you can't continue this experiment much longer.

Suzuki/CC: if they are firm in keeping these two together, the need to find a 3rd guy that work with them ASAP. This is your 1st line. you can't just "hope of the best". it need to be the main driving force of the team.

Slaf: I read here that he lacks compete. I think it's more that he need to learn how to win board battle and use his size. He look soft, but it's more due to him not managing these one-on-one battle. Until he does, he can't play on the top line.

Harris. can we trade him yet?? he's not a RD and he can't steal one spot on the LD. Leverage him while you can and get help on RD.

G: for the time being, the team is doomed to have a 1a/1b. None of them are good enough to be a real no1. So, trade one, anyone, and stop the stupid game here!

 

[Catanddogguitarrr]

To be fair no coaching can cover for yesterday farts in the net. I mean two goals were peewee level bad. And this is fine they are not trying to win yet. This is the wise move we have almost 20 millions tied to Gallagher, Josh Anderson, Yoel Armia and Christian Dvorak. We have 10.5 millions on LTIR. The focus should still be to ship the bad contracts away.

Good luck shipping bad contracts. Only Anderson have value. You forgot to mention Evans who is simply a bad player, despite being a good skater and sometimes a good defensive player. We don't build a good team with "sometimes" players.

 

[LaP]

Was Guhle any better ? It was bad game by a team that has to play to its upmost potential ( see the Vegas game) to be competitive against superior teams. Such is the current state of our re-build. To expect more is to only engender more disappointment.


Except for the faithful fans who booed the team. At least we didn’t have to listen to the same loyalists singing.

It's astonishing to me that people expect kids in their 1st or 2nd season to be able to look good against the best (experienced) teams in the league more than one game out of nowhere.

I'm just speechless. It's like a significant portion of this board knows jack shit about sports and hockey. Bruins best center atm Pavel Zacha did 24 points and was -17 in his first season and 25 points -3 in his 2nd season. Wild best center atm Eriksson Ek did 16 points in his first full season and 14 points -7 in his 2nd.

Like why in hell do we have to remind that to people. Like wtf. We are tied to many long term awful contracts to vets who ***** because of the previous management and people complain because kids in their 1st or 2nd season can't dominate the NHL like that's **** crazy.

 

[YukonCornelius 5thOA]

This game was far worse than just an ordinary Wow. It's was a ShamWow guy on the right..

 

[Adriatic]

It's astonishing to me that people expect kids in their 1st or 2nd season to be able to look good against the best (experienced) teams in the league more than one game out of nowhere.

I'm just speechless. It's like a significant portion of this board knows jack shit about sports and hockey. Bruins best center atm Pavel Zacha did 24 points and was -17 in his first season and 25 points -3 in his 2nd season. Wild best center atm Eriksson Ek did 16 points in his first full season and 14 points -7 in his 2nd.

Like why in hell do we have to remind that to people. Like wtf. We are tied to many long term awful contracts to vets who ***** because of the previous management and people complain because kids in their 1st or 2nd season can't dominate the NHL like that's **** crazy.

What do you expect lol?? It's because they're not sports fans or even hockey fans at that, it's a weird breed of people that only live in a Habs universe.

 

[Habs13]

Well, at least those of us that wanted another really high draft pick to try to get a star forward don't have much to worry about us at least getting the high drat pick.

what we do with the pick is another matter...

We're drafting a defenseman anyway. Watch.

 

[zx81]

Fans say they want a rebuild but they can't handle one. They will then throw excuses like yeah I want a rebuild but the team needs to win also. Why don't they draft McDavid each year? I wanted a rebuild but maybe for 10 games

Flash news: Nobody really wants a rebuild. Nobody. Rebuilds suck. You know when it starts but you don't know if the rebuilding phase will need many resets. It may take 4 years or 15 years. You need great drafting skill and luck..quite a bit of it actually. You need lottery luck and good draft classes (some years are a lot weaker than others).

So no fan really asks for a rebuild. It's something that we end up having no choice to accept because the team , after years of terrible management, becomes filled with overrated and overpaid assets. You may ask us to accept it but don't ask us to like it.

Rebuilds are not fun. They are painful and full of setbacks.
Pain can be reduced when the team drafts a generational /franchise player but we haven't done that yet.

Maybe it's tougher for older fans like me though.

 

[Harry Kakalovich]

It would help if the Habs didn’t pick the 1OA who is now the worst trending 1OA in over two decades with the first year rebuild pick and didn’t skip over the (statistically) incredible Kucherov-like prospect with the second year rebuild pick.

Call me crazy but I think that might have something to do with it.

It's good of you to keep reminding everyone about your opinion...

 

[rik schau]

Just finished watching that...that...mess! wow are they ever terrible,looks like they haven't a clue what they should be doing. Seems they are worse than last season and worse than under Ducharme. But why is Marty looking so pissed off? losing is the goal right?or is he trying to get into acting?lol.

 

[Habs Icing]

To be fair no coaching can cover for yesterday farts in the net. I mean two goals were peewee level bad. And this is fine they are not trying to win yet. This is the wise move we have almost 20 millions tied to Gallagher, Josh Anderson, Yoel Armia and Christian Dvorak. We have 10.5 millions on LTIR. The focus should still be to ship the bad contracts away.

I'm not talking about just last night's game. Even when they were winning, the team looked disorganized. The only reason they won those first games was because the goalies stood on their heads.

As for the four lousy contracts you mentioned, c'mon, really? The team is playing like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off because we have Gallagher, Anderson, Armia, and Dvorak? The habs gave up odd men rushes when those four were not on the ice. I know everyone holds MSL in high regard, myself included, but that was as a player. Coaching is another matter.

 

[YukonCornelius 5thOA]

Bro I watched the DD Pacio era for like 10 years tanking is nothing to me , people around here are so weak

I always say, I endured from 99 to 01 with the Habs, this is nothing.

 

[Fatbiggie]

I always say, I endured from 99 to 01 with the Habs, this is nothing.

I f***** hated that period, that was really the worst time to be Habs fan. Having Rucinsky & Savage as 1st liners sucked so bad

 

[ReHabs]

It's good of you to keep reminding everyone about your opinion...

1OA draftee in his second season is on pace for less than 20pts, is that an opinion or is it a fact?

It's fine if you're fine with that progression (he's on pace for lower totals than in his rookie season) -- that's not my concern.

But then you shouldn't be mad at fans who want to see a winning team. If tanking is this pointless, I don't want to see a bad worthless team. I want my team to win and when they play badly, I will speak out. Seems perfectly fair.

 

[Team_Spirit]

All in all a pretty good night!

Team tank rn

 

[The Gr8 Dane]

Flash news: Nobody really wants a rebuild. Nobody. Rebuilds suck. You know when it starts but you don't know if the rebuilding phase will need many resets. It may take 4 years or 15 years. You need great drafting skill and luck..quite a bit of it actually. You need lottery luck and good draft classes (some years are a lot weaker than others).

So no fan really asks for a rebuild. It's something that we end up having no choice to accept because the team , after years of terrible management, becomes filled with overrated and overpaid assets. You may ask us to accept it but don't ask us to like it.

Rebuilds are not fun. They are painful and full of setbacks.
Pain can be reduced when the team drafts a generational /franchise player but we haven't done that yet.

Maybe it's tougher for older fans like me though.

Yeah I'm almost 30 and I've never seen an impressive forward on my hockey team in my life ! I mean a forward that fans of other teams would say wow he's so dreamy. (Like we do for almost every other NHL franchise)

Maybe that's why I'm so pro tank, I just want to be entertained man.

People will cite Kovalev , as if anybody outside of habs fans ever cared about kovalev or thought wow that guy is elite.

I would exchange every single year of the DD/Paciorrety era for 10 years of tanking during that time instead. Total waste of 20 years spinning the wheels.

THE TANK IS ON AND ITS ALIVE BOYS

 

[dinodebino]

Got a feeling that a few of these dmen will not be in Montreal in a few seaosns


That's as of 12 games
Let's see at game 40

Agree with you on the Ds.

 

[Jaynki]

1OA draftee in his second season is on pace for less than 20pts, is that an opinion or is it a fact?

Its a fact. But what you don't acknowledge is that its a misleading fact.

Any point he will score in the next 18 games will add between 7 to 3 points to his total pace.

 

[salbutera]

Was Guhle any better ? It was bad game by a team that has to play to its upmost potential ( see the Vegas game) to be competitive against superior teams. Such is the current state of our re-build. To expect more is to only engender more disappointment.

Guhle’s not a 29-year old NHL veteran - Matheson was making basic read & react mistakes forgivable for less experienced players