Habs vs Sens

[Boss Man Hughes]

It's almost like a defenders first responsibility isn't scoring...

He is also very good at moving the puck and decent defensively

 

[EveryDay]

A 5’8 160lb defenseman who doesn’t defend cannot be a #1. Good gadget player though.

Show how dumb your takes are.

Continue to draft your Boucher type of player, it seems to work fine as Ottawa misses the playoffs for the last 9 seasons

Ottawa are at the bottom of the league offensively, its great!

 

[Boss Man Hughes]

Ya saying Suzuki has been able to manage as many points as Stutzle who was injured all year from game 4 on last year, what an admirable accomplishment.

And how do you know Suzuki was 100% all year.

 

[Kudo Shinichi]

I mean, yeah...it's the younger player who has produced at a higher rate than Suzuki has ever managed. I really like Suzuki, he's a good player...but honestly, he's a 1b at best. His ceiling is pretty capped there and i don't think it's reasonable to expect much of anything more than PPG in a good year playing 1C PP1 cherry minutes. Stutzle has the ability to push beyond that, and he's already actually done it.


The lack of a true 1C is really the biggest hole in the Habs rebuild. And that's not a sleight on Suzuki...it's just...the reality, that if you want to build a perennial contender, you need a top Center who can push beyond what Suzuki is capable of.

So Stutzle is a true 1C because he had 1 season worthy of a 1C (according to you) in 5 years?

Is Kadri also a true 1C? I mean he paced for a 100 pts just a few seasons ago...

 

[BehindTheTimes]

Ottawa will be trending down before they ever play a playoff game. It’s Montreal and it’s not close.

 

[Xspyrit]

Some things need to be added to this thread I think

Most points U-23, active players :

1- Sidney Crosby 506 pts
Connor McDavid 469 pts
Steven Stamkos 386 pts
Alexander Ovechkin 310 pts
5- Yevgeni Malkin 304 pts
Nathan MacKinnon 303 pts
Patrick Kane 303 pts
Mitchell Marner 291 pts
9- Tim Stützle 290 pts
.... (60 players)
Nick Suzuki 143 pts

Tim Stutzle turned 23 y/o yesterday on January 15th.

Who's the sens true 1C, which the habs is lacking? Stutzle? The same player who rarely takes faceoffs and who has produced at the same rate as Suzuki the last 2 seasons while being far worse defensively?

Maybe when Stutzle was 19 y/o but his 2-way game has evolved, I think he might start getting Selke votes as soon as this season. People quickly forget but the guy actually turned 23 y/o YESTERDAY. At that age, Suzuki had one 61 pts season and two 41 pts seasons.

Regarding defensive play, Suzuki has had bumps down the road with 2 really poor seasons in 2021-22 and 2022-23. He doesn't seem to have really good defensive metrics this season too (46.10 xGF% and 2.95 xGA/60 at 5v5). Stutzle on the other end is trending the other way as already mentioned. I don't have any other card on hand at the moment but :

Skater | HockeyStatCards.com

Skater | HockeyStatCards.com

So Stutzle is a true 1C because he had 1 season worthy of a 1C (according to you) in 5 years?

When a poster needs to fall into intellectual dishonesty, IMO he already lost the battle. As mentioned already, at Stutzle's age, Suzuki had ONE 61 pts season.

Continue to draft your Boucher type of player, it seems to work fine as Ottawa misses the playoffs for the last 9 seasons

Ottawa are at the bottom of the league offensively, its great!

- Tyler Boucher is just one of these Dorion things, but it might not even a Top-10 worst Dorion moves, as crazy as it sounds. There's no limit to the DAMAGE this guy did.

- It's not 9 seasons it's 7 seasons lol.

- Ottawa is 20th in GF/GP, which is below average but not bottom of the league. That said, after how the last seasons went, the focus was defensive play this season and they are 8th for GA/GP and lead the league for shutouts (7).

- Ottawa has scored 2.88 goals per game, good for 20th. Montreal has scored 3.00 G/GP which is 15th, so only 0.12 goals per games separates Ottawa from the average.

- I was expecting a need for Ottawa to find 2 new forwards who could bring offense in 2025-26 with Giroux and Perron approaching 37 y/o but it has already started this season with Giroux declining a bit more and Perron not even available to play so far (who was supposed to replace Tarasenko's offense). Greig has not scored more than his rookie season (0.33 vs 0.36 PPG) and Pinto PPG has actually regressed (but he's finally heating up lately), 0.66 to 0.40.

- I was also expecting Montreal current progression to happen next season but it seems to be happening now. Their GM(s) are doing what it takes to happen and spend the necessary money needed in Laine and Carrier acquisitions. Price's LTIR contract is also a bit lucky since it allows them to spend this cap and they probably get better goaltending than they would from an injuries diminished 37 y/o goalie.

 

[Xspyrit]

Would be close if the sens didn't call their rebuild early and waste assets on Debrincat and Chychrun

If it was only just that...

- Staios actually managed to salvage the DeBrincat debacle by trading the late 1st round pick obtained via Detroit to get Ullmark (and unload 75% of the last 3 years on Korpisalo's contract). He also had to sacrifice a pretty good 4th liner in Kastelic but small price to pay to get a real starting goalie (who has unfortuantely been injured 50% of the season so far)

- Staios also partially salvaged some of the Chychrun debacle in getting Jensen and a pick. Jensen is good defensively and finally a good partner for Chabot but the loss in asset value is huge, as Dorion traded a 12th OA pick and two 2nd round picks to get Chychrun who is a beast in reality but was not the right move for Ottawa last season.

Speaking of a good partner for Chabot, Dorion decided a few years ago to trade Dylan DeMelo for a 3rd round pick even though he wanted to stay (IIRC the rumored ask was 4 years and around 3-4 AAV). Thankfully, they drafted Leevi Merilainen with the pick so maybe it will be salvaged as well.

But just to say that there has been so MANY assets wasted under Dorion, it would take a lot of words to actually list every damaging Dorion's move. Just another 2 examples :

- traded 24 y/o Filip Gustavsson for 35 y/o UFA-to-be Cam Talbot. Gustavsson had an incredible season in 2022-23 and will probably get some 2nd/3rd place Vezina votes this season.

- traded a 2nd round pick for a declined Derek Stepan who had a 6.5 AAV. In comparison, Montreal got a 1st round pick to take on Monahan (or a 2nd to take on Laine) and even got another 1st round pick (where they drafted Michael Hage) when they traded Monahan to the Jets as a rental.

You would think Ottawa would be far ahead with their present day team but something just never came together with their rebuild. I was really impressed with their drafting for many years and thought they were building something good but yeah, just should be better right now.

Montreal gets the benefit of the doubt right now, but now they have to actually go and do it. They've never had to actually put together the results yet as their timeline is quite a few years behind Ottawa. Hutson and Demidov are no joke though, those guys could change their entire trajectory. A lot of these rebuilds look good at this stage and just never progress well enough. Hughes does seem like a good GM to me.

That something is called Pierre Dorion, literally the worst GM in NHL history. He dilapidated assets like a maniac going to a casino for the first time.

Ullmark is overrated and injury prone. Id much rather Habs goaltending with Montembeault & Dobes, with Fowler and Volohkin looking promising as well

Uh.... Ullmark has the best SV% and best GSAA/60 among goalies for years and years.

Saying he is way better defensively is a bit hyperbole, when Stutzle has a better plus minus. Not that, that means everything , but definitely removes the hyperbole that Suzuki is way better defensively.

No, plus/minus doesn't say anything, you have to push the analysis further. xGF% vs GF% vs PDO

I like Sens top end players more but its shocking how poor their prospect depth is. Feels like they have the better pieces at the moment but its harder to improve.

Sens seems to finally have a real NHL GM but he has a lot of mess left by Dorion to fix, which he has started doing with the Ullmark/Korpisalo trade. They seem to have done better in the 2024 draft than the 3 drafts prior too, with Yakemchuk and Montgomery possibly becoming 2 big pieces down the road (the 4 other picks are also intriguing)

Not really. Outside Top 5 picks their drafting has been shit for several years. Not really fair to evaluate 2024 yet, but from 2016-2023 their only notable non Top 5 picks are Batherson, Greig, and Pinto.

Technically you could add Formenton. Wasn't really their fault he had his baggage and good on them for distancing themselves once they found out about it.

They biffed it on their 2019 and 2021 firsts and traded 2022 and 2023.

It's true that the drafting declined from Murray days but I think it's more 2021, 2022 and 2023 that hurts. Of course reaching like crazy for Tyler Boucher and trading your first 2 years in a row (for DeBrincat and Chychrun) doesn't help.

2016 : very non-productive draft
2017 : only 4 picks but Batherson and Formenton were steals, but as you said no choice to move on from AF
2018 : Tkachuk 4th OA, JBD should have a decent career
2019 : Pinto excellent 2nd rounder, Kastelic a good find too. Sogaard could still eventually figure it out at the NHL level.
2020 : incredible draft, there's also Kleven and Merilainen you didn't mention. Plus Jarventie depending on health. Reinhardt should be a good 4th liner for years.
2021 : Ostapchuk, a good 4th liner and that's it. Awful draft
2022 : that draft doesn't seem very promising as well, maybe Halliday and/or Donovan.
2023 : another dud, maybe Andonovski becomes a 3rd pairing D-man?

I agree about dorion but that's only an excuse for a few seasons. New ownership and management has their own fingerprint on the team 5 years later for example.

Saying for ever is dramatic.

He didn't say forever, he said "a long time". 5 years is a long time in terms of a contending window. As I said before, Dorion has diminished Ottawa's potential window in terms of length and quality. If we had a monkey sitting on his hands instead, we'd be in a infinitely better position, probably an elite team already.

We'll need Staios to pull off more miracle moves ala Ullmark

 

[Xspyrit]

Exactly, you are using a bunch of metrics from this season that just two weeks ago looked incredibly unfavourable.

Let's just line up the quality assets each team has that should be good for at least another decade+:

Ottawa: Stutzle, Tkachuk, Sanderson, Batherson, Norris, Chabot, Pinto, Yakemchuk

Montreal: Suzuki, Hutson, Demidov, Caufield, Slafkovsky, Laine, Guhle, Fowler

You can throw in Heinemen, Roy, Mailloux too, doesn't really matter; there is just no reason to take that second group over the first group.

And then you consider Greig, Halliday, Merilainen, Ostapchuk, Reinhardt, Montgomery now for the Sens, and then it just becomes silly.

I'm sorry but no, their depth completely trumps ours. Outside of the first groupings you made, they have guys like Heineman, Hage, Beck, Roy, Reinbacher, Mailloux, Engstrom, Dobes, etc... Greig is great and Montgomery is very intriguing but this is not even close. Ostapchuk and Reinhardt are great bottom-6 forward prospects but nothing special.

The 2nd group is way better....the players you add just suck, Greig is barely a 4th liner, Ostapchuk is not even nhl level. Halliday??? Wow it's depressing...

ok that's where the line is for me. I disagreed with the poster but your post is completely ignorant, just homer crap. Greig is already an excellent 3rd line versatile forward. He's only 22 y/o and has a 0.36 PPG in the NHL which is 30 pts per 82 games on average. You know what is 24 y/o Kirby Dach career PPG? 0.45, which is 37 pts per 82 games. And Greig's game is actually built on plenty other things than scoring.

And Ostapchuk is definitely NHL level, he's just 21 y/o. I don't think he has enough offensive potential to be more than an excellent 4th liner but should definitely be a quality bottom-6 forward

Halliday is intriguing but he's far from a top prospect, Dorion just has completed depleted the pipeline so he's among the Sens Top-5 right now (Yakemchuk, Merilainen and Montgomery are the Top-3)

I disagreed with the poster you quoted as the 2 prospect pools are not even comparable right now but no ridiculous claims please, it makes the discussion go sideways.

Norris is producing at the same clip as Jake Evans lol, maybe I should add him since you put him in your top guns haha.

Norris is obviously not the same player as before his injuries. It's sill unknown if he will be able to get back on track but this guy scored 47 goals in 91 games before his injuries, at 21-22 y/o, while facing top competition night after night as the first line Center on a rebuilding team and posting excellent metrics. He was definitely Suzuki's level but a goal scoring version.

Suzuki Demidov Caufield Laine Slafkovski Hage is way more impressive then Stutzle Tkachuk, Pinto and Batherson, its so thin for Ottawa that it's scary after all these rebuilding years.

Offence is MTL by far for the future.

okay it remains to be seen but yes Dorion completely scrapped the 2nd part of the rebuild. It's true that they should have more depth and a much better pool. Sens also lost Formenton who was going to be a pretty slick middle six forward, probably the 2nd fastest skater in the league after McDavid.

It's also important to remember that Ottawa was STUCK with Dorion until Melnyk passed away and the team finally got sold. This process took a while but Dorion IMO should have been replaced in 2021. Unfortunately the sale didn't happen earlier, which allowed Dorion to do more damage.

Defenceman :

Chabot is not even better then Matheson....

Hutson is ahead of Sanderson this year as a 20 yo.

Who's left for Ottawa? Jensen ? Zub? They are not as good as Guhle and Carrier.

Yakemchuk? Ok well Reinbacher is as good a prospect. Who's left for Ottawa? Not much.... MTL still have Engstrom and Mailloux.

EZ win again for MTL.

Homer takes. Hutson is elite offensively though.

Reinbacher a bust? How about Yakemchuk? not even able to make team Canada junior... he was a reach and it will fire back, Boucher 2.0

BTW Sanderson is terrible defensively this year. Guhle would be Ottawa no1 defenceman.

I haven't read the thread until now but these takes are not pretty.

 

[DackellDuck]

Show how dumb your takes are.

Continue to draft your Boucher type of player, it seems to work fine as Ottawa misses the playoffs for the last 9 seasons

Ottawa are at the bottom of the league offensively, its great!

Yes and the Habs are at the bottom of the league defensively!

If you play good defense, you can win sustainably. You can’t with little guys who only play offense.

 

[Lshap]

Yes and the Habs are at the bottom of the league defensively!

No, they're not.

 

[Golden_Jet]

If it was only just that...

- Staios actually managed to salvage the DeBrincat debacle by trading the late 1st round pick obtained via Detroit to get Ullmark (and unload 75% of the last 3 years on Korpisalo's contract). He also had to sacrifice a pretty good 4th liner in Kastelic but small price to pay to get a real starting goalie (who has unfortuantely been injured 50% of the season so far)

- Staios also partially salvaged some of the Chychrun debacle in getting Jensen and a pick. Jensen is good defensively and finally a good partner for Chabot but the loss in asset value is huge, as Dorion traded a 12th OA pick and two 2nd round picks to get Chychrun who is a beast in reality but was not the right move for Ottawa last season.

Speaking of a good partner for Chabot, Dorion decided a few years ago to trade Dylan DeMelo for a 3rd round pick even though he wanted to stay (IIRC the rumored ask was 4 years and around 3-4 AAV). Thankfully, they drafted Leevi Merilainen with the pick so maybe it will be salvaged as well.

But just to say that there has been so MANY assets wasted under Dorion, it would take a lot of words to actually list every damaging Dorion's move. Just another 2 examples :

- traded 24 y/o Filip Gustavsson for 35 y/o UFA-to-be Cam Talbot. Gustavsson had an incredible season in 2022-23 and will probably get some 2nd/3rd place Vezina votes this season.

- traded a 2nd round pick for a declined Derek Stepan who had a 6.5 AAV. In comparison, Montreal got a 1st round pick to take on Monahan (or a 2nd to take on Laine) and even got another 1st round pick (where they drafted Michael Hage) when they traded Monahan to the Jets as a rental.



That something is called Pierre Dorion, literally the worst GM in NHL history. He dilapidated assets like a maniac going to a casino for the first time.



Uh.... Ullmark has the best SV% and best GSAA/60 among goalies for years and years.




No, plus/minus doesn't say anything, you have to push the analysis further. xGF% vs GF% vs PDO



Sens seems to finally have a real NHL GM but he has a lot of mess left by Dorion to fix, which he has started doing with the Ullmark/Korpisalo trade. They seem to have done better in the 2024 draft than the 3 drafts prior too, with Yakemchuk and Montgomery possibly becoming 2 big pieces down the road (the 4 other picks are also intriguing)



It's true that the drafting declined from Murray days but I think it's more 2021, 2022 and 2023 that hurts. Of course reaching like crazy for Tyler Boucher and trading your first 2 years in a row (for DeBrincat and Chychrun) doesn't help.

2016 : very non-productive draft
2017 : only 4 picks but Batherson and Formenton were steals, but as you said no choice to move on from AF
2018 : Tkachuk 4th OA, JBD should have a decent career
2019 : Pinto excellent 2nd rounder, Kastelic a good find too. Sogaard could still eventually figure it out at the NHL level.
2020 : incredible draft, there's also Kleven and Merilainen you didn't mention. Plus Jarventie depending on health. Reinhardt should be a good 4th liner for years.
2021 : Ostapchuk, a good 4th liner and that's it. Awful draft
2022 : that draft doesn't seem very promising as well, maybe Halliday and/or Donovan.
2023 : another dud, maybe Andonovski becomes a 3rd pairing D-man?



He didn't say forever, he said "a long time". 5 years is a long time in terms of a contending window. As I said before, Dorion has diminished Ottawa's potential window in terms of length and quality. If we had a monkey sitting on his hands instead, we'd be in a infinitely better position, probably an elite team already.

We'll need Staios to pull off more miracle moves ala Ullmark

Here is Suzuki and Stützle Compared head to head at 5 on 5.

Player Season Totals - Natural Stat Trick

 

[DackellDuck]

No, they're not.

They’re 7th worst in goals against per game, right between Buffalo and Detroit. 6th worst in expected goals against at 5v5.

Ottawa is 8th best in ga/game and 3rd best in expected goals against at 5v5.

One style of play can sustain winning. The other can’t.

Interestingly, both teams are poor offensively at even strength. Montreal is 23rd in expected goals for, Ottawa 24th. Ottawa has the better PP though.

The streak the Habs are on is a mirage.

 

[Lshap]

They’re 7th worst in goals against per game, right between Buffalo and Detroit.

Ottawa is 8th best.

Not only were they not "at the bottom of the league", but you've ignored Montreal's turnaround, which is the major story. After a crappy first month, the team completely turned around their season. For over two months, the Habs have been among the BEST teams by most metrics.

Nobody cares about the first month when they've been playing at this level:

FYI, Ottawa still has a slightly better GA/GP, but Montreal has a substantially better GF/GP and very slightly better SA/GP.

 

[Xspyrit]

Yes and the Habs are at the bottom of the league defensively!

If you play good defense, you can win sustainably. You can’t with little guys who only play offense.

Their defensive play has improved a lot lately. Players like Evans, Armia and Carrier are providing excellent support

Hopefully for us, they are simply riding a hot wave and they come back to earth soon. The hope is here :

Since December 17th, they are 10-2-1, best record in the NHL (tied with Oilers)

BUT

Their xGF% (all situations) is 16th with the 3rd best PDO in the league... which means the forwards are converting a lot above expected and goalies save a lot above expected. It's not like the Oilers for example, who have the 2nd best xGF% and the 9th best PDO.

Here is Suzuki and Stützle Compared head to head at 5 on 5.

Player Season Totals - Natural Stat Trick

Yeah Stu has phenomenal metrics for a 22 y/o center, I'm more and more convinced he will start getting Selke votes.

 

[Habano]

Stutzle is great. Certainly more valuable than Suzuki and most unbiased Habs fans would agree. People are pushing back at the ridiculous claim that Suzuki isn't a 1C when he is something like 11 or 12th in centre scoring over the last 2 seasons while taking hard matchups and being a strong defensive player. It's just a ridiculous claim that negates everything else you say.

Agreed. Suzuki was tied for 15th in points for Cs last year while playing for a bottom 5 team. However, there were several teams (TBL, VAN, EDM, FLA) with more than 1 C who were in the top 15. I'm not even counting Carolina because Guentzel played with them and Pitt. So, if Suzuki is not a #1 Center, does that mean that there are around 20 other teams that don't have a #1 C? Makes sense.....

 

[majormajor]

On high end talent, including prospects, I prefer the Senators. But it's close enough that this will come down to coaching, team play, and goaltending, and who has the best bottom six pick ups in a given year. Right now I'm not that confident in Ottawa's choices in that regard.

Meanwhile the Habs are playing a very good team game in the last couple weeks but they're also going to learn how hard it is to sustain that - it all seems like it is going to be easy coming out of a rebuild when you haven't been under consistent pressure.