Official Tank Thread

[HuGort]

We sit 10th. But only a point from 6. Philly, Pitt, St.Louis, Anaheim are within a point. Close to Desnoyers territory

 

[BigDaddyLurch]

 

[Scriptor]

We sit 10th. But only a point from 6. Philly, Pitt, St.Louis, Anaheim are within a point. Close to Desnoyers territory

That would be the dream if thinking of a realistic C with top-6 upside that we could actually get (not Misa or Hagens, both more unrealistic as hoped targets). If not, hopefully, we can land a Carter Bear to add pace and tenacity, while still bringing skill to the top-6 down the line.

 

[Scriptor]

Also, this is a draft with very unclear ranking of prospects. While it is regularly next to impossible to move up to the top-5, it might be a draft where moving up from 8th to 7th, for example, by adding a 2nd 1st round pick might be achieved. That could make the difference between getting a Desnoyers or not.

I would target a player, even if that meant losing our 2nd 1st round pick in the process. The Habs are at that point where they need to fill holes as soon as possible and picking a solution in next year's draft, or the one after that just stretches out the wasted years of good contracts to Suzuki, Caufield, Guhle and Slafkovsky.

Treading Evans should give us another 1st round pick, or, at worst, another 2nd round pick. With a third first round pick or three second round picks, that leaves Hughes many darts to target RHDs and fill the cupboards at that position.

There is also Konyushkov that will be available to play in North America in two more years, I believe. he is being overlooked and, at 5'11", is not a Mammoth-sized D either, but he could be a good, mobile, shutdown D to play with Guhle, perhaps, while Hutson and Reinbacher form a good pairing?

 

[sandviper]

Also, this is a draft with very unclear ranking of prospects. While it is regularly next to impossible to move up to the top-5, it might be a draft where moving up from 8th to 7th, for example, by adding a 2nd 1st round pick might be achieved. That could make the difference between getting a Desnoyers or not.

I would target a player, even if that meant losing our 2nd 1st round pick in the process. The Habs are at that point where they need to fill holes as soon as possible and picking a solution in next year's draft, or the one after that just stretches out the wasted years of good contracts to Suzuki, Caufield, Guhle and Slafkovsky.

Treading Evans should give us another 1st round pick, or, at worst, another 2nd round pick. With a third first round pick or three second round picks, that leaves Hughes many darts to target RHDs and fill the cupboards at that position.

There is also Konyushkov that will be available to play in North America in two more years, I believe. he is being overlooked and, at 5'11", is not a Mammoth-sized D either, but he could be a good, mobile, shutdown D to play with Guhle, perhaps, while Hutson and Reinbacher form a good pairing?

Definitely expect picks to be packaged this time around. Don’t think we can trade into the top-5 but maybe 6-8. That said, I see two moves at least.

1. Package a couple picks to move up.
2. Package picks for a RFA like Dach and Newhook previously.

Don’t expect us to move a contract and pick since we’ll have quite a but of cap space this summer.

 

[vokiel]

Forget about moving up, this draft is one of the weakest in a full decade.

Package picks to get 2026 picks.

 

[angusyoung]

Another tank thread eh. How many seasons of tanking is it now? 3 or 4? I forget. How many more on the horizon before fans start to bitch and whine, I don't mean the good people here, you guys would never bitch or whine, right?

 

[WeThreeKings]

Another tank thread eh. How many seasons of tanking is it now? 3 or 4? I forget. How many more on the horizon before fans start to bitch and whine, I don't mean the good people here, you guys would never bitch or whine, right?

They could miss another season, with Demidov and Hutson dancing around there'd be enough hope to glide by on that.

But after year 5 is when you are in the range where rebuilds start to approach consistent playoff appearances. So expect another season or two of build up.

 

[angusyoung]

They could miss another season, with Demidov and Hutson dancing around there'd be enough hope to glide by on that.

But after year 5 is when you are in the range where rebuilds start to approach consistent playoff appearances. So expect another season or two of build up.

From what some friends have said to me that still semi follow the team is that they would be more competitive now had Newhook,Dach,Slafskovsky and Laine not been terribad. Apparently it went from Marc Bergevins ''no excuses'' to todays, in French ''nos excuses'' as there is a pretty pretty long list. I'll try to catch a couple of games here and there down the road to witness what is going on and see what changes they make to improve the roster. But looking at the roster stats..............

 

[SwiftyHab]

From what some friends have said to me that still semi follow the team is that they would be more competitive now had Newhook,Dach,Slafskovsky and Laine not been terribad. Apparently it went from Marc Bergevins ''no excuses'' to todays, in French ''nos excuses'' as there is a pretty pretty long list. I'll try to catch a couple of games here and there down the road to witness what is going on and see what changes they make to improve the roster. But looking at the roster stats..............

Anything you can do to help make the team better would be great. Thanks

 

[Lshap]

From what some friends have said to me that still semi follow the team is that they would be more competitive now had Newhook,Dach,Slafskovsky and Laine not been terribad. Apparently it went from Marc Bergevins ''no excuses'' to todays, in French ''nos excuses'' as there is a pretty pretty long list. I'll try to catch a couple of games here and there down the road to witness what is going on and see what changes they make to improve the roster. But looking at the roster stats..............

The good news is we saw a solid preview of what this roster is capable of. They CAN play at the very-good level they were at for over 30 games. The challenge – as we've seen the past three weeks – is maintaining focus and energy. Hopefully, the last 9 games are a learning experience for this young roster.

As for the not-as-young Laine, I honestly have no idea what his future is. Getting him was a great gamble, but there's no way to know if it'll work out.

 

[Scriptor]

Forget about moving up, this draft is one of the weakest in a full decade.

Package picks to get 2026 picks.

Yes, I see, the perpetual tank thread.

2026 picks outside the top-5 will likely take 3-4 years before the player makes it to the NHL and, if we are lucky, actually starts having an impact there. At that point, we start having the concern whether we re-sign contracts that are coming to an end for veterans and how we manage to keep cap room for signing the better youngsters to long term contracts on their 2nd NHL contracts.

It suddenly becomes difficult to keep a team together and we risk falling into that Never-never land where we lose core players just in time to gain future core players, never actually connecting on a time frame when we have a core deep enough to contend.

We then fall at the mercy of sucking bad enough in a season where a generational talent will be available at the draft and at the mercy of winning the lottery so we can actually nab that talent.

Of course, that will need to happen again in the next two years to have a solid enough base on a one-line model for the future.

Honestly, one of the worst rebuilding plans ever devised, because it is all based on an awesome level of luck.

It becomes a hope and a prayer and not an actual plan.

If the draft is so weak, perhapsmit is the right time to sell some hope (draft picks) to other GMs for actual NHL players, rather than push our future further down the line by trading 2025 picks for 2026 picks.

 

[Scriptor]

From what some friends have said to me that still semi follow the team is that they would be more competitive now had Newhook,Dach,Slafskovsky and Laine not been terribad. Apparently it went from Marc Bergevins ''no excuses'' to todays, in French ''nos excuses'' as there is a pretty pretty long list. I'll try to catch a couple of games here and there down the road to witness what is going on and see what changes they make to improve the roster. But looking at the roster stats..............

That's funny because, from what some friends have said to me that still semi follow the team is that, If Newhook, Dach and Slafkovsky had been Marner, Matthews and Nylander quality players, we'd have already lost a few playoffs in the first round...

 

[Scriptor]

The good news is we saw a solid preview of what this roster is capable of. They CAN play at the very-good level they were at for over 30 games. The challenge – as we've seen the past three weeks – is maintaining focus and energy. Hopefully, the last 9 games are a learning experience for this young roster.

As for the not-as-young Laine, I honestly have no idea what his future is. Getting him was a great gamble, but there's no way to know if it'll work out.

The real concern about that 30-game sample is not whether the sample size was relevant or not with the group of players that were there over that span of games, but whether the replacement players for Evans, Dvorak, Armia and, not too long from there, Anderson and Gallagher, will be strong enough to play like this group did over 30 games?

I think we mustn't underestimate the shock to the lineup that will manifest itself over the next two years. Quality prospects stepping in won't have the immediate impact, either, to replace those players at the level they were playing over those 30 games.

Laine panning out (hardest thing to assert concretely) would certainly provide the added level of talent, along with Demidov joining the roster as early as next season that could combine to help propel the team to another level.

Yet, we're still out a very important 2C to help make that happen and, perhaps even more importantly (because Demidov, without being the C, could perhaps help drive the play like one on his line), a couple of top-4 RHDs to stabilize the back end.

It appears we will not be moving on from Anderson and Gallagher before the end of their contracts, or, at least, until the final year of their contracts in two more seasons. If nothing else, that will at least provide some stability for the bottom-6.

Losing Evans, as is more and more likely, while not a roaster-crushing event, will remove a certain stability that is important when it comes to the depth of a lineup. Combined with losing Dvorak, this will mean replacing two dependable defensive Cs on the bottom-6, something beck cannot do at the same time!

I'm not concerned that Beck, even while adjusting to the tempo at the NHL level, will provide better overall hockey than Dvorak, we'd have to rely on Newhook, or even Dach, to replace Evans when neither player is an actual C, from everything we've seen of them so far, and when both players' defensive skills and awareness are so faulty.

Plus, if we don't add a genuine 2C in the offseason, the C-line would be rather fragile in the guise of:

Suzuki - Dach - Newhook - Beck

...with the middle-6 Cs being the weak links that wouldn't create enough offensively while being exploited by our opponents, defensively.

The real problem with Dach and Newhook is that, internally, even if Beck were to somehow materialize as a genuine 2C immediately, both Dach and Nehook aren't suited, either, for a role lower on the depth chart at C, neither playing physical hockey for the forecheck, or shutdown hockey not to be a liability.

If no NHL-ready infusion of talent takes place, especially at 2C and at RD, I'm more concerned, with the players shipping out, that next year will be a year of readjustments and that a 30-game span of play, at the level we saw before Christmas, doesn't have that much of a chance of repeating itself.

If Hughes does nothing to shore up the C-line and the top-4 on RD, in a world where everything goes right, we'd still be a minimum two years (and that's being overly optimistic, IMO), but a likely three or four years before enough talent is added from within and starts having enough of an impact to change the team's fortunes!

I'm usually of an optimistic nature, but, this morning, I'm not very sold on Rainbows, Green Clovers and Yellow Moons...

 

[vokiel]

Yes, I see, the perpetual tank thread.

2026 picks outside the top-5 will likely take 3-4 years before the player makes it to the NHL and, if we are lucky, actually starts having an impact there. At that point, we start having the concern whether we re-sign contracts that are coming to an end for veterans and how we manage to keep cap room for signing the better youngsters to long term contracts on their 2nd NHL contracts.

It suddenly becomes difficult to keep a team together and we risk falling into that Never-never land where we lose core players just in time to gain future core players, never actually connecting on a time frame when we have a core deep enough to contend.

We then fall at the mercy of sucking bad enough in a season where a generational talent will be available at the draft and at the mercy of winning the lottery so we can actually nab that talent.

Of course, that will need to happen again in the next two years to have a solid enough base on a one-line model for the future.

Honestly, one of the worst rebuilding plans ever devised, because it is all based on an awesome level of luck.

It becomes a hope and a prayer and not an actual plan.

If the draft is so weak, perhapsmit is the right time to sell some hope (draft picks) to other GMs for actual NHL players, rather than push our future further down the line by trading 2025 picks for 2026 picks.

I agree, the problem is other GMs know the quality of the draft as well as others. So the only real alternative is to buy actual NHL Players from the Free Agent market.

 

[Scriptor]

I agree, the problem is other GMs know the quality of the draft as well as others. So the only real alternative is to buy actual NHL Players from the Free Agent market.

Buying from the UFA market should not be prohibited, but wholesale remodelling of the lineup through that approach just isn't the proper way to go.

Adding a key missing piece, here and there, to maximize years of a young core should be considered. It works both in assisting the development of the youngsters and improving the team's fortunes in the standings.

The question is how long we consider it will take to potentially develop the key missing pieces within the system, before even knowing if it is feasible?

Hage could be a 2C, but might end up only making it to the Show playing on the wing -- and not before another two or three years! After him, we can only hope to acquire another hopeful solution at 2C in the 2025 draft, but that prospect will be three to four years away from even STARTING to have an impact at the NHL level!

Unless Beck exceeds expectations and becomes an actual 2C, or Demidov gets transferred smoothly to C!?

Hughes needs to acquire a 2C from outside the system, IMHO.

Same with acquiring another RHD to play with Hutson. That, to me, seems like the easier undertaking, because we don't need a Norris-type RHD to play with Hutson. We just need a complementary RHD that can play a physical, defensive game and isn't skating with two anvils strapped around his ankles like Savard currently is.

Actually, not looking for a Norris-type option on the right side of D will eventually help keep down the total cost for the D-Corps and provide Hughes with the ability to assemble more talented depth up front.

IMO, Reinbacher with Guhle as a shutdown pair with offensive upside, a defensive, physical D with Hutson to give the youngster more freedom on offense and an eventual third pairing of Xhekaj - Mailloux, with Carrier as the depth D who can share minutes on a 3rd pairing and step up in case of injuries will be a perfect way to build the D-Corps for Montreal.

 

[LaP]

Another tank thread eh. How many seasons of tanking is it now? 3 or 4? I forget. How many more on the horizon before fans start to bitch and whine, I don't mean the good people here, you guys would never bitch or whine, right?

That's the 3rd one. What happened before was not a tank but simply incompetence. We have been tanking since the deadline of 2022.

 

[LaP]

The real concern about that 30-game sample is not whether the sample size was relevant or not with the group of players that were there over that span of games, but whether the replacement players for Evans, Dvorak, Armia and, not too long from there, Anderson and Gallagher, will be strong enough to play like this group did over 30 games?

I think we mustn't underestimate the shock to the lineup that will manifest itself over the next two years. Quality prospects stepping in won't have the immediate impact, either, to replace those players at the level they were playing over those 30 games.

Laine panning out (hardest thing to assert concretely) would certainly provide the added level of talent, along with Demidov joining the roster as early as next season that could combine to help propel the team to another level.

Yet, we're still out a very important 2C to help make that happen and, perhaps even more importantly (because Demidov, without being the C, could perhaps help drive the play like one on his line), a couple of top-4 RHDs to stabilize the back end.

It appears we will not be moving on from Anderson and Gallagher before the end of their contracts, or, at least, until the final year of their contracts in two more seasons. If nothing else, that will at least provide some stability for the bottom-6.

Losing Evans, as is more and more likely, while not a roaster-crushing event, will remove a certain stability that is important when it comes to the depth of a lineup. Combined with losing Dvorak, this will mean replacing two dependable defensive Cs on the bottom-6, something beck cannot do at the same time!

I'm not concerned that Beck, even while adjusting to the tempo at the NHL level, will provide better overall hockey than Dvorak, we'd have to rely on Newhook, or even Dach, to replace Evans when neither player is an actual C, from everything we've seen of them so far, and when both players' defensive skills and awareness are so faulty.

Plus, if we don't add a genuine 2C in the offseason, the C-line would be rather fragile in the guise of:

Suzuki - Dach - Newhook - Beck

...with the middle-6 Cs being the weak links that wouldn't create enough offensively while being exploited by our opponents, defensively.

The real problem with Dach and Newhook is that, internally, even if Beck were to somehow materialize as a genuine 2C immediately, both Dach and Nehook aren't suited, either, for a role lower on the depth chart at C, neither playing physical hockey for the forecheck, or shutdown hockey not to be a liability.

If no NHL-ready infusion of talent takes place, especially at 2C and at RD, I'm more concerned, with the players shipping out, that next year will be a year of readjustments and that a 30-game span of play, at the level we saw before Christmas, doesn't have that much of a chance of repeating itself.

If Hughes does nothing to shore up the C-line and the top-4 on RD, in a world where everything goes right, we'd still be a minimum two years (and that's being overly optimistic, IMO), but a likely three or four years before enough talent is added from within and starts having enough of an impact to change the team's fortunes!

I'm usually of an optimistic nature, but, this morning, I'm not very sold on Rainbows, Green Clovers and Yellow Moons...

Anyone who believe the good sequence was on the back of Evans, Armia, Dvorak and cie is delusional. The good sequence was on the back of Laine scoring at a 55 goals pace. I can't believe someone would think this group of vets is not super duper uber easy to replace. It really does puzzle me. I was watching L'anti-hockey yesterday at RDS and i was mind blown by the takes there.

What Patrick Laine did for about a month and a half by socring 12 goals in 18 games (55 goals pace) was to show how big of an impact a 50 goals player can have on a team. Yes other players were playing well and contributed but they all went cold when Laine went cold.

From Patrick Laine's return december 3rd to january 19th (his last goal) the Montreal Canadiens played for 705 P% (15-6-1 and 3rd in the league). Since Laine scored his last goal the Montreal Canadiens has been playing for 250 P% (2-7-1 and 31st for that sequence). The 10 games Before Laine's cameback the Montreal Canadiens was playing for 450 P% (4-5-1 and 30th for that sequence).

It really puzzle me how people in Montreal overrate depth players. How could anyone believe we can't replace Evans, Armia, Dvorak and Savard easily. The needs of this team is top 6 players and top 4 dmen. Once we acquired that Newhook, Dach, Carrier will be pushed down the lineup and will replace those players. The focus should 100% be top 6 players and top 4 dman and none of those vets answer that need. We can address the depth after that if Newhook, Dach and Carrier are not good in this role.

If Demidov can play like Laine did it will help this team a lot and will help this team be closer to a playoffs spot. What Laine did for a short period of time is show the impact such a player with consistency would have on this team. It would be big. And the focus should still be to find that player. If we can get assets for our vets we should do it and we should use those assets to fill our real needs which are top 6 players and top 4 dmen.

 

[DAChampion]

How could anyone believe we can't replace Evans, Armia, Dvorak and Savard easily.

It's just four spots, from the weaker half of a weak team. They should be replaceable.

Internally, it's very likely that Demidov, Beck, Kappanen, Reinbacher, can pull it off, but even if not, every team can add one or two good depth players on the trade market and UFA, every year.

Oh wait, that's what you meant ;-)