Player Discussion Patrik Laine

[Mrb1p]

Weak core , keep tanking

If it is, then trade everyone because the storyline doesn't line up.

In reality it's not weak at all, especially not with Demidov and subsequent picks.

 

[SwiftyHab]

I'd sell whatever left of my soul for it to be just a Sprain, god..

Wait. What else have you sold parts of your soup for?

 

[overlords]

it would seem to indicate it is not broken.... ? Right? Any Dr Recchi's here?

 

[Deebs]

I think people are just miffed we are still a 2 line team, with or without Laine. Without Laine we are a 1.5 line team to be fair.

Only the people that don't understand what's going on with the team currently. We have a few contracts that can only be moved by being irresponsible and luckily management isn't wanting to jump the gun. We aren't contenders just yet so no need to make irrational and uneducated moves just because. One gets so much farther ahead by being honest with themselves and makes smart decisions. Just my take though.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

Nobody thinks that.

If you were a mineral, you'd be Osmium, and not for its extreme rarity.


Can the team only progress naturally with draft picks getting better? No need for any GM input?

Those opportunities are few and far between. We seem to be adding only one each year, Dach, Newhook and Laine, and so far, haven't had the impact hoped for because we simply don't have the talent depth to overcome injuries despite their additions.

Hughes wants to strike when opportunitiy rises, not to simply bolster the squad at any moment.

 

[Tabarouette]

Weak core , keep tanking

I mean, it's a valid argument if you truly believe it but then are you ok with trading Caufield and Suzuki? peak value right now and they won't be in their prime by the time we compete if we go down that path

 

[417]

Nobody thinks that.

If you were a mineral, you'd be Osmium, and not for its extreme rarity.

You LITERALLY, wrote the following words (I am quoting YOU).

“Every single Cup winner aside from the Golden Knights and Bruins are the results of tanking”..

These are YOUR words, you have to own them.

You can call me whatever names you want, I don’t know you from a hole in the wall…I don’t really care, I’m just here to debate your takes.

And you don’t even have the courage to own them lol

Can the team only progress naturally with draft picks getting better? No need for any GM input?

Hmmm…..

 

[The Gr8 Dane]

I mean, it's a valid argument if you truly believe it but then are you ok with trading Caufield and Suzuki? peak value right now and they won't be in their prime by the time we compete if we go down that path

Don't have to trade them we finish bottom of the league with them. I'd keep Suzuki for sure though

 

[FerrisRox]

It doesn’t take days to get information like that out unless you have a PR team trying to find a way to spin it in a more positive light.

You think they are taking an extra day to have a PR team spin a knee injury into a more positive light?

Are you serious?

 

[Tabarouette]

Don't have to trade them we finish bottom of the league with them. I'd keep Suzuki for sure though

le beurre pis l'argent du beurre, pick one

that's why we're saying we shouldn't finish at the bottom of the league this year otherwise we're not really rebuilding, and you don't do that by relying solely on your drafted core

 

[FerrisRox]

The core players have been acquired in
2019 (Nick, Cole)
2020 (Guhle)
2021 (Roy)
2022 (Slaf, Dach, Lane)

This is the rebuild. We're not in year 3, we're at the very best in year 5, I'd say year 6 because the true accumulation started in 2018 with KK, Romanov)

So, to be clear, you believe the Montréal Canadiens advanced all the way to the Stanley Cup Final, three years into their re-build, then in year four of their rebuild, they finished last and got the first overall pick.

Is this what you're claiming here?

 

[The Gr8 Dane]

le beurre pis l'argent du beurre, pick one

that's why we're saying we shouldn't finish at the bottom of the league this year otherwise we're not really rebuilding, and you don't do that by relying solely on your drafted core

I understand Laine excited people but it was never this year or next year for us to take a step , our Dmen are all literal children

 

[Mrb1p]

By not missing the obvious.

No, I just want you to not make statements like “every Cup winner is the result of tanking”.

Has nothing to do with being a “genius”…it has to do with just saying things that make sense, rather than parroting tired and lazy narratives.

Sigh you're wasting my valuable time.

Florida: Barkov, Ekblad, Tkachuk (Huberdeau)

Tampa bay: Hedman, Stamkos, Kucherov, Point, Vasilevsky, Sergachev (Drouin)

Colorado: Mack, Mak, Landeskog, Rantanen, Byram, Lekhonen(Barron).

Pittsburgh: Sid, Geno, Fleury, Letang

Chicago: Toews, Kane, Keith, Seabrook

La: Kopitar, Doughty, Brown,

All these cores are directly from tanking. It doesn't mean moves can't be done to varying degrees. That's just debating the obvious for....Reasons?

 

[nhlfan9191]

You think they are taking an extra day to have a PR team spin a knee injury into a more positive light?

Are you serious?

Yes I am serious. And I’m not trying to knock management for doing it. Injuries have been a reoccurring theme for 3 years now. And the new 9 million dollar player and our best prospect being hurt before the season even started is a major blow that I’m sure they want to be careful on how they address. Fans are going to start to get impatient.

 

[schwang26]

No but a lot of us are unhappy because this was easy to see coming

When the injury is a knee on knee, no one could have seen that coming. A guy with constant back issues, of shoulder issues is one thing, but getting hurt by a dirty play is not part of having injury problems. If a guy is glass, then he’s glass. Anyone would’ve been taken out by a knee bending that way. You could not have seen this coming.

 

[Mrb1p]

So, to be clear, you believe the Montréal Canadiens advanced all the way to the Stanley Cup Final, three years into their re-build, then in year four of their rebuild, they finished last and got the first overall pick.

Is this what you're claiming here?

What assets did they spend to get to the SCF?

Those opportunities are few and far between. We seem to be adding only one each year, Dach, Newhook and Laine, and so far, haven't had the impact hoped for because we simply don't have the talent depth to overcome injuries despite their additions.

Hughes wants to strike when opportunitiy rises, not to simply bolster the squad at any moment.

He will need to stop pouncing and just start walking sooner rather than later. We need momentum.

We spent a decade together hating on Bergevin for very similar reasons, even if it's unfair to Hughes to compare him to that pile of crap.

 

[JoelWarlord]

I'm not really "happy" about another tank year nor am I a "forever tanker" but I'm not really sure what the actionable alternate path would be over 23-24 and 24-25. There was no realistic path to playoff contention this year based on outside acquisitions, even an aggressive summer like signing DeBrusk & Walker, replacing Armia and Dvorak with any two bottom sixers of choice on top of adding Laine (let's assume the butterfly effect there means Laine doesn't get hurt in preseason) still puts us in a spot where we're probably 6th-7th in the division on paper and reliant on young players taking big steps, is that worth creating a whole series of new 3-5 year cap headaches? I feel like a lot of this just comes down to arguing over how mad we should be about 75 points because nobody is seriously arguing that we should have given eg. Marchessault 5 years this summer and nobody is arguing that we should trade Suzuki and Caufield to finish 32nd either.

I don't really buy this idea that we've been bad for X number of years so the team should be better. I'm not trying to blame Bergevin for everything but the reality is we lost Weber, Price, Danault, Tatar, Kotkaniemi, and had Gallagher and Petry decline heavily in a single offseason with only Dvorak and Matheson to show for it today. That is a gaping hole in the roster and Romanov, Caufield, and Guhle in 2018/19/20 does not in any way make up for those losses. Just wanting to fix it doesn't mean teams are going to trade you those players either. We don't have anything to show for that old core, and we don't have anybody from the 2007-17 drafts. We don't have a Keller, Werenski, Larkin, Konecny, Sanheim, Couturier, etc, which is why Laine made so much sense for us but those opportunities aren't limitless and they usually aren't available for high-end Cs or defencemen.

Overall I think this tanking vs not tanking discussion is kinda strange given how clearly they're positioning for next year as the big change window with the Dvorak/Armia/Savard contracts expiring and Anderson/Gallagher likely moving into dumpable range at the same time Demidov will arrive. It's not like they did nothing either, Laine filled the most pressing immediate hole on the roster but as a rebuilding team you can't really plan around losing your premiere acquisition for the entire year in a preseason game. If we had the depth to absorb that we wouldn't be a rebuilding team in the first place.

 

[Tabarouette]

I understand Laine excited people but it was never this year or next year for us to take a step , our Dmen are all literal children

look man get used to it because Hutson will still look like a child when he's 37, have you seen his face

 

[overlords]

You think they are taking an extra day to have a PR team spin a knee injury into a more positive light?

Are you serious?

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Sigh you're wasting my valuable time.

Florida: Barkov, Ekblad, Tkachuk (Huberdeau)

Tampa bay: Hedman, Stamkos, Kucherov, Point, Vasilevsky, Sergachev (Drouin)

Colorado: Mack, Mak, Landeskog, Rantanen, Byram, Lekhonen(Barron).

Pittsburgh: Sid, Geno, Fleury, Letang

Chicago: Toews, Kane, Keith, Seabrook

La: Kopitar, Doughty, Brown,

All these cores are directly from tanking. It doesn't mean moves can't be done to varying degrees. That's just debating the obvious for....Reasons?

I consider it tanking when teams strip their roster bare and intentionally ice a roster with the intent of losing.

Florida, Tampa Bay, Chicago certainly never did that. Same with St.Louis. Pittsburgh and Washington did. Not too sure if Colorado and LA did but at first glance it doesn't seem like they did.

Finishing low doesn't mean you tanked. By that standard pretty much every team in the league has tanked at some point. I don't believe that's the case.

 

[Mrb1p]

I understand Laine excited people but it was never this year or next year for us to take a step , our Dmen are all literal children

We can take steps. It doesn't need to be playoffs. It doesn't need to be even fighting for the bubble. It could be fighting for 9th and I'd be more than happy. Steps need to happen.

 

[Tabarouette]

I consider it tanking when teams strip their roster bare and intentionally ice a roster with the intent of losing.

Florida, Tampa Bay, Chicago certainly never did that. Same with St.Louis. Pittsburgh and Washington did. Not too sure if Colorado and LA did but at first glance it doesn't seem like they did.

Finishing low doesn't mean you tanked. By that standard pretty much every team in the league has tanked at some point. I don't believe that's the case.

Not to dismiss your entire post but can we not use Florida or Vegas as examples

We would be contending too if every team in the league kept gifting us all-star players for free

 

[Harry Kakalovich]

Rollercoaster of emotions on HFHabs.

Hopefully Laine gets healthy soon and can get back on the ice.

If the Habs are good or terrible this year, it won't change my life all that much.

My prediction before the Laine injury was Habs last in the Atlantic and top 5 pick. The injury doesn't alter that outlook at all.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

That Stanley Cup final wasn't luck...some deal with the Devil happened.

Well, we lost Carey Price. Our debt is paid in full on that run.

 

[LaP]

I mean, it's a valid argument if you truly believe it but then are you ok with trading Caufield and Suzuki? peak value right now and they won't be in their prime by the time we compete if we go down that path

Caufield is 23 ... there's kind of a small difference between tanking this year and tanking for the next 6-7 years.