HF Habs: The Development Thread

[Mrb1p]

Half the board doesnt believe this thread exists

 

[L4br3cqu3]

Still cant believe he was kept around as long as he was. A terrible coach who Id argue ruined a lot of prospects. This quote is a good example. It baffles me that a coach would knowingly pigeonhole a player into a role that early in his career.

Lefebvre is a culprit, but he was asked to do that, obviously can't prove it, but these kind of things usually comes from people above in the hierarchy.

Like many said, glad the Habs finally look forward instead of dwelling and basking in its own glorious past, about damn time.

 

[JeffreyLFC]

Still cant believe he was kept around as long as he was. A terrible coach who Id argue ruined a lot of prospects. This quote is a good example. It baffles me that a coach would knowingly pigeonhole a player into a role that early in his career.

The Louis Leblanc situation should have raised the red flags. Lefebvre was a career killer.

 

[WeThreeKings]

Still cant believe he was kept around as long as he was. A terrible coach who Id argue ruined a lot of prospects. This quote is a good example. It baffles me that a coach would knowingly pigeonhole a player into a role that early in his career.

*insert JF Houle's comments about Jan Mysak*

Still employing idiots like that, sadly.

 

[Runner77]

 

[WeThreeKings]

Two powerplay assists.
An even strength goal and assist (beauties)
An empty net goal from defending the lead.

pOwErPlAy MeRcHaNt

 

[Rapala]

In all fairness it was Serge Savard who eliminated that role post 1993 Cup win, held by legendary Claude Ruel for over 30-years

A lot of people probably don't know just how involved Ruel was in the Day to Day operations. Scotty basically let him run the majority of the practices. I still remember a cartoon posted in the JDM when it used to be good for hockey coverage showing Claude spitting nails while running his drills.

 

[Rapala]

As an outsider, most of the Habs local hockey media (with a few exceptions) has always felt incredibly out of date. Which is annoying, because there were/are so many forward thinking people from the area.

The media became politicized and issues started taking precedence over hockey. It's impossible to get good coverage under those circumstances. The pandering became saccharin sweet on two levels towards the brass and towards the public.

 

[Kudo Shinichi]

 

[Milhouse40]

Great article....but it just shows how Bergevin's era was bad at every level, we were basically a dump of hockey players with no support whatsoever!

No there's mental coach, nutritionist, analytics department, skills coach, relation agent and so much more.

That's a part of the job we don't see, but it's important when you're trying to bring in some UFAs and keep players around. Well done Gorton!

 

[Sorinth]

Great article....but it just shows how Bergevin's era was bad at every level, we were basically a dump of hockey players with no support whatsoever!

No there's mental coach, nutritionist, analytics department, skills coach, relation agent and so much more.

That's a part of the job we don't see, but it's important when you're trying to bring in some UFAs and keep players around. Well done Gorton!


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Yeah it really goes to show how much more there is to the VP/GM job(s) then "winning all your trades"

 

[Milhouse40]

Yeah it really goes to show how much more there is to the VP/GM job(s) then "winning all your trades"

Indeed, it's much much more than just what we see as Fans.....and that is so important as the players speak to each other from team to team, our image was weak under previous regime. We are one of the richest franchise around the league, time to act like it.

 

[BLONG7]

Great article.................shows how bad previous management was.............unbelievable.

Yeah it really goes to show how much more there is to the VP/GM job(s) then "winning all your trades"

LOL.............winning all dose trades!!

 

[JoelWarlord]

It's so funny that "make the player lounge nice, cook food the players want to eat, and make their families feel included" was something that we needed to clean house to fix.

 

[Jaynki]

That was the main problem with Bergevin.

I am pretty sure he was a good hockey minds. But there is no business savvy in this man.

 

[Sorinth]

One of the most telling quotes for me is

It’s the same thing on the ice, where you see players hanging around longer than usual. Every time you want to work on something after practice, you always have a coach to work on something with you. With Adam, we have six coaches on the ice all the time. I’m not sure any other teams have that.

It really highlights how the narrative that development is 100% the players responsibility, and how either they have that internal drive to get better or they don't and there's nothing the coaches team can do about is so wrong.

 

[Vachon23]

How the Montreal Canadiens have taken steps to modernize the franchise under Jeff Gorton

Jeff Gorton and the Montreal Canadiens are finding ways to rebuild their status as a leading franchise by investing in development, analytics and coaching. Eric Engels spoke to the Executive Vice President of Hockey Operations and others in the organization about the impact of those moves so far.

www.sportsnet.ca

Good article !

An intriguing quote:

As for the other steps the Canadiens will take, Gorton said amateur scouting and analytics will get beefed up over time.
But we’ve already done so many different changes that we want to let it evolve a little bit and let everyone get to know each other,” he added. “It doesn’t happen overnight. We want everyone settling into all different departments and, as we cross over, it’s important to get everyone on the same page before we keep adding, and adding and adding. We’ll see where we are and where it takes us.”

 

[Rapala]

Our skills coach needs to get the ear of our Captain and our 1st round draft pick. They both have things they can work on.

 

[montreal]

haven't had the time to do much scouting but either I'm out of touch or perhaps need new glasses as the little I did see I wasn't in favor of picking any of Reinbacher, Slaf, or KK as I wanted to trade down all 3 times for an extra 1st but my guys have been injured in Boqvist, Nazar and this year the only one I badly wanted us to get was Smith so we couldn't. I didn't know who Maiiloux was until a few days before the draft when it came out he didn't want to be drafted but I thought the pick made sense once I watched him. Of course I think just about everyone wanted Caufield.

With the team building it's self around Caufield, Suzuki, I can see why they want to add size/skill in guys like Slaf, Reinbacher as I'm sure they are looking at Hutson and seeing that with the right fit he could be a f***ing star in several years. You just have to hope that Hughes is looking at the situation closely and making decisions based off correct info. It's way too early but a year later gives you some indication and there's a lot to like and several to be concerned with from the Habs group of scouts.

But that doesn't mean anything at this point, it's just way, way too early to say what the Habs have in all these prospects they have amassed lately. We have a HC that looks like he can develop offensive talent, we have a lot of prospects that will need top notch development from this organization every step of the way going forward if they are to get this right imo. Or I could be wrong and Slaf, Reinbacher, Mesar end up kicking major ass vs Kulich, Leonard, Cooley as well as Dach and Newhook since they will need to hit on both to some degree.

Goaltending was my big concern as I just can't say I believe in Monty just yet to be the one to lead us to being a contender but it's hard to say how long that will take as clearly management is looking to speed things up by trading the 13th, 31st, 37th OA picks in the last year. That could be a very smart move or it could just set us back further. So now we'll need to see did they find their goalie of the future, cause right now we have the most goalie prospects I have ever seen, so I at least like our odds that we hit pay dirt on one of them.

I really like the D prospects, we know Guhle, Harris will be very solid NHLers or better, Barron is showing things but still needs improvement/development, Xhejkaj is a beast. They will need time to learn, grow, progress, improve. It should be lots of ups and downs. Hutson, Mailloux are very much boom or bust types but they are a lot of fun and highly skilled. Reinbacher looks to worse to be a solid bottom pairing D, of course you expect better but it's hard seeing him bust. That alone is an excellent mix, add in Engstrom who had an outstanding season in the SHL at 19, how much progress does he show will be massive for the Habs. Norlinder struggled badly in the first half but he really turned it around in the 2nd half so we'll see if he can show progress or is this it. Struble will play in the NHL at some point.

Clearly the strength is the D prospects/youth. Lots of hope in net but will likely need a few years to really get a good idea of where both stand. At least you can see how this could end up going either very well, good, great even as there is a lot to like here. Not saying it will or won't as how could I know one way or the other but I can at least see how we could be set here like really set. Which then leads to the offense where imo we still need a lot of work. As much as I like the Caufield/Suzuki do, I was surprised by Dach and RHP being so good this year and even a little bit by Guhle as I didn't think he would look so good so fast.

I really like Farrell but you got to wonder how it could work with Caufield in the top 6 and perhaps Newhook. Heineman at worst I think will be a 4th liner as he should be a safe bet to be an NHLer. Roy is certainly one of the most interesting prospects we have, how they develop him and Farrell in terms of improving their physical tools of strength, skating, speed, mass, will be very interesting to see how it unfolds.

It looks like they will need a high pick in '24 and '25 to help with the offense or trade for someone in the Dach-Newhook range or hopefully better as Anderson is 29 and this could be a few years so that asset could end up being wasted depending of course on how everything else goes, if Hughes gets this thing going faster then expected then hopefully the right moves are made. It's way way too early to say one way or the other at this point but it will be very interesting to see from a development standpoint at least.

 

[First Line]

I think we know what the plan is but some were confused when they mentionned being more competitive.
It does look like we will have another 1 or 2 high draft picks before we are competing for anything close to the playoffs.

 

[Habs13]

"Which then leads to the offense where imo we still need a lot of work"

This is the main issue I have with picking Reinbacher. We have a stacked D pool, we really need to stock on talented offensive as I'm not sold on our forward prospects outside of Beck.

 

[Habs]

Team needs 3 more years of top picks, not blueliners, and a goalie. How they insulate the smurfs here is beyond me. This draft was a step backwards, should have taken Leonard or Matvei and drafted D next year. Confusing times with little direction , good post on your part

 

[First Line]

"Which then leads to the offense where imo we still need a lot of work"

This is the main issue I have with picking Reinbacher. We have a stacked D pool, we really need to stock on talented offensive as I'm not sold on our forward prospects outside of Beck.

Stacked D pool only on one side.

 

[Habs13]

Stacked D pool only on one side.

Versus a pretty lacking offense on all three sides...

 

[ryan callahan]

Team needs 3 more years of top picks, not blueliners, and a goalie. How they insulate the smurfs here is beyond me. This draft was a step backwards, should have taken Leonard or Matvei and drafted D next year. Confusing times with little direction , good post on your part

Ironically I feel like this is easily the time this team has had the most ''direction'' since the 2014-15 season. It finally feels like we are committed to throwing out the trash dead wood.